Excited about heading back to school but dreading heading back to the loud, filthy mom-less laundry rooms? Well when you're sharing ancient home tech like community laundry rooms, take care to not break the machines and not leave your dorm-mates with sour towels or sour feelings...
Here are some tips to keep your communal laundry rooms—and your dorm-mate relationships—in clean and working condition. Even if you've grown up and out of college, you might still be living the urban life of shared washers and dryers, so listen up:
- Try to be there to remove your laundry as soon as the washing machine or dryer stops. If you've been waiting on a stopped machine with a neighbor's laundry in it, follow the lead of others around you and remove the offending load if it's the social norm to do so.
- The lint trap needs to be cleaned out regularly for the dryer to work properly. Check the lint trap before you dry a load and dump the lint in the trash. Even if you find it's never clean for you, try to clean out the lint trap after your load as well.
- Don't wash too big of loads. If they're overloaded, the old and overused machines could break or overflow, pissing off both your dorm-mates and your R.A.. If you have to wash large items like a rug or comforter, do so with care and under observation. Bring your homework or something. Your GPA will thank you.
Image of Illinois State University laundry room from soundfromwayout @ Flickr with a Creative Commons license.
The Roeders' Modern Life is Beautiful 
How To Keep Your Bathroom Clean In 5 Minutes A Day
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Harlequin Mexican Tile
Shopping for Ice Cream Makers: 5 Models We've Reviewed
How to Cook Moist & Tender Chicken Breasts Every Time
Comments (3)
Set a timer to remind you to go get your laundry. Having to fish someone else's skanky undies out of the washer so you can wash your own stuff is really annoying. Most washers have 30 minute run times, most dryers have 45-90 minute runtimes.
Depending on what type of washers they are you either need a stack of quarters or always $5 in your wallet. The dorm I use to live in had a machine that had a card you had to buy for $20 and could only refill with $5 bills. :(
Also doing laundry really early is best. On the weekends or late nights every washer and dryer is always full!
When I lived in the dorms, there were four washing machines and eight dryers. Many times, I would trek down two flights of stairs and find that someone, one single person, had taken up all four washers. >_< After one semester, I moved out of the dorms into a household with no on-site laundry facilities. So I have to go to a laundromat. Unfortunately, the people who frequent the laundromat that I go to like to take up multiple (more than three) washers and/or dyers at a time. I've had to wait for washers and dryers to become available on numerous occasions. T_T
And I totally agree that people should be prompt when it comes to taking their recently washed or dried laundry out of the machines. I honestly don't feel comfortable touching other people's property without permission, let alone their undergarments. Luckily, the employees that run the laundromat will do it for me if the laundry has been in the machine too long and the owners don't claim them right away. :D