laundry room etiquette

[Anonymous]

opinions? i often have to take clothes of the dryers in our laundry room in order to use them. sometimes people leave their dry clothes in the dryers for long periods of time. anyway, sometimes people will come in when i am moving their laundry and they are obviously annoyed at me. i don't think that is fair. i am a single mom and i have to drag dd into the laundry room with me and i always keep a timer running so that i don't leave my laundry lying around. they are wrong, right?

[Anonymous]

I think it's fine to move it if all the dryers are full and people just leave their stuff in there.

[Anonymous]

If the dryer is done, they have no further claim to the space. I try to put the clean laundry somewhere reasonably tidy, but that's the extent of your responsibility. My neighbor's cleaning lady actually removed my load 5 minutes before it had finished because she thought it felt dry enough. I had a big problem with that... she knows not to do it again.

[Anonymous]

As long as you wait a few minutes after the dryer is finished (they could be hurrying to get there), and put the clothes in a clean spot, I don't see the problem.

I used to put my laundry basket on top of my washing machine and right next to the dryer I was using. That way, if I was running late and someone needed it, they could just put my clothes in my basket.

[Anonymous]

I do the same pp... I leave my wheeled hampers under the folding counter...

the problem is when people move my stuff when it's not dry yet...

I HATE it!!!

my lease will be over in 3 months...
WD in unit will be a MUST HAVE for next lease.

[Anonymous]

22:57 here. Sometimes drainpipe issues in older buildings can make in-unit w/ds problematic. Sigh. I'm having a plumber and engineer come over next week to give me their opinion on whether or not it can be done in our building. An assessment in '87 said no, but if they say yes considering how water-efficient machines have become since then, I'm going to ask our board for permission. Fingers crossed. We have other families with kids in the building, but their cleaning ladies handle the mountain of laundry.

[Anonymous]

I used to give a person 30-minutes to get their finished clothing out of the dryer or washer.

[Anonymous]

That's very generous. I do about 12-15 loads a week, one after another on the weekends. Considering that's peak demand time in my building, it would slow everyone down a lot. I watch the timer, but those who don't accept that their laundry will be waiting somewhere clean outside the machine! No dirty looks for that in my building.

[Anonymous]

I whole-heartedly agree that if the dryer is done, you can remove someone else's laundry to put yours in -- but with one caveat. I recall back to my shared-laundry facility days -- I didn't mind people removing my clothes from the dryer if they were done and I didn't get there on time to remove them - but I DID get rather irritated if my clothese were not yet dry and someone removed them -- even if the dryer was done. That meant that I had to wait until their load was done in order to put the clothes back in to complete drying. I agree with PP's who said to give the person a reasonable amount of time to get to their laundry before you remove it (maybe 15 minutes).

This post has made me once again appreciate having my own washer and dryer! I don't miss the days I spent without...

[Anonymous]

I think it's fair to wait a few minutes after the machine is finished before moving the laundry to a clean place - when I lived in apartments with shared laundry facilities, I always set my oven timer so I'd remember to go back to get my things in time. Yes, it's frustrating when your laundry gets moved, but when there are two or three machines for dozens of apartments, you either need to be prompt in picking your things up or expect that they'll be moved by the time you eventually return.

[Anonymous]

People stole my dry clothes - and they were still HOT! So I never left anything unattended at that point. I sat and read some cheesy magazine, and as soon as my clothes were done, I was out of there!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People stole my dry clothes - and they were still HOT! So I never left anything unattended at that point. I sat and read some cheesy magazine, and as soon as my clothes were done, I was out of there!

That happened to me too.

[Anonymous]

My roommate had a really nice sweatshirt stolen in college. She proceeded to bat her eyes and chat her way down the halls with the guys in the dorm who were home at the time.... struck up a conversation with a guy she saw folding his laundry.... and watched him take her sweatshirt (and nothing else from her load, so it wasn't an accident) out of his basket and start to pack it for Xmas break. She claimed her sweatshirt and turned him in.

Slightly off topic but.... yes I do think your clothes will get stolen if you leave your laundry unattended. Plus what if some creep gets your underwear? Blech.

[Anonymous]

Depends on the kind of building and who goes in and out, I suppose. That's not likely to happen where I live now, but I might have worried more about places I lived when I was younger.

[Anonymous]

i think if I saw that the clothes were done, i might go back in 30 minutes to an hour to see if the clothes had been claimed from the dryer. If not, then I would proceed to empty the dryer.