The Daily Pennsylvanian
Underwear was scarce for 97 students with laundry service after a fire at Penn Student Agencies' laundry plant last week.
PSA outsources its laundry to Apparelmaster of Philadelphia, a commercial laundry and linen supply company. A small fire, which started in a bin of towels on Jan. 19, resulted in extensive smoke damage to the company's 7,000-square-foot plant.
Of the 128 Penn students who use the laundry service, 97 were affected by the delay. No students' clothes were damaged in the fire.
Students can normally pick up their laundry 48 hours after they drop it off, but the fire extended that wait to more than a week.
College freshman Michael Gibaldi, who uses the service, said he "sort of had to make do" with the clothes he had while his laundry was delayed. He added that he "ran out of white socks and had to resort to dress socks."
Gibaldi said the PSA service is convenient because he does not have to do his own laundry. But after this event, he said he has lost confidence in the service and plans to start doing his own laundry more often.
Students affected by the delay were given coupons for one free video rental at the Video Vault -- a $2 value.
Apparelmaster President Robert Smith said his employees "really jumped in" so that the plant was back operating at full capacity by Jan. 21 -- three days after the fire.
Smith's company services 250 clients. He said that some of those customers received materials sooner than PSA because their requests were easier to fulfill.
"You can deliver half of [a restaurant's] order and bring them the rest the next day ... but UPenn student laundry is an all or nothing delivery," so it was delayed longer, Smith said.
Although PSA General Manager Kori Reid said all student laundry has been delivered, Gibaldi said he is still missing all the white clothes he dropped off to be washed.
Gibaldi said he called PSA Friday night and left a message, but as of last night, he had not heard back from them.
