Well, well, well. We shouldn't be surprised. Laundry prices in Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village are about to go up. Yes, less than a year after many residents in Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village were introduced to the new Mac-Gray energy-efficient washers and dryers (which replaced perfectly working new washers and dryers), rates are going up. You see, suckers, the price of $1.85 per wash/.80 per dry was just an introductory offer. No one told you that? Come on, that's the way business operates. Mac-Gray now has a better, more competitive rate for you coming June 1st: $2.25 per wash/$1.10 for your dry spin.
Oh, please understand that Mac is doing this because they are forced to as a result of "recent increases in the cost of natural gas, electricity, water and disposal." What's that you say? Natural gas prices have plummeted considerably since last year? Come on, give Mac-Gray a break! They have families to feed, too, and probably had to pay a bit extra to Tishman Speyer to get this sweetheart deal of being this complex's laundry company. (Oh, and don't bother asking who pays the electric bill.)
So, the "greening" of Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village continues. Energy efficient crap that 1) saves Tishman Speyer money and/or makes money for the company or associates, 2) costs more for residents, and 3) just doesn't work as well as the non-green stuff.
Coming next: Energy-efficient showerheads that will provide a mist for 30 seconds before they automatically turn off. Go green!
Tishman Speyer takes a BIG percentage of the revenue of the washing and drying machines. This is not so much a MacGray increase as a Tishman Speyer increase. Head over to 14th Street Wash and Clean or one of the other excellent facilities in the neighborhood where they will do your laundry for you and deliver it fluffed and folded. Let's leave Tishman Speyer with rooms full of empty, inferior machines that they are making NO money on whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteWhere do they get the gall to raise prices on equipment that is so blatantly inferior? How much longer are they going to insult our intelligence and pick our pockets? The washers absolutely SUCK! They don't spin all the water out of the clothes which means you have to hand wring it (all over the floor) and then pay three times more to dry them. Do they deliberately calibrate the washing machines so that they clothes come out so wet that you have to use two or three times the dryer time? To make matters worse, the washing machines are absolutely FILTHY!!! Full of scum and hair and let's not go into what else I've found in them! Anybody moving into the project: avoid the laundry rooms. Go to one of the many reliable commercial laundries in the neighborhood. It may be a little less convenient, but then it's not convenient to have to go down to the laundry room and find that you have to do a whole cycle over again because it is filled with soap (even using the HE detergent) and other peoples pantyliners, tampons, Coney Island Whitefish and E-Coli! Yuk! Fucking Yuk!!
ReplyDeleteI suggest we just boycott these terrible laundry rooms.
ReplyDeleteI stopped using the laundry rooms a long time ago. Found out that it costs our family of two about $10 a week more to have it picked up, washed and folded, and then returned. No more bullshit with filthy equipment and rooms, no baskets and malfunctioning machines.
ReplyDeleteI'll use it rarely for one of a kind items (duvet's or down coats), and now that the dogs are here you never know what was in the machine before your stuff.
I feel sorry for the families with kids. They churn out a tremendous amount of wash and it costs a lot to send all of that out. These washer/dryers are nothing more than a profit center for TS.
If I wasn't planning on moving the hell out of here, I'd smuggle in a washer, just like the old days !
How can you hook up a washer in Stuyvesant Town? Please tell because I would love to have one!
ReplyDeleteI have friends who live over at Penn South. They have "Hercules" as the provider of their laundry equipment and it is fantastic - and cheap. I told them that if their management ever considers getting MacGray they should rise up and fight it tooth and nail. This MacGray outfit is a total ripoff. I plan on buying a portable washer. Can't be any less efficient than the MacGray equipment.
ReplyDeleteI'm not happy they are raising the rates, but they aren't unreasonable. I believe most of the issues with the machines are due to the fact that most residents are inconsiderate. We should take responsibilty about the state of the machines in our laundry rooms. Instead of overloading the machines with 2 loads worth just to save a buck, why don't we use the machines properly. I think its disgusting that a pet owner would wash their pet's items in the laundry machines and then have to hear that same person complain that the machine's full of pet hair. Let's focus on not leaving femenine hygiene products and other disgusting items that shouldn't be put in the wash. After all, it's not Tishman doesn't putting that stuff in the machines.
ReplyDeleteThanks
To the last poster: I always use the high efficiency detergent, I do not overload the machines and I most certainly do not put in insanitarily soiled items or pet-used items. Still I find that the washing machines do not spin properly and the load comes out sopping wet. I always clean the machines before I use them with Lysol or Chlorox disinfectant wipes and I'm horrified at the amount of black scum and hair that is deposited on these wipes. The machines are inferior. They are most definitely overpriced, especially as they do not do a good job no matter how religiously you follow the instructions.
ReplyDeleteExactly, you didn't but the person before you did. That black sludge and hair didn't get there on it's own. I've seen people overstuff the machines so many times. Then we wonder why the machines won't spin out.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it's just me, but I'm noticing that the dryers do not dry as well as when they were new.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to compare the previous washers/dryers we had with these new Mac-Gray energy-efficient ones, I'd have to say the older ones were more "work-horses" than the Mac-Grays, and were able to do greater loads with more power and better results. That's just an impression, however, and not a scientific evaluation.
The laundry room in my building is ALWAYS filthy. I get disgusted every time I do my laundry.
ReplyDeleteFor just under $400 you can get an Avanti portable washer from PCRichard. The money you save by not using MacGray EColi Incubators will pay for it in no time. Less money spent in the laundry room and the doctor's office!
ReplyDeleteI've lived in ST for 25 years now, and of all the things I've seen going south the last several years, I'd have to say the laundry rooms are pretty much at the bottom of my list.
ReplyDeleteThe previous vendor (Coin Mach?) kept an employee on the premises, who'd come around to sweep up and wipe down the machines each day, so our laundry room was definitely cleaner. But the machines themselves, I honestly have no trouble with. No suds, no sop, I can't tell any difference from the old machines.
My wife often does the laundry, and she's an RN, really hyper-santitary, and she's noticed nothing grungy, except for the wads of lint scattered all over the floor.
We even use regular ol' detergent, just a lot less, and our stuff comes clean.
Maybe there are a lot of faulty machines, and even more faulty users, out there...
PS- a tip... if the machine seems "frozen", with a blank or wacky LED display screen, reaching behind and unplugging it, waiting a few seconds, then plugging back in often boots it back up just fine.
It's true that unplugging and replugging the machines can reboot them, but it is not possible for some of us to do that. The plugs are way in the back of the machines and cannot be reached unless you are very tall and limber! I'm glad you have had better luck with the machines than most, but in my building the machines are very, very unreliable. The laundry room is absolutely filthy - and I mean FILTHY! No one ever cleans it and the dryers are often full of dirty, black lint because the exhaust system doesn't work properly. We are very ill-served when it comes to laundry facilities, but the entire place is going to slum level so I guess the laundry rooms fit the big picture quite well.
ReplyDeleteI did a small load of laundry the other day and, even though I don't smoke and nobody in my apartment smokes, I noticed when I got the laundry upstairs that it smelled of tobacco! I don't know whether it picked up the stink from the washer or the dryer, but it sure wasn't my imagination!
ReplyDeleteTo the last poster: actually, it stands to reason and no doubt was not your imagination. If someone is a heavy smoker and washes something that is heavy and very stinky with cigaret odor in one of these "low-water" machines, the smell will not be washed out. Then they put that item in the dryer and it hangs in there and is transferred on to the next user.
ReplyDeleteCalled Mac Gray today to notify them that the last laundry cart had vanished from our laundry room. Seems we have to call "Management" about this, not their problem. Also, wanted to know why we're not able to set the dryer for 2 cycles when we put the clothes in. Also a "Management" problem. "That's how Management wanted us to program the dryers". We're looking forward to paying more for this for this non service.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it with these idiots? Don't they realize that we have that good old capitalist thing called COMPETITION and we can take/send/have picked up our laundry from a host of really good service enterprises in the neighborhood? One thing I've never understood about Tishman Speyer is that they just don't get it that we don't have to deal with their bullshit if we don't want to. There are much better facilities avaiable if we want laundry services, private parties, social events, etc. - all the things that they try to do and do so badly. They really are laughable. Get a little portable washer - the hot water and electricity are included in the rent - and tell these inept losers to go to hell!
ReplyDeleteI have lived here 7 years, im here at 12:30 am awake because of an insanely loud party happening across the street, i called stuy security and they did nothing, acting like i was the problem (a guy who merely wants to sleep in peace)
ReplyDeleteI have had it with this place, im outta here soon as I can.
no quality of life here at all.
the party is still going on, ive watched and no security guard ever even tried to adddress the situation (i called twice)
ReplyDeleteMy only course of action is to post here, how ridiculous
please, someone shoot me in the head, please
If this happens again, call the 13th precinct.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say that it's happening across the street, I assume it's still in Stuy Town. Next time it happens and security does nothing, do call the police.
ReplyDeleteFive washers in our laundry room were out of order yesterday morning- unplugged and useless. It's a joke that they're raising prices on this junk.
ReplyDeleteA dryer in our laundry room has been out of service for more than two weeks, notwithstanding several calls to Mac Gray as well as online requests. This company is a bad joke. I think we should notify the BBB.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate that there are issues regarding raising of washing/dryer prices, issues as to the differences in landscaping around the complex, and hundreds of other complaints. However, some of us have had and continue to have some very serious problems with our apartments. It is a constant battle with PCVST, getting nowhere fast -- affecting health and well being to excessive degrees. Can we suspend complaining about every little thing for the time being -- let's take care of first things first. Quality of life WITHIN our homes -- priority one -- so let's get it together.
ReplyDeleteI'm obviously late to the party, here, and I don't live at Stuy town, but I do live in a building with Mac Gray dryers and they don't dry properly, so you have to put a load through twice (and on one occasion, thrice) to get it dry.
ReplyDeleteThe Mac Gray people do not refund money if you don't report the problem the same day. They said this is their policy, but it isn't stated in the laundry room anywhere. When I told them this, they recanted and told me, "next time, you don't report within 24 hours, you don't get your money back."
I asked them to refund the money for my wasted time (approximately 2 hours in redrying, getting more money for dryer, complaining and eventually, depositing the paltry rebate check they send) and they again basically said that if I'd called right away, there'd have been no problem. Except for this: their machines fleece tenants day in and day out who are too busy with other things to take the time to complain.
How much money has your building overpaid to these laundry robber barons? You personally? Me, I lost $4.65 in one week. Multiply that by 50 weeks, that's a lot of unearned income flowing into Mac Gray's pockets that they don't deserve.
And yet, the dryers continue to malfunction.
If you want to help people in your building, post a sign in the laundry room:
For refunds, call 1-800-622-4729 within 24 hours or problem. Provide machine number (or location) and nature of problem. You'll get a check in the mail, usually, within the week.
If problem persists, contact building management immediately so they can address with Mac Gray.ask for Eric. He's a supervisor.
Are portable washing machines allowed in Stuytown apts? Do they hold more than 5 gallons of water? Thanks
ReplyDeleteAre portable washers and dryers allowed in Stuytown ?
ReplyDelete