Laundry Room Etiquette

When folks ask me the downside to moving to NYC or what I don't like, I have to think hard.  I really like living here most days.  I enjoy the energy of the city, the fact that there is always something going on here - both good things and bad.   When you pick up a newspaper no matter what city you are in, you will find at least one story about something going on in NYC; whether it be the mayor outlawing large sodas,  Beyonce's baby's latest outing, or a visiting foreign Prime Minister looking for a UN sanction or two.  99.9 % of the time, things are pretty hunky dory.

But if I am forced to admit something I am not thrilled with, I pretty much always say the same thing.  I hate the fact that we don't have a washing machine and dryer in our apartment.  When we moved here that was high on my list of must-haves in our apartment but as often happens, I had to change my priorities.  Quite frankly, about 75% of the apartments I looked at did not have washing machines.  So I altered it to requiring a laundry room in the building. I am past the age of schlepping my laundry down the block to do at a laundromat or don't necessarily want to spend the money to send our laundry out.   And I really wasn't willing to pass on our apartment which was pretty much the best we saw because I didn't have laundry in our apartment.   So I adjusted.  Truthfully, it really isn't that bad.  The worst part is taking the laundry down the 24 flights in the elevator.  I always take a few moments before I get in the elevator and "adjust" our laundry, making sure our dainty underthings are not on view for the entire building to see. 

As far as laundry rooms go, the one in our building is not so bad.  I saw a few when we were apartment so I have some experience.  The room is pretty big and bright.  There are 8 front loading washing machines and two supersized machines.  The same for dryers, 8 dryers and 2 supersized dryers. 

I pride myself on being a good "laundry neighbor".   Since I have a pretty flexible schedule, I try to do my laundry during the day so as to keep the laundry room free in the evenings for those people who have little choice when to do their laundry.  I rarely do laundry on the weekends for the same reason.  I don't use all the machines at one time.  I have come in sometimes when the same person is there using all 8 regular sized machines.  Usually I do two loads at a time and if I have more to do, I wait until those 2 are done then I put 2 more in the same machines.  I always empty my lint trays after dryer loads.  I don't move laundry out of the machines.  I don't want people touching my laundry so I don't touch other people's laundry.  That being said, I also set up a timer so I know when my laundry will be done.  I don't necessarily want to hang out in the laundry room waiting for my laundry to be done, so I usually drop it and come back when my timer goes off.  But I will say, there are some that will leave their laundry in the machines for hours, sometimes (ugh) days.    

I try hard to be considerate.  Sometimes some of my neighbors don't try as hard.   Recently, I was in the laundry room and of course, one of the machine hogs was there, using 6 of the 8 machines.  I came in just as she was putting her detergent in, like an assembly line.  I used the 2 machines left.  When I came back with my next two loads, I put my basket on the two machines I had used while I was putting my wet clothes in the dryer.  I turned around just to see another woman start to use the machines I had "marked".  Mind you, there were 6 other open machines after the machine hog had finished and was now using  6 dryers!  I pointed out to her that I had those machines.  She gave me a big eye-roll and sigh.  So I put my second loads in the machines and realized I missed a shirt that needed to go in the dryer.  I go back to the dryer, put the shirt in, turn around to get my basket off the washing machine just in time to see another woman yanking on the door of my machine, which is currently running.  These machines are not quiet and while they are running they have big red numbers on them indicating how much time is left.  I could see from across the room I had 32 minutes left.  All the yanking on the door, caused the machine to stop.  I went over to the woman and said "this machine is taken".  She looked right in my eyes and said "I didn't touch it"!.  I had just seen her pulling on the door.  I just looked at her then slammed against the machine, got the door to close all the way and the machine restarted.    No, "I am sorry" or anything.  Just lied straight to my face and moved on. 

All in all, I love New York City.  I have seen nothing of the "mean streets" of New York that you hear so much about.  Now the "mean laundry rooms", that's another matter!  It is kill or be killed in there.  I am hoping it won't harden me. Time will tell.