Harvard Students Learn Their Place, Watching Less Advantaged Clean Up
March 23rd, 2005 | by Mike G |http://www.nytimes.com/20…6b4cd49&ei=5088
At Harvard, as well as Princeton and Boston U., students who are interested in having their dorm rooms cleaned for them can do so with the help of DormAid. Another gentle reminder of who is being trained to own the Plantation and who is being paid minimum wage to keep it spotless.
“I think we’ve set a record,” said Mr. Novy, 27, a graduate student whose isosceles-triangle-shaped apartment is accessorized with a deck of cards and a corkscrew. “I’ve lived here since September, and we haven’t vacuumed once.”
So he was delighted when his roommate, Gregor Schmitz, 29, hired a new cleaning service called DormAid, run by Harvard students.
“It really just struck me as a great idea, given the state of our apartment and given how expensive it is to buy all these tools,” Mr. Novy said, watching two women from a professional cleaning service contracted by DormAid scrub and scour. For $85.57, they not only cleaned but also placed a Lindt chocolate truffle on the pillow of Mr. Novy’s lumpy futon.
One Response to “Harvard Students Learn Their Place, Watching Less Advantaged Clean Up”
By DormAid on May 27, 2005 | Reply
Just thought I’d let you know that DormAid subscribes to Harvard’s “fair wage” initiative. While cleaners work for DormAid at Harvard they are paid $13.00 an hour, almost double what they would make working for a private cleaning company in Boston.