Spin spin sugar

I was at my friends Jane and Jeff’s place last night as they were packing for their trip to Scotland. I’m feeding their cats while they’re gone, so I was over to learn the ropes. Jeff was running back and forth to their laundry room getting the last few loads in and that’s how we got on the topic of laundry room etiquette.

Anyone who’s lived in a dorm, an apartment building, or a multi-apartment house has had to deal with the dreaded coin-operated laundry machines. But does anyone actually know the etiquette about how to share these machines with their neighbours? Are there actually a concrete set of rules?

There are a couple situations to consider:

• If someone leaves their laundry sitting in a machine when it’s done, does another person have the right to take it out?
• You have one machine, but need to do two loads; you come back to flip your laundry, but someone is sitting there waiting for an empty machine.  Is it the equivalent of putting money on a pool table to reserve the next game? Or is it yours because you’re already using it?

Personally, I hate when people take my clothes out of the machines, especially if they’re wet. That’s why I try my best to get back as soon as the spin cycle is done. However, I’m not against removing someone’s clothing if I’ve gone back five times to see it still sitting in the same place after an hour. One time I was so frustrated that I left a note telling the person how inconsiderate they were. Had I run into them reading it though, I would definitely have pretended it wasn’t me.

Jeff actually had to deal with the second scenario last night. He had two washing machines, went down with two more loads, but only put one in because an older gentleman was sitting, waiting for a washer to open up. I think this makes Jeff a good neighbour.

I guess all laundry room etiquette would be obsolete if everyone just waited patiently by their occupied machines, but who wants to do that when they could be relaxing on their couch?

This was kind of a weird post, I know, but if anyone has any laundry room advice, please feel free to share!

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