Gas and dirty laundry: An extra 25 cents

Laundry equipment supplier Coinmach says it needs the extra quarter to offset higher utility costs.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Cost of dirty laundry: An extra 25 cents for an average load in a Coinmach machine in one New York City neighborhood.

Plainview, New York-based Coinmach (Research), the nation’s largest supplier of coin- and card-operated laundry equipment to laundromats, apartment buildings and college dorms, says it’s selectively tweaking machine vend prices to mitigate rising utility costs in parts of the country.
…Said Loser, “We also operate a fleet of 14,000 vans to collect the coins Monday through Friday from all these locations. This is one area where gas prices are hitting us.”

In buildings where it leases its machines, Coinmach shares the revenue with the landlord, who is responsible for paying the utility bills.

“We have been receiving more calls from landlords recently asking us to raise our vend prices because their utility bills have been rising over the past few months,” Loser said.

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