Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Laundry Etiquette

I don't know if there's some kind of rule about this sort of thing, but I got into a very heated discussion with my friend about laundry etiquette. We both live in small apartment complexes that have laundry rooms that you share with everyone else in the building.

His complaint? He thinks it's rude for people to move your stuff out of the dryer when it's still wet and put it in a ball in your laundry basket. Not when the dryer bell goes off, but when it's been sitting there overnight into the next morning. He thinks they should kind of lay the clothes in his basket, not just bunch them up in there. According to him, the clothes get more wrinkled if you just throw them in a ball in the basket.

My complaint? People that leave their laundry in the dryer! If he really cared about how wrinkly his clothes were, he'd get them out of the dryer when the buzzer goes off. I know I've lost track of time or just plain forgotten about my laundry while I'm doing it. I don't get upset if I go to the laundry room and someone has moved my stuff so they can finish their laundry. I feel bad that I forgot and made them do extra work! That's one of the main reasons I use a timer while doing laundry. So I don't forget to go down there and switch my laundry or get it out of the dryer.

He actually said that it was "inconsiderate" of people to just dump his clothes in the basket. I love my friend, but how can he really think that?

2 comments:

Pappy said...

You are correct, no question. It is bad enough when laundry gets left for 15 minutes (when dryer-space is so scarce), never mind overnight.

Sean said...

He's lucky that his clothes were there at all when he came back. I used to have to go to laundromats. All of them had signs posted about "not responsible for lost or stolen clothing". Of course, people would always leave clothes in the drier (or even washer) long after their time had elapsed.