Uninformed Washer Users

[speedqueen]

We have all seen the people who put their detergent in the fabric softener dispenser but what is the stupidest thing you have seen a person do while operating a washer.

Yesterday at the local laundromat I saw a lady filling the bleach dispenser of a new Maytag commercial 20 pound HE front loader with Clorox toilet bowl cleaner. I cannot imagine what the hoses look like in that washer.

What ridiculous things have you seen people do to with their washers?

 

[dustin92]

Where do I start? Overloading so the clothes are touching the lid on a whirlpool DD, then dumping a capful of cheap detergent on top and washing the lot in cold water, using literally half a gallon of bleach on a load, just dumping detergent without measuring. Once saw someone at a laundromat layer each item into the front loader individually, so the clothes were packed like a puzzle, then added a tiny dab of liquid detergent and washed in (you guessed it...) cold. Saw someone once dry 3 large loads in a standard capacity laundromat dryer. And... drumroll please.... Saw a laundromat attendant (drop off laundry) put a load in a triple load front loader, then added two different brands of liquid detergent, one of powder, oxiclean, liquid bleach, and downy, all in one load. All directly into the drum before starting the machine. On cold water.

 

[norgeway]

Some people...

In the words of my late Dad, Could tear up a anvil!!! Mostly oversudzing...I saw people in the laundromat putting whole cups of tide in a front loader...Cheer too, them fuss at the owner of the laundry when suds ran everywhere!! I have also seen people pour Clorox directly on dry clothes..but the most awful thing ever...and this is nasty,.I knew a woman who took care of her elderly father ...I have seen...believe it or not, the washer full of clothes...with turds floating on top!!no lie!She didnt even clean them out when he had an accident...this is the same person I saw make a cake with the cat setting beside the mixer on the counter..You can BET I wouldnt drink a Coke in the bottle out of that house!!!

 

[dustin92]

..... And I thought it was nasty when the odd piece of food got washed with the kitchen rags at work! Occasionally find the odd piece of lettuce from the salad bar or similar, once found a handful of cheerios floating in the washer, but nothing like that! YUCK!

 

[friscosudz]

Once, while living in San Francisco, I was doing laundry at a laundromat about a block from my apartment. It was brand new, and the whole place was outfitted with Dexter stacked washer/dryer units. They had a 30b washer on the bottom, and a large dryer stacked on top. The girl apparently couldn't tell the washers from the dryers. She put her dirty clothes in the dryer, and then proceeded to pour a cap full of detergent into the dispenser that was attached to the washer underneath. The washer was already in use and in it's final spin. As soon as the detergent hit the spinning drum, it burst into a big cloud of foam and oversized back out of the dispenser. The man who was using the washer was clearly not impressed, but he didn't say anything to her. She then fiddled about with the controls for several minutes, trying to figure out how to use the card pay system, and still not understanding why nothing was happening. She finally took her dirty clothes back out of the dryer and left. The guy had to rewash his load to get all of the soap out of it. LOL.

 

[wringingwet]

only in SC

I was doing laundry during a house renovation and a man came in looked around and thru his clothes in a Bosch extractor, pour detergent all over it and put in the 50 cents ... well when it stopped he was so disgusted he took the clothes out and complained about the washing ability out loud cussing the whole time. I was clear the man could not read at all.

 

[iheartmaytag]

I pulled a stupid recently

Now I have had my machine for five years so am familiar with it's operation. Around Christmas I was washing a load of whites. I wasn't paying attention and put a cap full of Tide Free & Clear in the fabric softener dispenser by accident.

Had to remove the drawer and flush everything out.

***********
I was at the laundry and saw a woman put her child up in the washer to stomp the clothes down so she could get more in the top load Speed Queen. I swear some of the clothes didn't even get wet. I heard the owner tell her not to do that again or she couldn't come back.

 

[mayken4now]

PeterH

Pipe in.  I am sure you have some challenging stories about your machines!

 

[gmmcnair]

In my younger years as a laundromat user, I have seen:

A woman put unflushed poopy cloth diapers in a washer and not clean it out after she was done. Sad thing is, the washing machine afterwards smelled better than her and her family.

People put 1 1/2 cups of Tide into a single load Philco Bendix front loader and stand by looking vacant as suds boiled out of the dispenser at the top.

A young woman walk into the laundromat....pack three loads into a solid tub Speed Queen, glug in detergent on top, glug in softener on top, set the machine to Cold and start it, and then complain that the ancient washers were crap and never got anything clean.

At home, the stupidest thing I have done to date is mix up the detergent and softener bottles while on narcotic pain killers. I had the Purex Natural Elements products, and they looked a little too much alike for someone semi-whacked on Vicodin.

 

[mrb627]

Detergent and Softener

I noticed a video on YT recently of someone loading and starting a machine. They added detergent and softener to the wash water then hit the second rinse button. I think it was a Whirlpool DD video.

Malcolm

 

[toploader1984]

Not toilet cleaner

Clorox has a new bleach for he washers small dispensers, it is similar to the toilet cleaner bottole, it is splashless and has an ez pour spout.

 

[toploader1984]

Bottle

Specially made for he washers

 

[whirlykenmore78]

Where do I start?

During many trips to the Laundromat this is just some of what I've seen.

1/2 bottle of Tide poured into a 40# Ipso. The poor machine could not even spin properly.

20# of laundry put in a 60# SQ and the guy wondered why washing his clothes was so F---ing expensive.

A load big enough to fill a 40# machine in a TL SQ. The machine did break from this.

A woman using a WHOLE BOTTLE of Tide and Suavitel for 2 40# and 1 60# load.

A throw up blanket that had not been de-chunked thrown in a washer.

Cell phone in the Wascomat.

Washing everything together and of course on cold.

Exploding pillows, feathers everywhere.
WK78

 

[speedqueen]

Gel Bleach

I stand corrected!

I have to say that decision by Clorox to reuse the same packaging was a little cheap. I am sure that quit a few people have already confused it like me.

 

[cornutt]

People who didn't believe the signs at the Norge Village telling you not to dry foam rubber items in the dryer. And then they'd put it on High, which was only good for linens, and even then sometimes it would scorch them. Needless to say, foam rubber pillows went up in flames very quickly.

 

[washer111]

I know of an older guy who is notorious for the following in his nearly 20yo Fisher and Paykel TL machine:

- Stuffing it so full there is no turnover (mixing bedsheets, towels {used for weeks}, everyday, dirty clothes {farmer}), never splitting loads into different clothes types.
- Using cold water for these filthy loads.*

*Since using hot water would waste electricity, even with solar heated water! A typically Australian thing, from the constant BS marketing from the "cold water" detergent manufacturers.

Other people:

-Using pods with half loads of laundry. This has the dreadful side effect (particularly with towels) of causing dreadful oversudsing. Of course, they also use a lot of fabric softener, because of our hard water. The loads are washed in tepid water, too. (Its also a Daewoo machine that can't tell if its sudslocked...)
-Filling up the fabric softener dispenser as much as possible with concentrate softener...
-Thinking washing in warm and hot is a complete waste, and highly un-necessary
-Not using the 'extra rinse' option on their laundry, because "I don't want it to waste water" (even though there are too many suds in the rinse)
-Running dreadfully empty or jaw-droppingly overloaded washes...

 

[twinniefan]

20 year old F&P

Washer 111, the amazing part of that story is how the F&P has lasted so long!, maybe F&P should recruit him to use in their next advertising campaign.

The worst situation I ever came across was my neighbour's then 16 year old daughter doing the family wash for the first and then the last time.

She quite merrily went along and stuffed 15 bath towels into their then already old Simpson 6 or so kg top loader, needless to say you can imagine what happened, the agitator could not even move and about halfway through the torture of the machine, it had a mechanical heart attack and went to washer heaven.

She was never allowed to do the laundry again.

 

[whirlcool]

Steve:

I know people who would do something like that just to teach you a lesson, NEVER ask them to do ANYTHING! EVER! It will always be a disaster with those kind. No matter how simple, they'll find a way to screw it up.

EEEWW! Toilet Bowl cleaner in a washing machine. Even worse, the turds in the wash water would be even worse! Yuck!

I'm pretty lucky. The only thing I really see people do is overloading machines. I mean overload FL machines so much they use their foot to press it all down in there. Then after the machine is filled with water you can tell that the center of the load in there is not even wet.

Washing everything together in one load. Whites, Colors, Throw Rugs, Bath Towels, Car Wash Rags, Tea towels, everything you can think of in one load.

 

[arbilab]

In this building full of pathetic geezers, a PAID housekeeper stuffed a coinop Maytag TL so full the lid wouldn't close and when it tried to spin the burning belt set off the fire alarm. Multiple instances of putting so much soap into the FL that it hurled all over the floor.

Gawd knows what bodily blowby gets stuffed into those machines. I used them only once, with an empty hot/bleach cycle first. Then spent a week on the internet and bought a Chinese twinny I could smuggle in and disguise as a stack of boxes. (Personal laundry eqpt is forbidden and staff regularly overturns our subsistence cubicles like Law & Order with a warrant looking for contraband. And bedbugs.)

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

And I thought my wife loading up our Hotpoint at our apartment made me yell "Hey!"... And she'd never operated another inter-active appliance like a washer, dryer, dishwasher--and later, our range--ever again!

Somehow the skit on THE ELECTRIC COMPANY of these men loading--OVERloading, actually--"Six Washers, in all their '70's Avocado splendor", seems less funny...

-- Dave

 

[washer111]

@twinniefan

Only trouble is, its been washing for two for about 10 of those, then one again for another couple, then two again for several more years to this point. So it probably only runs once, maybe twice each week. Dare I say it, there's a chance it runs even less than that...
Where is located (farm laundry), there are mice around and about. Its had wiring and other stuff replaced before as a result of this. Something of a miracle there hasn't been a fire just yet. LOL

Tonight I witnessed a laundry sin as was mentioned above:
- Load of towels.
- User added about 1/2 cap worth of stain remover
- Then added a scoop of detergent
- And a reasonably liberal splash of fabric softener. All at once
Only redeeming factor was the warm wash...

I was told the fabric softener dispenser doesn't work correctly. It i*is* one of those weird LG things... It felt like my insides were on fire(!) {Isn't this OCD or something?}
Reasoning with said user didn't work, either, "I think I know how to do the laundry. Its all clean!" Apparently, the user doesn't realize I also do laundry *AND* participate on AutomaticWasher, "The World's Coolest Washing Machines, dishwashers and dryers," and am therefore rather knowledgeable about washing after countless "experiments," as well as detergent threads and performance-testing threads...

 

[supersurgilator]

At the laundromat I've seen a lady add detergent and softener together in the wash, and another fill a front load dexter with colored clothes then added regular bleach. Is what gets me is the overdrying in the dryers. A commercial dryer takes roughly 30 minutes to dry a load and people load one up and put 60 to 90 minutes worth of time on it.

 

[logixx]

If you pay for a washer at our local laundromat, you will immediately be given a premeasured dose of detergent. I don't think (hope) anyone turns down using pro detergent that's already been paid for, thus oversudsing isn't much of an issue a this laundromat. Dryers can only be run for 30 minutes at a time.

 

Still... that doesn't stop people from overloading, kicking doors shut or drying shoes alongs with other laundry.

 

[mark_wpduet]

Some of these stories

have made me lose faith in a lot of humanity. This is why I'm the only one that does laundry. I haven't really experienced anything crazy because I rarely have ever had to go to a laundromat, but my cousin would always overload the wash and when you were visiting and took a shower, you could smell the towels were not clean. I HATED drying off on one of those towels so I brought my own.

1/2 gallon of bleach for a load of clothes? I'd die if I saw that.....and the poop. UGH, that's just nasty nasty nasty.

 

[whirlcool]

Personally, I think a lot of this strange behavior is the result of people being either too cheap or too lazy to do things the proper way. They figure why should I spend the money for 6 loads when I can squeeze everything into two!

And then they think, well it's been washed in the washer so it must be clean!

 

[tolivac]

I sort of remember a video shown on here a few years ago where someone at a laundromat was trying to wash hard side suitcases in a SQ washer!Other folks in the laundry were amused by the washers lid bobbing up and down-and the trampy girls thought to have been running that load.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

Let me add my 2cents.

I've seen people using the incorrect cycle, stuff the machine, dump a ton of laundry detergent and fabric softener in the tup on top of the clothes, seen people add bleach directly to fabrics, then blame the machine. When I'd correct the settings to where they should be, they'll switch it back to a gentle cycle even when they have a load of durable everyday fabrics and say it doesn't matter and things will be fine as long as they get washed. Excuse me, but why are their multiple fabric selections and temps which you can customize? And yet they wonder why they have problems with their machine.

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

Thankfully I haven’t really seen

Any laundromat horror stories, although a very frequent occurrence that happens that my work is people always put the detergent into the fabric softener dispenser so I have to run into the cafe flush it out with hot water and then walk back from the cafe with the clean detergent dispenser draw, It’s honestly kind of annoying but some people don’t learn I guess,If worse comes to worse, I’ll ask them to throw the powder directly into the drum, When it comes to work laundry,I always put it on a quick cycle But I change the temperature, I always put it on the hottest setting for any Terry cloths as they can tolerate it, Any microfibre cloth I put on at about 40° and window cloths are normally put as 30, They frequently change detergents around depending on what’s available, it even maybe the bag of commercial detergent or the El Cheapo powder detergent, At the moment they use fabric softener, but I’ll probably ask them to change to vinegar, By the way, All of the washing and drying equipment Is domestic equipment

 

[gelaundry4ever]

wrong cycle

It really drives me crazy when people use the incorrect cycle when they could just simply change the temperature. For example, I've seen people use delicate when all they could simply do is just change the temp to cold. This is with washers with separate fabric selections or a cycle you could dial in and simply customize the temperature. Or, I've seen people do a speed wash cycle on a big load. And once again, it's always blame the machine. They complain the normal cycle is too aggressive or too long and the only time they'll use it is for very dirty clothes.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

besides

I do what most appliance fans do. Check and recheck just to make sure everything's up to par and watch the machine through the windows. Everything must go according to the fabric type, color and soil contents. That's how it works.