Rent-a-Rower at WSU is in the process of putting down stricter guidelines what rowers can and cannot be hired for.

The Rent-a-Rower program allows people to hire members of WSU’s Cougar Crew team to do manual work for $15 per hour per rower. The program helps the rowing team fund itself.

After a week where rowers reported feeling “uncomfortable” and “used,” they’re changing the rules.

“It was pretty loose before,” President Rodney Ranger said. “We wanted to give people plenty of options. Unfortunately, they took advantage of that.”

The change was sparked last Tuesday when rower Rick Ryans was hired for what he thought would be a day of yard work.

His client needed branches cut down. While Ryans worked, his client decided to move her yoga session to the backyard, reportedly spending “an uncomfortable amount of time” on downward dog.

Recently Rent-a-Rower has experienced an uptick in strange requests like this, different from the manual labor the group is used to.

Rower Roy Rannigan reported that once he arrived on site to find his client sunbathing and invited Roy to “take his shirt off” and join her, saying that it was too hot to work. Rannigan reports that it was 40 degrees outside.

“I don’t get why she needed tanning lotion when the sun wasn’t even out,” Rannigan said. “Or why she needed me to put it on her.”

Another rower, Robby Roberts, reported that after he finished his job, his client invited him inside for dinner.

The client had a bottle of wine on the table and the song “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye playing. Supposedly the client sat down with the rower and started talking about her failing marriage, getting progressively more drunk over the course of the night.

Roberts, who claims he stayed because the client was still being charged, was then taken upstairs and made to watch half of “The Graduate” before a car pulled into the driveway and the client rushed him out the window.

Ranger said he appreciates all the service the team gets from their clients, but rowers have been saying they feel uncomfortable.

“My guys don’t really want to do yoga or sunbathe or watch classic ‘60s films,” Ranger said. “We’re just here to do the work. We’re not trying to do anybo — anything else.”

Ranger is not sure what the restrictions will be yet, but he said he was certain of a few things.

“Clients need to be fully dressed,” Ranger said. “No lingerie, no going upstairs with rowers, no physical contact, no alcohol, no putting ones in their waist. I’ll think of more later.”