Emmanuel students have been adjusting to life after laundry, following the temporary closure of an in-college service which washed and dried clothes for the College’s members.

Last Monday, Emma’s housekeeping service told students that due to “staff problems which hopefully will be resolved next week when we have a new member of staff”, the laundry would close for a day to “catch up a bit”.

Nearly two weeks later, students claim the service is still behind schedule, and with self-service machines few in number, Emmanuelites are going to increasing lengths in order to get clean clothes.

Housekeeping provisions vary greatly between colleges, but Emma is alone in offering to do its students’ laundry for them. Its website boasts: “Emmanuel is unique amongst colleges in that it has a free laundry service for students that will wash and dry one 5.5kg bag of clothes each week without charge.”

Two Emmanuel finalists, who asked for anonymity to avoid personal embarrassment, spoke about how they have tried to cope with the laundry service issues.

One said on Thursday he had been wearing the same pants for three days, and “no socks today”. He said that “a pile of laundry the size of Kilimanjaro” currently stands next to three already full baskets of dirty clothes in the laundry room, but insisted that the laundry staff are “doing their best, and being very nice about it all.”

“It is difficult because there are only two self-service laundry machines,” the student said. “Access to these machines is rationed, and there are only a handful of slots each day, allocated to students via a physical sign-up sheet in the plodge. This has obvious access issues.”

“One of the reasons that I applied to Emmanuel was because of the laundry service,” another told Varsity. “Said laundry service has also enabled my incompetence as a grown woman as I do not know how to do laundry.”

“Initially I got around this by wearing slightly dirty clothes (doused in deodorant) and buying new knickers from Topshop (they do 3 for 2 knickers). This got a bit expensive so for the last week or so I have been alternating between no knickers and trying to wash them in the sink.”

As financial and time pressures take their toll, the finalist said they were considering new measures: “This does not feel like a sustainable way to live so I am very close to learning how to clean my own clothes and venturing to a laundrette”