We live in an apartment building with a washer and dryer on each floor (they are in a little room in the middle of each floor). There are 5 floors. There are about 10 apartments on each floor.
Tenant A accidentally leaves their clothes in the washer for 5-10 extra minutes. In this interval, Tenant B comes into the room, sees the full washer, and puts the wet clothes on top of the dryer so that they can wash their own clothes.
Later on, the tenants cross paths, and the following positions come out. Who do you agree with more?
Tenant A says: It is rude that you touched my clothes. I was only 5-10 minutes late. You could have walked up or downstairs to find an empty washer. (The laundry rooms are all in front of the stairwell). Also, other people I know in this building think this is rude.
Tenant B says: It is no big deal that I touched your clothes. There was no way for me to know that you weren’t going to leave your clothes there for 3 hours. It was easier for me to move your clothes than walk upstairs, and I understood my action to be Standard Operating Procedure for communal laundry rooms.
Who do you agree with more? I will say which I am and give more details further down, so as not to influence the poll.
Tenant A, but only because it was 5-10 minutes. We have a shared laundry room in our building, too, and the rule (as posted on the wall) is if your clothes are finished and in the machine for 30 minutes they can be moved. If you can’t keep track of your laundry time and get your shit out of the machines so someone else can use them, you’re being rude, but 5-10 minutes really isn’t long enough to be a big deal. There are people in my building that would leave their clothes in the dryer for weeks (seriously) if nobody moved their stuff.
I would always check, and if the machine was full I would give the washer the benefit of the doubt and come back in a half hour, if their clothes are still there, then it’s clear that the washer is not being mindful, and I would feel justified moving the wet clothes out of the washer. Technically I guess I agree with Tenant A, but for me it’s all about the time the clothes have been left in the machine.
How would they know how long the clothes have been there in the first place? They may have already been there for three hours.
This scenario is mitigated by the fact that there are machines on the other floors, but I’m not sure what the etiquitte rules are in that case. In my building (actually three buildings), there is one laundry room with six washers and eight dryers. Abandon your laundry and it will get moved.
I voted for B. I’ve taken wet clothes out of the wash many times, as well as taken clothes out of the drier. I’ve had my own clothes moved many times as well and it’s never bothered me.
I would be annoyed if I couldn’t use the washer/dryer on my own floor because tenants from other floors were using them.
This would be my reasoning. I have more urgent or at least more interesting things to do than to wait for Tenant A to come back. Most washers will run for a set number of minutes, and it’s up to the user to be back in time to take the clothes out. Seriously, if you don’t want people touching your clothes, then don’t give them an excuse to do so. If your clothes are that dainty, then stick around the laundry room yourself. Take a book or some knitting for your downtime.
Missing your chance for the machine is really bad luck and possible with my method. I’d just rather do that then feel like I might be rude.
One time I had to go somewhere unexpectedly, leaving my clothes in the dryer. I hoped someone would remove them of they needed to use it. When I returned I found someone had not only removed them but they’d folded them all for me, I felt so guilty and embarrassed.
They wouldn’t, but they can give them a chance and come back in 30 minutes* or so. There are 8 apartments sharing 2 washers & dryers on my floor and in 3 years I’ve never seen a day where the laundry room was so busy that giving someone half an hour was a big deal. If you can’t wait and aren’t sure if the machine just recently turned off or if it’s been sitting a while, open it up and see if it’s still warm. If the clothes are stone cold it’s likely they’ve been there longer than 30 minutes.
*30 minutes based on rules in my own laundry room
I’m Tenant B, but I live in a (very small) building with only a single washer and a single dryer. If I need to do my laundry, your clothes are coming out. One trick I use is that once I’ve put my laundry in, when I return to my apartment I set an oven timer so I know when my load finishes and can go and pull it out right away.
If you’re not in the laundry room in time to move your stuff, and I’m waiting for a machine, I’m moving it for you. I have better things to do than to wait around for you to get around to moving your stuff. It’s going on top of the washer or dryer, or onto the folding table. There are six hundred people living in this building, and seven washers and seven dryers. There are timers on the machines. Move your stuff.
Consequently, if for some reason I forget my laundry or what have you, I won’t be offended if somebody moves my stuff. Why would I be? It’s laundry, not my precious diamonds.
However: I do ask that if I move your stuff out of the washer and start my own clothes, for the love of everything don’t open up my washer and poke through all my clothes making sure I didn’t steal any of your things! And if you DO do this, as if I’d want any of your ratty T-shirts, START MY MACHINE AGAIN. It takes half a second to hit the “Start” button again. Because I set my timer for thirty minutes–one wash cycle–and when I come down IN THIRTY MINUTES, and I find that the machine yawing open and 14 minutes left in the cycle, it pisses me off.
I agreed with Tenant A, but only because I wouldn’t take someone else’s clothes out of the washer. I mean, I might check the washer, see the clothes, sigh, go back to my apartment, wait about 30 minutes and then go check again. If the clothes were still there, I might consider taking them out, but to me that’s going over some sort of line.
I think that if the clothes were moved to the dryer, it might be okay, but it’s worse if they just put wet clothes on top of the machine. I’ve seen communal laundry rooms shared by fewer tenants, and there’s often lint and smeared detergent all over the tops anyway.
I had a serious problem with this in my old apartment building. The main guy causing the problem had no sense of time whatsoever and would insist that an hour was only five minutes.
I bought two cheap kitchen timers and superglued them to the back of the washer and dryer. If I came in and found the machine finished, but full of clothes, I could just turn the timer on. If it got all the way through the 30 minutes, I would go ahead and move the stuff. If it didn’t then two things were acomplished: the miscreant could see how long I’d been waiting by the time elapsed on the dial, and anyone else coming in would see that somebody was in line ahead of them.
After about three months there was a similar set in every building of the compalex; I guess the management liked the idea. Strangely, the miscreant never did admit how wrong he was - but there were no further disputes when his things were moved.
Definitely B for me. When I lived in my dorm, there were 20 washers and dryers for 800 students. It was cutthroat down in the laundry room (yes, there were other washers/dryers on campus, but only 20 in the building). As soon as a machine was through, you had about 30 seconds to get your clothes before someone moved them for you.
I’d be OK with Tenant B’s action and I put my laundry basket in front of the washing machine (the communal one in the 9-apartment building I live in runs for about 2 hr) so the next washing machine user can put my thins into the basket if necessary, instead of somewhere else that might be less clean.
the miscreant never did admit how wrong he was - but there were no further disputes when his things were moved.