Laundry Woe

[ShadedWings]

This one isn't really at a retail place, more like at the mini-laundromat that resides in our apartment complex. No workers, but I guess you could call us customers since we do pay to use the machines. Anyhow...

I'm down there with my boyfriend and roommate, hanging out while we do our laundry, as I completely and utterly do not trust leaving my laundry alone. To set the scene, there are six of each machine, six dryers set into the wall, three on top of three, six washers set in the middle, three back to back with the other three, a window with a tiny window sill, a tiny little tv set into a corner and blocked in with a constructed.. box.. thing , and barely enough room for two people to stand -very- closely together side by side at any point in the walkways. No seating, and the floors are covered in huge lintballs, loose change (found almost a whole dollar in dimes and pennies) and half melted sticks of gum still in the wrapper. See, it pays to check pockets before you do laundry.

Now, my boyfriend and my roommate are sitting on two of the unused washers facing the tv, I'm leaning against a wall, we're using two washers on the other side, and no dryers in use. Which leaves, IF we don't move, two washers free and all dryers free. The two unused washers were open, which usually signifies that they're usable, right? Hah.

We see out of the door/window (door's glass too), a couple walk by, the guy carrying a normal sized laundry basket. They glance in, then sit the basket down on the bench outside and sit and start talking. I figure they're waiting for someone or have time to kill, right? Hah!

While they're sitting there, a girl comes in, and I let her know we'll move if we're in the way, she says no, she's just going to use a dryer for her little bit of clothing. No big deal, she leaves. Another girl comes in, she asks if there's a washer free, I say yup, you have a pick of four free, we're just using two. She picks an empty one and starts up her wash. Meanwhile, the couple is still sitting outside with their laundry. Strange, but I'm not the type of person who wants to hang out with laundry with others around either so, I kinda understand that if that's what they're doing.

Our washers are just about done, the first one finished, and I'm switching it to dry, and the second one's winding down, the lady barges in and looks around. I smile at her, and say that there are three open, and about to be five once I get ours fully switched. As I'm saying this, the guy with her bustles in with the laundry behind her and all but shoves his way past my roommate toward the other row of washers while boyfriend and roommate try to be out of the way for them.

Lady says to me, "We didn't know how many you were using." I reiterate, "Oh, just these two, we didn't have much. " She then -snaps- (only to my hearing too, boyfriend and roommate didn't hear her), "Well..! You KNEW we wanted to use them!" At the same time, the guy's reaching -around- my roommate to get to a -fourth- washer instead of asking him to move or saying anything (roommate was facing the other way and didn't notice he was even there), all for one normal sized laundry basket full.

Um.. I did? You didn't ask us about anything, didn't even open the door or knock on the window or anything. Two other people came in with laundry and asked us if we were using all of them, and left -without- laundry, and you still didn't budge! How were we supposed to know what you were doing or what you wanted? We're not your keepers, or mindreaders! Blargh.

People assume that you know what's going on in their heads. For all I know they could have been waiting for someone to bring change, or for someone to bring more laundry or soap, or just wanted to wait until we left or whatever. Jeez... It still annoys me, and this happened about 3 or 4 days ago.

[myswtghst]

My building has two washers and two dryers for 8 apartments. It kind of sucks sometimes, as the only times I have to do laundry are on the weekends, or LATE at night when I get out of work. I haven't had any complaints about doing it late, but am always a little worried the dryers will wake someone up and I'll come down to find my laundry strewn about outside, or something. Here's hoping my neighbors are as mature and patient as I am.

But yes, I have no idea why - with two washers OBVIOUSLY open, they couldn't possibly wander in and ask you, like normal people, which were open and all that. Yeesh. Some people just frighten me with their lack of manners and sense.

[RayvenQ]

In the estate where I live, we have 2 washers and 2 driers for...wait for it...40 residents, although some may have their own washers and driers in their flats

[smileyeagle1021]

I'm so happy I now have my own washer/dryer...
the only time I haven't had them where I live was when I was living on campus (yeah, I know I'm spoiled)
when I was in Mountain View Tower at USU it wasn't bad, we had count them 20 washers and 20 dryers (granted that was for 360 residents, but these were all oversized washers that could handle nearly twice as much as a normal washer)
then I moved to San Juan Hall which had 4 washers/dryers for 76 residents

... ok, i did the math and that actually does have less residents per washer in San Juan Hall than MVT, but at least in MVT it never seemed to be completely full as often...

[daleduke17]

I can't wait until my wife and I can move and get a washer/dryer of our own. I'm getting tired of either going to the laundromat every week or doing small loads in the laundry room at the apartment complex (3 washers/3 dryers for 12 apartments).

Oh, smileyeagle1021, seeing as you're a USU alum, I was impressed by your school's basketball team in the NIT last week. Good game against Illinois State.

Too bad Dayton trounced ISU after that.

[eltf177]

Back in my college dorm we had some 160 guys. And the laundry room? Three washers and four dryers!

Of course, this wasn't too much of a problem as 90% of the guys had no idea what those big white boxes next to the vending machines were!

[smileyeagle1021]

Oh, smileyeagle1021, seeing as you're a USU alum, I was impressed by your school's basketball team in the NIT last week. Good game against Illinois State.

thanks... sadly i'm more of a USU drop-out that alum (I wanted to change majors and I didn't qualify to go into the program I wanted to go into... so here I am at SLCC getting my grades back up, working on my new major).

[Kogarashi]

When I lived in the dorms, it was a bit of a problem. 4 washers, 4 dryers for approximately 120 students (all girls). There were very crowded nights, and it was a known fact that if you weren't in the laundry room when your washer or dryer load finished, your clothes were going to end up in a pile on the table or in a cubby.

The singles apartment I lived in had 6 and 6 for 36 apartments (four residents each), but never really came across as crowded. The big problem we had was the occasional sneak who would come use our laundromat instead of the commercial laundromat right next door. That changed when they changed out our laundromat door lock so you needed an apartment key to get in.

Our first married apartment had hookups, and we had a washer/dryer set from my in-laws. Yay!

Then we moved to married housing on campus, where there were four large laundromat buildings for the 7 or so mini-complexes. Costs were exorbitant, but you got a discount if you used your student ID card--meant to discourage non-residents from using the laundromat, I guess.

Our current apartment, we've got 3 washers and 3 dryers for 24 apartments, several with small children. There have been some real crunch times, oi.

[Primer]

When I lived in an apartment, I vaguely remember having about 8 washers and 4 dryers (maybe 6 and 3, don't really remember) for about 100 apartments (300 residents?). I asked and got permission to get a portable washer and dryer of my own. The washer hooked up to the kitchen sink, and the dryer (110 volt) vented out the back door. Fun times when I forgot that I could not run the computer, dryer and microwave at the same time, especially at night! It would trip the circuit breaker which was upstairs!

[ShadedWings]

With our complex... I think it's... at least 19 buildings, 4 apts each, probably more than that, so approx 100 apts for 6/6. I usually did my laundry around 2am at the last place I lived, and that place had a key, but this one doesn't want you in there past midnight and is open.. which doesn't make sense to me, but okay.

[Pagan]

I don't know quite what the ratio is here at my complex. There's at least 3 different washroom scattered about the property and a lot of people have their own washer/dryers.

The one thing I can figure out though is in the one that I use, there's 5 washers and 4 dryers. Makes it fun when everyone decides to do their laundry on Sundays. I avoid that completely. I've found the best time to do mine is anytime on Saturday, I usually have it all to myself.

[Kogarashi]

The big problem I see with having more washers than dryers is that dryer loads (from my experience) take longer to run on the default setting, so you end up with a bottleneck of people whose laundry is done washing and ready to dry, but the dryers are still in use for the next 20 minutes.

One reason why the last time I did Baby's laundry, I just brought it upstairs instead of waiting 20+ minutes for someone to come down and claim their dryer load. We've got a drying rack ($10 at Wal-Mart, yay!), so I just draped her stuff all over that.

[JLG]

We have about 80 units here with 8 washers and 10 dryers. One time I was going to get my stuff out of two dryers and this guy on his cell phone walked in the same time I did. As I was taking my stuff out he swung the door open to the dryer and almost hit me in my face saying that I was taking his stuff. When he saw it was not his stuff he just said "Oh" and kept talking on his phone without a sorry for almost knocking me out. Then he opened one my dryers and started putting it in his basket. Again no sorry for it. Turns out his mom already got their laundry out of the dryers about 2 hours ago.

[Jack7957]

In college the best time to do laundry was Sunday morning. (gee, I wonder why ) I'd walk downtown, grab the paper then go back to the dorm, grab my laundry and head for the basement where the machines were. They had a couple chairs in there to sit and wait, since if you didn't stick around, people would sometimes help themselves to your clothes, rather than clean their own.

[Broomjockey]

In my dorm it's a pretty sweet arrangement. There's 2 sets of washers and dryers on each side for the floors with 46 rooms (about 92 people per floor), and one set per side on the floors with 30 rooms. That's 40 sets for around 800 people.