For many people, or even most people, laundry day isn’t quite their favorite day of the week. This is true even though few people have to boil cauldrons of water, scrub clothes and linens by hand with harsh soap, put them through a mangle then hang them up to dry one by one. Moreover, many people don’t have the boon of a private washing machine and clothes dryer and have to go to the nearest laundromat. How do you make this chore as easy as possible? Here are some tips:
Sort Your Clothes at Home Before Laundry Day
Sorting your clothes at home is simply a must before you go to the laundromat on laundry day. Waiting to sort them when you get to the laundromat wastes time and annoys other patrons as you dump piles of your laundry on the work tables and try to sort the items out. Other patrons will also get a better look at your laundry than you may wish! Not only that, while you separate out your whites and darks, someone else will grab the washing machines that you were hoping to use. So after you sort your laundry, you may have to sit there until a machine is free. In the time of a pandemic, you also don’t want to linger in any enclosed space for too long.
Make Sure You Have Money
A lot of laundromats accept only quarters, and though they have change machines that accept your dollar bills, you can’t always assume that they’ll work when you need them. Asking folks for spare change can be embarrassing. Bring a roll or two of quarters with you to the laundromat on laundry day.
Some more modern laundromats like N. Fort Myers Laundromart have machines that also accept loyalty card, credit card, debit card, EBT card, and Apple Pay to operate the washers and dryers. All you need to do is make sure the card has enough money on it – no more worrying about carrying around a bunch of coins.
Bring Your Own Detergent and Bleach
Some people do this automatically, but it’s surprising how many people do not. Though they don’t seem to be, those little packets of bleach and detergent for sale at the laundromat are comparatively quite expensive. It’s one thing to use them once in a while when you forget to bring your own detergent, but to buy them every time adds up to money.
By the way, if you have one of those multiple gallon-sized jugs of detergent or bleach, you don’t have to bring all of it. Just pour the right amount into a smaller container ready for laundry day. Make sure that whatever container you use can close tightly and securely and stay closed.
Check the Washer and Dryer First
Even in the best-managed establishments, a dryer can be a bit gross sometimes, so don’t simply throw your clothes into the first one that becomes available after you take them out of the washing machine. If you can clean the dryer a bit, do so. If not, tell the attendant, and wait for a dryer that’s cleaner.
Before you put clothes in the washing machine, check the machine’s insides. Give the drum a spin to find any stray items. If you do, take them out, and bring them to the attendant, or put them in the lost and found pile. Some commercial washing machines erase all the settings after each load, but some don’t. When you’ve put your clothes in, make sure that the settings are where you want them to be.