Conquering The Laundry Room

When it comes to conquering the laundry room, I’ve been failing. I’m currently waiting on someone to come get their clothes out of dryers 27 and 28. It’s been a good 20 minutes and I sent 2 emails notifying the person that they’re clothes are ready. My guess is, the person put their clothes in the dryer and is currently: in class, sleeping, or they just don’t care. I’m contemplating on whether I should take their clothes out or just wait for another one to become available. Either way, I have a ton of things to get done today and I don’t have time to waste. Anyway, I’m writing this post to share some tips on how to conquer the laundry room, so take note if you want to save yourself the headache.

In general, laundry day is probably one of the most dreaded days ever. It’s not pleasurable at home, but in college, I swear it’s so much worse. In my residence hall, we have a communal laundry room. That’s right, it looks just like a laundry mat. It’s shared among 17 floors of 2 buildings. We only have 20 washers and 20 dryers. Sounds terrible, right? Yeah, that’s because it is. Today, I want to share some tips to make conquering the laundry room a little more bearable.

First, let’s take care of some key points…

1. When you first get to the laundry room and see that it’s jumping (i.e., busy), look around and see if anyone was waiting. You don’t wanna be that person that jumps in front of someone. It’s not a good look.
2. After you are done with the washer, leave the door open so people know that that washer is available.
3. Keep track of time!! VCU lets us set up text/email alerts that notify us when our cycles are close to ending and when they’re actually completed. I suggest setting a timer on your phone, maybe set it so it goes off five minutes before your cycle’s supposed to be finished.
4. Throw away lint and dryer sheets.
5. If you do take someone’s clothes out place them somewhere nice, not on the floor. You wouldn’t someone to place your things on the floor, would you?

 

 

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Tips

1. Make sure you have everything and I mean everything you think you might need. This boils down to everything you want to wash, detergent, fabric softener, and dryer sheets. Oh and let’s not forget about your student ID or whatever you have to use to pay.
2. You might want to bring a book or an assignment with you. Chances are, you going to have to do some waiting. Why not knock out an assignment or get some reading done?
3. Plan ahead. If your school has one of those services that let you hold a machine, do it. VCU does, but it only holds for 5 minutes and it doesn’t account for those people who don’t collect their things on time.
4. Finally, wake up earlier if you have to. Why? No one is awake! That means the laundry room is empty!!