Free Rider Problem of Laundry

This semester, I moved into my sorority house on Rugby Rd. Overall, it has been great to live with the 20 other girls, however, as I was doing my laundry recently, I noticed there was a huge issue: dryer lint was left in the lint catcher. This is a huge fire hazard and a true negative externality from doing laundry. As I was cleaning the lint from the dryer, that was not mine, I realized that this was a classic example of the free rider problem. When you have so many people in a house, you assume that someone else will be able to clean up (or clear out the dryer lint in this situation). This is a true example of underinvesting in the common good because there is a personal cost (the act of removing the lint). The laundry in the house should probably be considered to be in between a public and private good. This acts somewhat like a private good because when one person is using the machine, it takes away from the ability for another to gain from it because the washer cannot be used by the other individual. However, washers and dryers also parallel how public goods operate as it is difficult to prohibit or stop a specific person from using the laundry machines because it would require you to guard the machines all day and all night. Because the machines are seen as a partially public good, it is easy for house residents to free ride on other peoples actions as they perceive them to not be their responsibility and feel comfortable pushing the chores off to others.

There were similar findings in this study, as it shows that despite an assumption that children would serve/help their families in ways to maximize income and increase efficiency they opted to free ride on their parents doing the chores. I find this to be a helpful comparison to the situation in my house now as we operate in a loose family-like structure with chores and basic household duties. Applying the logic of this study, one could assume that we would all carry our weight around the house and do chores as it became clear that it was required (and in the case of the laundry machine, girls would clean out the lint after each dryer cycle) in order to increase the "income" and efficiency of our group. However, as indicated in this article, and demonstrated by the actions of my fellow house residents, household members are more likely to free-ride than prioritize the efficiency or income of their family unit. Demonstrating the age-old issue of free riders and the problems they create.