The Laundry Ninja

By by Joey Capparella and Molly Chiu     2/7/13 6:00pm

It's midnight on Sunday, and while most people are struggling to finish last-minute homework, Ben Ong is in the Brown College basement ready to strike. Ong, a Brown senior, calls himself the laundry ninja.

First, he surveys his territory. Random assortments of clothes are strewn around the room in unorganized baskets: single socks, lacy underwear, abandoned high-school T-shirts. Ong pulls out his laundry bag and gets to work. He takes each basket and empties its contents without regard to any stray flashcards, headphones or pens that find themselves among the mess. 

Then he goes to work on the stray loads of laundry left unattended long after their dryer cycles have finished. Just as he is about to empty an unlucky sophomore's dryer load into his stash, the elevator opens in a flash of frantic activity. The poor sophomore nervously explains that he forgot to take his load out of the dryer and quickly rummages through Ong's growing pile to find his clothes before they get whisked away. Ong, unphased, simply moves to the next dryer and continues his work. However, he is not merciless. When possible, he makes an effort to identify the clothes and notify the owner. 

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Meanwhile, more and more students trickle out of the elevator to claim their laundry, each of them flustered and apologetic. Everyone had received warning the night before thanks to Ong's snappy email to the Brown Listserv, but a few people clearly emptied their inboxes too soon. 

The job does not end when all of the abandoned clothes are in the sack. Ong now moves to the dirty floor, picking up debris everyone else has neglected to pick up throughout the week. This week's assortment of stale dryer sheets and leftover detergent is nothing compared to laundry raids of the past, which have produced used condoms, physics assignments and negative pregnancy tests.

Twenty-five minutes after the cleanup began, the laundry room is spotless. The baskets are arranged in their proper place, the floor is clear of trash, and the empty washers and dryers are ready for their next loads.

Ong takes the sacks full of clothes to the garage of the master's house where they will remain until Tuesday so students have the opportunity to retrieve their lost items. After Tuesday, any leftover clothes are donated to charity.

Ong started this tradition of weekly Sunday night laundry raids in the fall of 2011 when he decided something had to be done about the laundry room mess.

"My freshman year, I thought it was bizarre that no one wanted to do anything about the laundry room," Ong said. "They were just talking about it. One day I said, 'This is disgusting,' so I did it myself."

For his first cleanup, Ong alerted Brown with a surprise email warning everyone to get all of their laundry out by midnight - or else. He said the job was especially hard at first when people did not take his threats seriously. Back then, few people at Brown understood the concept of laundry room etiquette.

"[During Orientation Week], there is no such thing as laundry room ethics," Ong said. "People don't teach people how to use it. Maybe because their parents do their laundry for them. One of the big things for O-Week [should be] to tell people: This is the laundry room. It's a common space. It's for everyone."

Ong said he was frustrated with the current system in place that randomly assigned a few of Brown's floor representatives the insurmountable task of managing the laundry room. The position was not well-defined and there was little

accountability.

"There were three laundry reps, but no one wanted to do [the cleanup job]," Ong said. "If you don't have a personal motivation to want to do it, you don't see the value. You're not going to want to do it because it's degrading blue-collar work."

Ong said he thinks this mindset represents a larger problem among leaders in the

residential colleges.

"People put value in certain things like chief justice because of the white-collar association," Ong said. "The laundry room is down and dirty - you have to sweep the floor." 

Ong said he noticed a lack of initiative from students.

"Everyone likes a clean table when they sit down to eat, but no one is willing to help maintain cleanliness," Ong said. "Laundry is the exact same thing. Growing up, I realized there is so much inefficiency in society. You come to a realization that no one is going to [make an] effort, [and you've] got to be the person who does it."

Brown senior Ben Seidensticker said the problem stems from a lack of responsibility from students.

"People are just stupid, and they don't care about their clothes," Seidensticker said. "I don't understand why clothes sit there for more than a night. He's motivating people to do something they should be doing for themselves anyway."

Seidensticker thinks Ong has really made a difference at Brown.

"Even if some people are super slow learners, at least now other people's choices don't affect the rest of the college," Seidensticker said. "One way or another, [the laundry room] is clean."

Brown sophomore Caroline Lowry said what she loves most about the laundry ninja is his entertaining emails.

"People pay attention because he's funny and mean," Lowry said. "But I think it's hilarious, and he gets the job done."

Brown Master Steve Cox said these emails make Ong's laundry raids a cause the whole college can rally around.

"I support anytime that students take situations under their own control," Cox said. "We could just keep on complaining, but when students decide to mobilize [and they] do it with humor rather than sarcasm, the whole college buys in."

Ong expressed his desire to add a personal element to an otherwise impersonal form of communication.

"I always believed that to connect with people, there has to be an emotional touch," Ong said. "I imagine myself talking on a day-to-day level. It's like me talking to you, go get your f------ laundry."

Ong frequently heads these emails with eye-catching lines, such as "Rated M for Mature: Parental Discretion Advised," or "Same S---, Pipsqueaks." But these emails are not only about funny quips to catch people's attention: Ong also uses them as a way to set expectations for laundry room behavior. 

"Please refrain from sex or smoking in the laundry room," one email advises. "Throw your lint in the garbage instead of on the floor; it's only like 10 feet away," another reads.

Ong is also open to suggestions for improvements to the laundry room. Brown junior Kylie Cullinan said she suggested a socks box. When lost socks are found, they go in the box.

"I hate losing socks, and people frequently find strange socks in their laundry," Cullinan said. "It seemed like a logical way to return orphan socks to their owners. I found a few of my socks in there."

Ong thinks his Sunday night ritual has made a difference in the overall college mindset concerning the laundry room.

"Now there's a stronger sense of social stigma of not taking your laundry up," Ong said. "Sometimes, I just don't do [the cleanup]. During midterms, no one does laundry. The constant nagging and worry in their head is enough to deter people [on Sundays]."

Some might question why Ong would take on this dirty job, but he sees it as a positive contribution to the college.

"I don't feel like I'm getting shafted," Ong said. "Everyone gets a clean laundry room."

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