Like it or not we all wear clothes and so we all have to do our own
laundry occasionally. It is at times an unwelcomed fact of everyday life and can be a stressful, nerve wracking and unpleasant task. We need to set aside a certain amount of time to ensure that our clothes will get the proper attention they need.
The stress of the moment is especially challenging if you are a tenant residing in an apartment complex that has one washer and two dryers to service sixteen family apartment units. Lacking a set laundry time the tenant faces a first come first served situation. You depend on the goodwill of your fellow tenants to not hog the machines and do their laundry in an orderly manner.
People can make or break the laundry experience. The size or the condition of the room housing the machines is irrelevant. The manner in which fellow tenants use the room is the key. If you are fortunate enough to reside with considerate tenants the laundry experience will be a snap. Otherwise you will dread having to do the weekly task.
In my situation a few laundry room regulars monopolize the available machines and truly spend three to four hours a week doing laundry during peak time that could just as well be handled during off hours. The baskets of dirty laundry are stacked high on the machines and the limited shelf space the room provides.
Tempers sometimes flare when a tenant needing only the washing machine to wash a few needed items tries to negotiate with another tenant who has settled in for the duration. My neighbor Candice tried valiantly a short time ago to convince one laundry room hoarder that she needed the machine to only wash a few items for work. Her pleas fell on deaf ears as the woman she was trying to influence spoke no English.
My personal pet peeve concerns those folks who use either the washer and the dryers and then forget to remove their laundry from the machines when the cycle has completed. Sometimes hours pass before the offending tenant returns to remove their items.
One such offender left clothes in the dryer for six hours. Fellow tenants wait patiently for such people to remove their laundry. I am often tempted to take their clothes and then place it on top of another machine while I do my own laundry. I also consider the fact that reprisals could be set against my own laundry.
Other laundry room regulars use the metallic garbage container in the room to discard their soiled baby diapers, pizza boxes, feminine sanitary napkins, half consumed submarine sandwiches , and a host of similarly disgusting objects. Signs are placed on the room's bulletin boards requesting tenants not do this but to no avail.
I spoke with the on site manager for my apartment unit but he assured me that signs, threats, and other types of coercion will not work or will work for only a short time.
He told me monitoring the laundry room hours of operation at times prove productive. The cutoff time for doing laundry is 10 p.m. Some folks try to ignore this deadline but the resident manager added that he unplugs the machine and locks the door to the room. He says this does help to educate the offender. It is an answer to one problem.
Public laundry facilities belong to all tenants and it is unfortunate that a few of them ignore the rules of courtesy and good conduct and make life difficult for the rest. It is a fact of life that some folks try to beat the system by creating their own schedules and rules.
