Shared laundry facility - etiquette?

[Frank Cox]

In my mother's apartment building there's a laundry facility with two washing machines and two dryers on each floor for use of the residents. I generally do my mother's laundry on Wednesday (today) and a situation came up that leads to a question for anyone who's used shared laundry facilities before. (New situation for me; I've never been in this position before.)

I check the laundry room, both washing machines are in use. I check again several minutes later and one machine is finished, but the user's clothes are still in the machine. I go back to the apartment, gather the laundry, return to the laundry room about ten minutes later and the clothes are still in the washing machine.

What do I do now, in view of the fact that I have laundry I want to get done sooner than later?

I just moved the clothes into one of the dryers and didn't see anything that looked like it was going to melt so I started the dryer, then got my mother's laundry into the washing machine and started that.

Now I'm wondering if I did the right thing. Should I have just moved the clothes into the dryer but not started it running? Should I have piled the clothes somewhere else (where?) and not put them into the dryer at all?

For myself, I have timed those washing machines and dryers so I know how long to wait before going back to get the stuff but it appears that at least one other person on that floor just leaves her stuff in the washing machine for an unknown period of time after it's finished the cycle. She probably shouldn't have done that either, but how long are you supposed to wait for the other guy to finish with a shared facility like that?

I don't want to get any of the other residents mad at me, but I also want to get this laundry done....

[Leo Enticknap]

The last time I was in this situation was when I was a student over two decades ago, but then it was as you say: if someone was not there to get their stuff out of a washer or dryer when the cycle finished, the next in line could pull it out and put it on top of their bag or basket, if they'd left one, or on top of the machine if they hadn't. At peak times, it was considered very bad manners not to be there when your cycle finished.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I guess the etiquette really is something that has been agreed upon locally. Have you checked the walls in that place for any regulations regarding the usage of the facility? In general, I'd say, the policy is that you don't touch other's stuff, although I can understand the frustration of someone blocking a machine, especially if that someone has more time at his/her hand than you.

In any case, I wouldn't have switched-on the dryer, as it is hard to impossible for me to judge what stuff can be dried mechanically and what not.

[Randy Stankey]

I think it's fine for a person to start their laundry on a cycle and go some place else while the machine runs but common courtesy dictates that they come back in time, before the cycle is finished or, at least, a short time after. Like ten or fifteen minutes. After that, fair's fair.

If the person left a laundry basket, put the clothes in there. If there is a wheeled cart in the laundry room, use that.
I suppose you could put the clothes into another machine such as a dryer but that begs the question. If the other person was rude enough to leave laundry inside a machine, one time, why would they be courteous enough to take it out of the dryer, as well? You could find yourself in a situation where there are two stopped dryers, full of somebody else's clothes while yours are sopping wet, inside the stopped washer with no place to put them.

In that case, it's okay to put them on a clean table or on top of one of the other machines if you wipe it off, first.

If the other person doesn't like it, that's their problem. They should have come back in time.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

The whole laundry issue revolves around the fact that the washer cycle is 30 minutes +- while the dryer takes 1 hour. Therefore there should be 2 driers for each washer for this facility to operate efficiently.

I doubt that this is the case in most apartment or dormitory installations. Check out the local laundromat and see the ratio of driers to washers.

[Frank Angel]

Hey Frank...Have always been an apartment dweller, and even without any formal rules, it seem that it is universally understood that 1) it is perfectly acceptable to leave the laundry room while the wash is cycling, but 2) you be sure you time your machines so that you get back there to deal with your sheet when the cycle is over. Naturally as does happen -- as in your case -- someone miscalculates or gets distracted or whatever and you find a machine that you need is occupied with finished clothes. The rule that I've seen everyone seems to understand instinctively, and it really is just common sense, is that you cen remove those errant clothes so that you can use the washer. You can remove them and put them in the basket that they left there or the folding table if there is one. If there IS no basket or laundry bag or whatever, then, yes putting them in a free dryer is acceptable -- in other words, no one will fault a tenant for freeing up a machine that they need to do your business.

Where I think you may have miscalculated a bit would be that you put the cloths in the dryer and started the cycle. Many people would see that as a helping gesture for them, but there probably are an ornery few would would see that as a bit of an intrusion; some people are very particular -- especially nowadays when all laundry washers and dryers have control panels like a jet cockpit with a thousand choices. You could easily find someone who would see your starting the dryer, not as a helping hand, but as a passive-aggressive act. Most people wouldn't, but there would be that risk...there are enough assholes on legs walking around that I would say, why chance it? Best to take the cloths out and just leave them where you can.

If there is no accompanying basket or if there is no folding table in your laundry room, then yes, perfectly OK to put them in the dryer, just don't start it. This of course doesn't fully solve your dilemma in that, if your wash cycle finishes and the owner of said laundry hasn't yet shown up, then you have to swap TWO loads of laundry back and forth between machines to get a free dryer, although I've never run into that extreme. Most people are responsible enough about "laundry etiquette" and they are smart enough to not want bleach to somehow mysteriously spill on their pile of laundry. If this kind of thing happens frequently, you might wan to ask the super to put up a sign that says cloths should be removed from the machines in a timely manner once the cycle is finished.

[Frank Cox]

Thanks for the input, guys. This was the first time in the five months that my mother has been in this apartment that this situation arose, so as you can image I was at a bit of loss for what to do. Hopefully it won't happen again but if it does, now I have a better idea of how to approach it while creating the least amount of friction.

I've always just had my own washing machine so it's the first time I've had to deal with a shared facility and it never occurred to me that this could come up until, of course, it did.

[Leo Enticknap]

The whole laundry issue revolves around the fact that the washer cycle is 30 minutes +- while the dryer takes 1 hour.

And that's the best case scenario. It can take double that on a low heat/long time cycle. I'm probably going to be flamed for sexism here, but in my student days, the nightmare scenario was if a lady was ahead of me in the process, who decided to do all her clothes in one washer cycle, and then divide them up into two or three dryer cycles, each of varying temperatures and duration. The very low heat for two hours cycle would block a dryer for the duration of four washer cycles, and you can imagine the wait time that caused.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

Picky, picky. Leo!

[Marcel Birgelen]

And that's the best case scenario. It can take double that on a low heat/long time cycle. I'm probably going to be flamed for sexism here, but in my student days, the nightmare scenario was if a lady was ahead of me in the process, who decided to do all her clothes in one washer cycle, and then divide them up into two or three dryer cycles, each of varying temperatures and duration. The very low heat for two hours cycle would block a dryer for the duration of four washer cycles, and you can imagine the wait time that caused.

I guess it was just a move for you to impress those same ladies with your extreme laundry drying skills, why else would any student spend hours and hours in the local launderette?

[James Westbrook]

The laundromat near my house has been replacing their single dryer units with units that have two dryers in them. Stacked one on top of the other. One dryer usually can accept three loads of laundry. I know one of the employees who cleans and performs light maintenance there and she told me the really small socks, like kids or the ones women wear with low cut shoes... she finds these in the lint filters when she cleans them.

[Leo Enticknap]

I wonder how the lint filter clean-out is handled in laundromat (USA) / laundrette (Europe) scale, industrial dryers. The filter in the consumer one in my house has to be cleaned out after each cycle. My wife doesn't believe me when I tell her this, with the result that she will sometimes do three or four dryer cycles over the course of a day, and then complain that the thing isn't drying stuff properly by the time she gets to the third or fourth. Moisture is getting blocked by the accumulated crap, and is then being recirculated back into the drum by the resulting airflow routes, I guess.

Obviously it would be impractical for the need to clean a filter after every cycle in a commercial unit, so there must be some other way of solving that problem.

[Randy Stankey]

My wife doesn't believe me when I tell her this, with the result that she will sometimes do three or four dryer cycles over the course of a day, and then complain that the thing isn't drying stuff properly by the time she gets to the third or fourth. Moisture is getting blocked by the accumulated crap, and is then being recirculated back into the drum by the resulting airflow routes, I guess.

The other problem: Dryer fires!

Yes! If you don't clean the lint screen frequently the clogged screen causes lint to back up, the dryer overheats and the backed up lint starts to smolder and, eventually, burn.

I can't count the number of times my college dorm(s) have had fire alarms because of dryer fires.

I know a story or two about houses that caught fire because of overheated clothes dryers, too.

[Frank Cox]

People don't clean out the lint trap?

I have a shop vac not far from my dryer and every time I put a load into the dryer I pull that screen out and if there's any lint on it at all I vacuum it.

At my mother's apartment I brush the screen off before starting the dryer (since I don't have a vacuum there).

I've never dried a load of laundry without at least looking at the screen before starting. Never realized that anyone would actually do that.

[Marcel Birgelen]

The other problem: Dryer fires!

Yes! If you don't clean the lint screen frequently the clogged screen causes lint to back up, the dryer overheats and the backed up lint starts to smolder and, eventually, burn.

I can't count the number of times my college dorm(s) have had fire alarms because of dryer fires.

I know a story or two about houses that caught fire because of overheated clothes dryers, too.

It's been ages since I've last been in a laundromat/launderette, but I don't remember me ever cleaning something like a lint screen at the one I frequented as a student, neither do I remember any instructions to do so. The lint screen usually is located near the underside of the door in any front-loading dryer, but I don't even remember there being a mechanism to open or pull the screen. I guess those professional dryers, at least those they had there, have a filter somewhere else that gets cleaned out regularly, probably together with the collection of coins and other regular maintenance.