laundry quarters - self sighting

[thehippie777]

Normally I get my laundry quarters from work, but last week I forgot to & it was Sunday...the banks weren't open. Now I do this RARELY but never at the laundry mat I went to this time...but I got quarters out of their machine...

I told my boyfriend (who was driving) that I didn't want to go to Albertsons because they do give me attitude when I ask for a roll of quarters, because they aren't a bank...

So, he said he would stop at a laundry mat I have never been to. If I need quaters in this similar situation I go to the laundry mat next to where I used to live and get some from their machines. They still know me there. ....anyway...

Boyfriend stops at this gheto laundry mat. We go in, and start dishing out the dollars for some quarters. This very thin, older woman who is missing teeth comes up to us (and I assumed right away she was the laundry attendant or something).

Her: Are you going to be doing laundry?!?! (I was turned away from her getting quarters, eyed my boyfriend & noticed a sign above the machine that says only customers are allowed quarters....shit...)
Me: *turned to her* We will be... (Okay honestly she didn't ask if we were going to be doing laundry THERE, but I am aware it was a lie technically.)
Her: Oh okay, just making sure. *starts acting like she is cleaning/moving stuff, I continue to get a couple more bucks worth of quarters* I didn't mean to sound like I was hurassing you, but lots of people come in here stealing quarters for their own use."
Me: Yeah I am sure (being as brief as possible)
Her: And these people don't realize they are stealing from this little old couple who own this place. This is their livelyhood!
Me: uh huh....
Her: I am sorry if I feel on edge. I just had a run-in with a lady who I approached & told her it wasn't a public change machine & she kind of went crazy on me.
Me: Oh, wow, that's no good.
Her: Yeah I wrote down her licience plate! The owners say I should get mace or I shoulda called the cops, ya know, to protect myself
Me: Huh...yeah... *give the eye for the get-away to my man, lady walks away, we drive off*

BF: I kinda...feel bad.
Me: Well, I told ya I had never been to that one before...
BF: How it is stealing if it's an exchange of cash for quarters?
Me: I dunno...
BF: What good does writing down a licience plate do? They didn't steal anything...
Me: I assume it's so that if they come back they know who to shush away, kinda like they are banned or whatever.
BF: Yeah, that makes sense.

[saint]

I dont see much suck. You should have read the sign, but you werent swindling the old couple.

Actually, I was giggling the whole time i read your post. I had the mission impossible theme going through my head during the last part

[Aethian]

There is a sign in one of the laundry mats I went to that said if you weren't seen doing laundry there you had to pay the attendent a dollar.

[UncleImpy]

Well, banks DO charge their commercial customers for change requests, so if they have a lot of people doing this to them, it can add up (I think when I worked for an arcade, they exempted our account because we brought boatloads of quarters each week).

[MaggieTheCat]

I don't really see a problem either...okay, so technically you probably should've done a load of laundry there, or something, if that's what the sign said, but like some others have said, it's not like you stole from them.

I can see where you'd feel a little guilty, though. I would have too. Even though I still don't think it was that wrong.

At least that laundromat has a change machine...boyfriend and I live in an apartment complex that has coin-op laundry rooms, but no change machines ANYWHERE on the property...it sucks. If he forgets to bring home quarters once in a while from the bank, we have no way to do laundry. Seriously, what kind of laundry room has machines that all cost $1 to run, but don't accept $1 bills (or anything besides quarters, for that matter), and don't have a change machine in the area? I was baffled when I first moved in and found that out. Then again, I've never had to pay to do laundry, so maybe that's the norm?

[csquared]

I don't want to come across like I am coming down on you, and I am not implying that you should run to confession and turn yourself over to the police.

It's called "Theft of Service."

The change machine is a service offered to the paying customers. The machine cost the laundry mat money to operate and maintain, and the manpower to refill it. It could also cost the laundry mat a customer if the customer is unable to get change.

Some municipalities take the charge seriously.

My brother told me about a coworker. Hit the McD's drive-thru for lunch. Later, he wanted to throw out the trash. He pulls into an apartment complex and tosses the trash into the dumpster.

About a week later, he received a court summons. DA even had the McD bag as evidence.

[Ironclad Alibi]

My brother told me about a coworker. Hit the McD's drive-thru for lunch. Later, he wanted to throw out the trash. He pulls into an apartment complex and tosses the trash into the dumpster.

About a week later, he received a court summons. DA even had the McD bag as evidence.

Who would've thought it? A ticket for not littering.

[Difdi]

Who would've thought it? A ticket for not littering.

He used someone else's paid-for service without permission, in a way that could theoretically (probably not, but still) cost them additional fees or penalties.

What he should have done is kept the bag with him until he got home, then used his own paid-for garbage service.

[Pagan]

boyfriend and I live in an apartment complex that has coin-op laundry rooms, but no change machines ANYWHERE on the property...it sucks. If he forgets to bring home quarters once in a while from the bank, we have no way to do laundry. Seriously, what kind of laundry room has machines that all cost $1 to run, but don't accept $1 bills (or anything besides quarters, for that matter), and don't have a change machine in the area? I was baffled when I first moved in and found that out.

Same here. Well, except for right now. All of the laundry rooms are closed down. They're changing out the machines and putting in some new system for running them. Seems they're going to have some card that you load money onto in the office.

I can understand the reasoning of shutting them and doing them all at once, but it's somewhat of an inconvenience for the residents when on-site facilities is part of what we pay rent for (and what they advertise). Would have been nice if they could have done a rolling closure.

Real pain in the ass is that they're closed from 7/7 to 7/22....the day I leave. So get to schlep everything to the laundromat across the street and waste two hours sitting with my laundry. Luckily, they open at 6am.

[Munkie]

They're changing out the machines and putting in some new system for running them. Seems they're going to have some card that you load money onto in the office.

The last building I was in and the one I'm in now have the card machines. In my last building, it was situated in a rather bad area, and when it was coin-op, the building was constantly broken into by the crack addicts and what-not and they were always rolling the machines for the money in them. They only did it a couple times after that, and then they resorted to breaking into store-rooms and stealing stuff outta those. (I had approximately $300 worth of DVDs that were stolen in that store-room. I was less than impressed.)

I have to say, despite the fact that my building doesn't have a reloader machine in the building, I absolutely love the card idea! I can't remember the name of the company we go through at the moment, but you never have to worry about finding enough change again!

[Andara Bledin]

The Laundromat around the corner from us has a card system, and I think it's brilliant.

No scrounging for quarters, the different services on the machines can charge odd increments (like an extra 12 cents for pre-wash), and the card readers require a whole lot less service than coin op slots, and are probably harder to gank up than coin slots, too.

^-.-^

[MaggieTheCat]

That is a neat idea. I wish we had a smart laundry facility like that. It'd be especially nice if we could select how long of a drying cycle we want; while boyfriend likes to toast his clothes, I generally don't like to dry my clothes more than 10-20 minutes. Even if they don't get completely dry, my clothes, especially the nicer ones, tend to last longer and stay in better condition if they don't get nuked for 45 minutes. But that's the only option there is (well, you can open the dryer anytime to stop drying, which is what I usually do, but then you're wasting 20+ minutes of drying time.)

[JLG]

Normally I get my laundry quarters from work, but last week I forgot to & it was Sunday...the banks weren't open. Now I do this RARELY but never at the laundry mat I went to this time...but I got quarters out of their machine...


F: I kinda...feel bad.
Me: Well, I told ya I had never been to that one before...
BF: How it is stealing if it's an exchange of cash for quarters?
Me: I dunno...
BF: What good does writing down a licience plate do? They didn't steal anything...
Me: I assume it's so that if they come back they know who to shush away, kinda like they are banned or whatever.
BF: Yeah, that makes sense.

I also get my rolls of quarters from work. One day I forgot and I stopped off at a laundry mat to get $10 worth of quarters and I did not see the sign that said "Change machine for customers only" until after I got my change. I felt bad but I was not aware that most laundry mats had those signs because I had a washer and dryer at home before I moved into my apartment.
Now I find it easier to do my laundry at that laundry mat because I usually have 2 weeks worth of laundry to do.

[JLG]

He used someone else's paid-for service without permission, in a way that could theoretically (probably not, but still) cost them additional fees or penalties.

What he should have done is kept the bag with him until he got home, then used his own paid-for garbage service.

At my apartment complex people that don't live here use our dumpsters all the time. I have witnessed people dumping furniture, wood, tree branches, and barbecue pits. I gets me so mad because our garbage service will not take that stuff away so the complex has to pay extra for that kind of stuff.
One night I told this old man that was dumping a bunch of old junk in our dumpster that it was for residents only and he told me to shut up and go eat another cheeseburger.

[thehippie777]

I don't really see a problem either...okay, so technically you probably should've done a load of laundry there, or something, if that's what the sign said, but like some others have said, it's not like you stole from them.

I can see where you'd feel a little guilty, though. I would have too. Even though I still don't think it was that wrong.

At least that laundromat has a change machine...boyfriend and I live in an apartment complex that has coin-op laundry rooms, but no change machines ANYWHERE on the property...it sucks. If he forgets to bring home quarters once in a while from the bank, we have no way to do laundry. Seriously, what kind of laundry room has machines that all cost $1 to run, but don't accept $1 bills (or anything besides quarters, for that matter), and don't have a change machine in the area? I was baffled when I first moved in and found that out. Then again, I've never had to pay to do laundry, so maybe that's the norm?

Yeah that is the case here. I also LOVE the card idea, but I live in Montana & many innovations such as that won't hit here until 10 years from now. There are still small town places in this state that don't accept anything but cash or check. Old school!

I don't want to come across like I am coming down on you, and I am not implying that you should run to confession and turn yourself over to the police.

It's called "Theft of Service."

The change machine is a service offered to the paying customers. The machine cost the laundry mat money to operate and maintain, and the manpower to refill it. It could also cost the laundry mat a customer if the customer is unable to get change.

Some municipalities take the charge seriously.

My brother told me about a coworker. Hit the McD's drive-thru for lunch. Later, he wanted to throw out the trash. He pulls into an apartment complex and tosses the trash into the dumpster.

About a week later, he received a court summons. DA even had the McD bag as evidence.

WOW. That just shows me as a country we have our priorities all screwed up lol Like someone said, he coulda got a ticket for littering instead. I would, as a person of the world, be happy that he chose to throw away in a bin rather then on the ground but hey. If they want to charge me, feel free.

At my apartment complex people that don't live here use our dumpsters all the time. I have witnessed people dumping furniture, wood, tree branches, and barbecue pits. I gets me so mad because our garbage service will not take that stuff away so the complex has to pay extra for that kind of stuff.
One night I told this old man that was dumping a bunch of old junk in our dumpster that it was for residents only and he told me to shut up and go eat another cheeseburger.

Exactly.


Honestly I have gotten quarters relatively often from the place I used to live by. I had bad feeling about this ghetto laundry place when my BF pulled in. Learned out lessons.

And on that note, next time people decide they want a cup of coffee or a pee break for the road who isn't staying at my hotel, should I call the cops or just be welcoming? hmmmm