Changing Bed Sheets at SLU
College proves time and time again to challenge young adult’s survival skills. When placed in a building with hundreds of other glorified children, you’d expect all of then to come together and navigate the world of living on their own together. While St. Lawrence University students do this for the most part, it seems that some have missed the memo on washing their bed sheets.
If you use the helpful search engine Google, or any search engine of your choice for that matter, you can find some helpful information on bed sheet washing. On average, you should be washing your bed sheets every one to two weeks. Yikes! Did you know that? Well, let’s see what some SLU students have to say about it.
Jason Darminio ’27 definitely knew about this laundry rule. Darminio shared that he washes his sheets every week. “I just do it with my other clothes,” said Darminio. “His laundry situation is different from most people,” said James Fry ’27. Fry explained that living in a theme house allowed for Darminio to do laundry more easily because it was built to accommodate both floors of the house. He does not have to deal with the large dorms where all the machines are full and at times you must wait with wet laundry for a dryer to open.
However, Darminio mentioned his habits the year before too. “I did this freshman year on the third floor of Lee,” said Darminio. Safe to say, he does not think there is any reason why bed sheets should not be washed often.
Not all students have these good habits though. Emerson Brott ’25 admitted that he only washes his sheets once or twice a semester. “I’m not very motivated to do laundry,” said Brott. While this may come as a surprise to many, he noted that he lives in the Outing Club with 22 other people and only one washer and dryer. “Doing laundry in our house is a bear,” said Brott.
Many other students share the frustrations of doing laundry in communal spaces.
“Laundry’s tough though, that’s a big chunk out of the day,” said Fry. Sometimes the sweltering hot laundry room is too much to face at the end of a long day.
I will admit, I do not wash my sheets exactly every two weeks. While I am conscious of the fact that they need to be washed, sometimes the laundry room is just too brutal to face. Especially, for some reason, on a Friday night.
If you don’t have time to do laundry every two weeks, which I hope you do, there is an alternative! Invest in another set of sheets and switch them out. Then, next time you do laundry, wash your old set of sheets. Problem solved.
So, the conclusion? How often students wash their bed sheets in college seems to be highly dependent on the accessibility and schedules of the washers and dryers. Maybe some students should take this as a public service announcement to set timers on their laundry so others can wash their bed sheets. It might be beneficial to the cleanliness of the whole campus if you do!