It happened at the Laund-ro-Mat

[toggleswitch2]

As someone mentioned, my abosolute favorite is when the sorting takes place there in the facility.

Uhm why not do that is at home?

When, half-an-hour later, the stuff is all sorted and assigned to the half-dozen machines..... the client then LEAVES the laudromat to go buy detergent... and of course softener. Then sticks a large bill into the coin changer for quarters.

No concept of other people. That 30 to 45 minutes of hogging machines without inserting quarters means the owner lost out in income from another set of loads in those machines, and other clients were inconvenienced.

 

[mattywashboy]

I remember one very humorous laundromat experience i had in melbourne. A guy came along and put his medium sized load in a front loader Dexter. He then proceeded to put a healthy dose of top loader liquid INTO THE FABRIC SOFTENER DISPENSER. I was like hmmmmm, say something or not. Didn't say something but was walking out the door just as the final rinse began and the suds began to rise. I bet he put it all in the dryer none the less, tried not to think about it too much lol

 

[cornutt]

Toggles, I always did my sorting at the laundry. They had these nice big tables just for the purpose. Much more room than in my apartment.

They solved the customer-without-detergent problem by selling detergent on the premises. And not those tiny vending-machine boxes either; regular-size grocery store boxes. I recall that they had Tide and another brand, maybe Cheer, fabric softener, and Calgon. And it was sold at a price competitive with the grocery stores. They made a fair bit of money on that; I bought detergent from them a few times myself.

 

[mixergal]

Some of my earlies memories

are at the laundromat. I remember going there with my mother as a little girl in the mid-70's. I would (try to) help her sort and fold the clothes, but mostly my brother and I would stay out of her way. She would slowly dole out coins to us for the jukebox, candy machines, etc. I remember the laundromat being quite the "event" in out household. My poor mom - a single lady with two kids trying to go to college and work.... it was quite a taxing chore to have to drag us all down to the laundromat. She always did it with a smile, though - even though I know now she must have been exhausted!

As soon as she bought our house in 1980 - the first thing she bought was a used washer and dryer - what a luxury! By that time I was 10 or 11 and old enough that I could actually be a help to her. She and I would do laundry and chat - (sigh)....

I miss my mom and that old house. She sold everything last year and moved to Texas with her "shuga daddy". I'm happy for her, but I miss her too

I wish I knew what that old machine we had was. We got it in 1980, and it was at least 10 years old at the time. I remember it had a turquoise swirling vane agitator - I would shove my pinky finger down in the door latch so I could watch the washer go through its cycles. So fascinating!

OK, I'll stop now - but such good memories!

-Sherri

PS - the laundromat we used to go to isn't even a laundromat anymore. Now it's a Taekwondo dojo.

 

[earthling177]

Well, just to provide a slightly different point of view here, and I’m by no means saying it’s universal or the only correct one, just my experience living in the Boston area.

The worst laundromats I’ve visited are invariably around the "good" parts of towns, often with dirty, broken machines, lukewarm water (when there is any "hot" water) and people who treat the place as if it was their right to trash it -- they probably, but not always, own laundry equipment at home and only use the laundromats occasionally. Often, but not always, the best laundromats are in the places that have a denser and/or poorer population that knows they depend on a place that is in good working order and clean, so they treat the place with more respect; those places also invariably have plenty of very hot water.

One of the most extreme examples happened many many years ago, I was hanging out with a student at Northeastern University, and he was bitching about having to finish his laundry -- I went along and the dorm had all Miele commercial machines, that the students had no idea how to use (despite directions clearly posted) and were busy trashing the equipment.

Another funny example of reverse stereotypes that I've often seen at laundromats have to do with men/women: often the people who stuff everything inside one washer and run it on cold with way too much detergent are women, who then stuff the things in a dryer or two, dump everything in a bag and flee in a hurry; meanwhile, you look around and see many men separating clothes in different loads, measuring the chemicals and being careful not to slam the machine doors, then they dry and hang/fold everything.

Cheers,
-- Paulo.

PS: as for sorting at the laundromat, I've done that too, but at least I had the decency of doing that in a corner and letting the equipment free until I was ready to go... by the time I was in front of a machine is because I had all the chemicals, coins etc (including sorted loads) ready to go.

 

[whirlcool]

After reading this thread, I have noticed that there arean't as many coin laundries around as there used to be. I only know of two in this part or town.

We never really used the laundromat after leaving home. Before we got our washer and dryer, we'd bring our laundry to a friends house who had a washer & dryer and do the laundry there. Of course we were invited to do so. After we got our set, we allowed others to do the same. We only use the laundromat for big bulky things such as comforters.

My Mother used the laundromat for clothing from time to time, usually when it backed up on her and it would have taken forever to get done. Or she used to use those self service dry clean machines for drapes and such. You know, I haven't seen those dry clean machines for years. When did they stop making them?

 

[cornutt]

Self service dry clean

The laundry I used in college (it was a Norge Village back then) still had them when I was in college, in the early '80s. They weren't getting a lot of use by then; they had about 10 and I don't recall at that time ever seeing more than 2-3 in use at the time. They also had a large-capacity one which, from what I saw, was only ever used by the laundry itself (they had a drop-off dry cleaning and laundry service in addition to self service). When I came back to town in 1988, while I was waiting for an apartment, I went back in there to do some laundry and all of the dry cleaning machines were gone. There used to be a bunch of plumbing in a fenced-off area behind the building that was associated with the dry cleaning machines; you could smell the fluid when you walked by. It's all gone now. Last time I went by there, they still offered dry cleaning service, but I'm pretty sure they send it all out now.

 

[mistereric]

Norge Laundry Village i toured in northern NJ a few months back. All gone now.

http://www.ericdietrich.com/photos/index.php?album=excursions%2FNorge+Laundry+Village

 

[cycla-fabric]

Norge Village Coin Op

I remember those Norge Village Coin Op, we had one a few towns away and I remember when Mom's Maytag died in the beginning of summer, we would go there. They had those exact same Norge Dry Cleaning machines and they were working. They also had Westinghouse and Philco front loaders along with some Norge top loaders too. It was an old place but everything worked and it was fun to watch them all in action. Especially when some of the customers put too much soap in them.

 

[polkanut]

re: Posts 354186 & 354199

We don't use a comforter, and when I need to wash a bedspread, I wash and rinse it in my Speed Queen wringer, and then give it a spin in the automatic before hanging it to dry. Am I cheap SOB or what?

 

[whirlcool]

We have a Pakistani built laundry spinner that we use on our clothes. It really reduces the drying times, and when you line dry things that have been put in the spinner they dry within an hour.
We have noticed that towels that are put in the spinner before drying in the dryer do seem to be not as soft as the ones not spun before drying.

 

[mysteryclock]

Norge Village

We had a Norge Village in the town I grew up in complete with rotating polka-dot ball sign outside. I remember going there a few times and seeing my first FL washer. Fascinating!

 

[cornutt]

Eric, thanks for the photos. A lot of that looked familiar. Those dry cleaning machines were identical to the ones I remember from the Norge Village here. I always wondered what would make the "DO NOT USE" light go on -- did it tell the attendant to clean a filter or something? And the one here had those same hotter-than-hell Norge dryers.

When I was in college, the one here still had the original Norge top-loaders from the '60s. They had both standard capacity and large capacity ones. I recall that the standard capacity ones had a small panel on the front of the cabinet that contained a red light and a chrome lever. If the machine became unbalanced, the lever would go down and the red light would come on. To reset it, you needed to redistribute the load, close the lid, and then raise the chrome lever. Seems kind of odd now that I know something about washers -- I wonder what the purpose of the lever was? On the large capacity ones, if they became unbalanced, you just redistributed the load and closed the lid, and it started back up.

The laundry is still there, although of course it's not called a Norge Village any more, nor does it have any Norge machines. I may have to go over there sometime and see if I can sneak a pic of the interior.

 

[dblrinz]

My Favorite Laundromat Story

So I have been pretty lucky and have not needed to use a landromat that much...One summer during my college years I remained near campus so that I could continue working at my job. At this time Tuesday evenings seemed to be the most convenient time to do laundy so I would head over to Maggie's Maytag - at that point in my life I was a bit too serious and up tight, but non-the-less young and horny.

The first night at Maggies I am using a laundry table sorting my laundry and in walks this stunning looking late 20 something guy fresh from a baseball game with his army type laundry bag. Walks over and opens lids on two machines dumps half of his bag in one machine and half in the other...Then proceeds to take his shirt off revealing quite the "hard" body and put it in the machine. He heads over to the money changer and then to the detergent dispensor, starts his machines and leaves.

I remember it like it was yesterday. Lets just say it took me a while to regain my composure and remember that I was doing my laundry...This continued for almost all of the 3 months I went to Maggies...Good Times!