The way in which I was able to enjoy using a GM Frigidaire washer in the mid-1960's was totally by chance.
We had moved into a flat on the east slope of Parnassus Avenue in SF. The landlord and his family lived upstairs. He said his wife got tired of the washer and they put it down on the ground level, in the garage area, on a little landing. It was turquoise, and I've been able to identify it by my memory of the green rubber agitator cap as being a late 1950's model.
Anyway, one of its quirks was that it could very easily become unbalanced, trip the cutoff switch, and then I'd come down expecting my load to be finished and have to restart it. The landlord said it had always been a problem, and that they had it repaired several times but it still had trouble with spins. So she banished it to what amounted to the basement, and I assume he got her some other better behaved brand to replace it in their flat.
In the washer's defense, I never really read the owner's manual (hey, I was about 13 years old) and didn't follow the "sectioning" advice it most likely contained. Also I would load it with everything from my room: twin bed sheets, pants, shirts, underwear, towels, the works. All in one load. Usually the pants and the sheets would twist into rope, and that probably exacerbated the spin balance issue.
Still it was fascinating to watch it in action. I spent many hours down there watching it go. The turnover was always great. It wasn't until we were about to move out (we stayed there a year) that my brother showed me how you could pull off that rubber cap and add detergent. I had just been adding the detergent to the laundry,. Never did know about the lint filter in there, either.
Of course I'd love to have that machine today. Who knows what eventually happened to it. I still know the building where we lived... maybe it's still there... ;-)
