Everybody always presents laundromats in tv shows and movies as this sexy place where you meet horny singles who aren’t wearing underwear because it’s in the wash.
But in real life, that just isn’t true. The laundromat has angry people who don’t want to be there, and nobody EVER has sex, or takes their clothes off.
So why are laundromats always presented like that?
It makes me wonder how many people don’t own washing machines. I mean I consider that was essential as a fridge.
Cheap apartments sometimes don’t have them. My first apartment had neither a laundry machine nor a dishwasher (I honestly consider the latter more critical). I’ve also had in building shared washing machines which also sucked but sucked significantly less
I mean…it’s getting harder and harder to buy a house as an individual. Apartment living is very real. And if you rent in a duplex, you’re not going to buy a washer/dryer.
So…yeah. I’d say not owning washer/dryer starts becoming more common if you’re under 45, and gets more common the younger you go.
Do your landlords not have any requirements to provide even a communal washing machine? In Sweden, and probably most other countries, the law says you have to have it within reasonable distance, otherwise the apartment isn’t considered “livable”.
This is going to really depend on the state, but no most do not require any appliances be provided. California does not require a fridge to consider the property “livable” so I doubt not providing a washer and dryer would make a rental “unlivable” in most US states.
I mean I get that, certainly within the context of the last five years, but laundromats were a staple of American tv since the eighties I feel (that’s at least what American tv I’ve seen).
Then again I’m almost in that age bracket you mentioned. Laundromats aren’t a common where I live, though. There’s more nowadays, due to the changes you mentioned, but it’s not nearly a common aspect of life.
A lot of American TV takes place in NYC, and there just isn’t room for lots of apartments to have washers and dryers in NYC. Buildings might have a laundry room, or you go to a laundromat.
Definitely more common in suburban areas with more single family homes or places with larger apartments.
That said, having to drag all your laundry down to the laundromat or building laundry is very inconvenient and sucks up a lot of time. I don’t miss that at all.
The owner of my laundromat claims that it’s cheaper to do your laundry there than at home. At first i thought “of course a laundromat owner would say that”, but then he argued that his machines are more efficient than the ones we buy and that they are collectively heated.
I still think he’s fulll of shit because he only argued about energy costs, not including his rent taxes or profit; but it did get me thinking that it would be cheaper and more efficient to wash our clothes collectively.
He’s also ignoring the cost of your time. At home I can do other chores or whatever I want as the washer and dryer go. At the laundromat I’m sitting there on my phone waiting. Also transporting the dirty clothes is a pain in the ass with a car, I’d hate it so much if I didn’t have one.
Some charity events actually allow people to have community laundry day in certain cities across the US
I had to use laundromat for several months in 2021 when my appliances were destroyed and supply chain issues left me stranded for about 6 months.
Anyways, they are expensive as fuck and more importantly, a huge time sink.
The time sink is honestly the biggest part. At least when you’re doing laundry at home, you can do other things while you wait on the laundry. At a laundromat, there’s not much to do except maybe bring an iPad or e-reader. Once you’re done folding your current load of laundry, you’re just kind of stuck waiting for the next load to be done.
It always feels a little bit like when you show up 2 hours early for your flight, but then there’s no line at security and you get to your terminal in like 5 minutes. There’s nothing to do except wait. At least at home, you could go hop on your computer and get some work done, get some other cleaning done, or boot up a game console.
If you’re washing one load at a time at the laundromat, you’re doing it wrong. The one benefit of them is that you can do a lot of loads in parallel.
Depends on how busy the laundromat is. In an ideal world, yes you’re correct. But there are some days where you’re lucky to grab a single washer and dryer.