Best laundry service for family in McLean area?

[Anonymous]

You are pathetic

[Anonymous]

You can afford a laundry service but can’t afford to buy your kids’ a full week of clothing??? What on earth???

Tell your teens to get some clothes from Goodwill— enough to make a week of clothes, and then they can each pick a day to do laundry.

[Anonymous]

In our house, all the laundry is commingled, so there is always enough to run a load on any given day. Teens are in charge of washing and folding and taking the laundry to each person’s room.

[Anonymous]

We have one teen in charge of laundry, the other in charge of dry cleaning. They do the laundry and dry cleaning of everyone in the house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Well I guess I hit upon the group of parents of young kids who all have WFH jobs. We have busy older kids with activities and both of us work outside the home. Our kids do lots of chores (they mow the grass, make themselves meals, do dishes, fold laundry, etc.) and know how to do laundry, but I have found it super inefficient for them each to do a tiny load a couple times per week. We certainly don't buy them enough clothes for them to build up a giant load before running out of things to wear. If there are any actual parents of pre-teens and teens who responded, I'd be glad to take a suggestion on how logistically each one of three kids in the family does their own laundry with a single machine and not owning a full weeks' worth of clothes each. And I agree it's not hard to do laundry, obviously. In fact I like doing it. But in our current phase in life it's at the expense of sleep, exercise, and quality time with my kids.

Family of 4: we pool the clothes, and have enough to wash every two days. There is a hamper for delicates, with extra-delicates going into laundry bags in the same laundry, and a hamper for regular. The delicates and extra-delicates are washed on delicate, low soil, cold water in summer (because it's tepid) and warm water in winter (because it's tepid). The regular get a stronger wash. The really soiled clothes get a pre-treatment. Soiled delicates are washed by hand. The extra-delicates are hung to dry, everything else is dried on very low or low, to preserve fabrics.

But by pooling our clothes... there is no water waste and every wash is full, which increases the friction the clothes get, and improves the washing efficiency.

If there is no family member who wants to be point person for laundry, and you don't want to rotate between family members, then pay your housekeeper more money to implement this system.

I've done it for many years and it's not a burden. When the clothes are clean, they get dumped on people's beds and everyone is responsible for folding and putting away.

[Anonymous]

That's weird. People usually outsource landscaping before outsourcing something as intimate as laundry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
That's weird. People usually outsource landscaping before outsourcing something as intimate as laundry.

Maybe OP is from NYC or similar. Every dry cleaner has wash and fold service there. I don’t think it’s weird at all OP and wish I had a personal recommendation but there are definitely services that do this. I would start with dry cleaners who do pickup and drop off which I believe McLean Cleaners still does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
That's weird. People usually outsource landscaping before outsourcing something as intimate as laundry.

Maybe OP is from NYC or similar. Every dry cleaner has wash and fold service there. I don’t think it’s weird at all OP and wish I had a personal recommendation but there are definitely services that do this. I would start with dry cleaners who do pickup and drop off which I believe McLean Cleaners still does.

OP, call laundromats near you. They sometimes offer or know of services.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Well I guess I hit upon the group of parents of young kids who all have WFH jobs. We have busy older kids with activities and both of us work outside the home. Our kids do lots of chores (they mow the grass, make themselves meals, do dishes, fold laundry, etc.) and know how to do laundry, but I have found it super inefficient for them each to do a tiny load a couple times per week. We certainly don't buy them enough clothes for them to build up a giant load before running out of things to wear. If there are any actual parents of pre-teens and teens who responded, I'd be glad to take a suggestion on how logistically each one of three kids in the family does their own laundry with a single machine and not owning a full weeks' worth of clothes each. And I agree it's not hard to do laundry, obviously. In fact I like doing it. But in our current phase in life it's at the expense of sleep, exercise, and quality time with my kids.

They can take turns doing laundry for everyone and combine the loads. We just put everyone’s laundry together.

[Anonymous]

Nobody wants to launder your crusty underwear darling

[Anonymous]

These replies are really provincial, OP. Don’t let them deter you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have one teen in charge of laundry, the other in charge of dry cleaning. They do the laundry and dry cleaning of everyone in the house.

Does the dry cleaning teen drive? Very jealous.

[Anonymous]

I'm usually with the fellow woh parents looking to save time and mental energy. I do think the kids can handle this one though. My kids do travel sports and do their laundry - 5th and 8th grade. You have a rare dcum consensus, so take heed.

[Anonymous]

I just reread your post. If you don't have a full week's worth of clothes, how will you use a service? You don't have enough clothes. Who doesn't have a week's worth of clothes. Weird.

[Anonymous]

Another way to do laundry is to do one load a day. Put it in the washer when you get up. Have the first person home first put it in the dryer or hang what needs to be hanged. Bring it to the family room and everyone can take and fold and put away what is theirs when they get home. (That last part takes five minutes for each person- tops). The next morning put in the next load. If you really need more than 7 loads a week- do an extra one on Sunday.