It’s not that my clothes were stolen, but my dollar and my time. The laundry room was very full today; the only dryer not in use had damp clothes in it, because someone had overstuffed it with far too much clothing. I removed those clothes, as who knows when the guy would be back to put in another coin, and started a cycle. When I came back, my clothes had been moved to another dryer, and were as wet as when they’d gone in. The laundry thief interrupted my cycle right at the start and dried his own clothes with my money. I’m also going to be late to a party on his account–I need to wear the shirt that’s in the dryer.
You don’t live in the same building as I do, do you? The same thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago, and I was livid - but without a way of tracing who the scumbag was, I just grinned and bore it and cursed fluently and at length.
I agree that it’s asinine, and pathetic.
Side rant: people who don’t return to pick up their laundry in time. I left it there for five minutes after the cycle ended, it’s a damn communal laundry. If you’re so fucking sensitive about other people touching your clothes, get back in time. If you don’t, deal with it and stop giving me those injured, angry looks because a) they don’t work on me and b) you look more like a dumbass than you normally do. Thank you. That is all.
Some people get pissed when you take their clothes out of a machine. To that person’s way of thinking, he was going to be right back, and in fact, he did return right after you started the drying cycle. I admit that I don’t share the “I’m abandoning my property, so it had better be there when I get back!” mentality, but there it is.
Reminds me something that happened to a buddy of mine back in the 30s. He bought a pack of biscuits and a newspaper at a crowded automat and sat down to eat them. All of a sudden, a guy sitting at his table reaches over and opens the package of biscuits and takes one out and eats it. My buddy is stunned, and then reaches down and takes a biscuit himself. Then the guy takes another one! The process repeats itself, until my buddy eats the last biscuit and the guy storms off. Then my buddy picks up his newspaper and discovers that his biscuits were under his paper all along!!
Point being, the other guy probably thought you were stealing HIS drying time.
In point of further amazement, it’s an ancient anecdote and Adams spent many years defending himself for claiming it really happened, but I do believe he went to his grave insisting it.
I think both of you acted like jerks, frankly. You shouldn’t have moved his clothes out of the dryer, and he shouldn’t have moved yours. If your clothes really were just as wet as when they went in, they couldn’t have been in the dryer for very long, so he wasn’t all that long in getting back, and if they were left in another dryer, that indicates that another dryer was about to be freed up in a few minutes, doesn’t it?
He shouldn’t have overloaded the dryer, but you shouldn’t have counted on getting a dryer in a communal laundry for something you needed in such a hurry. What if all of them had still been tumbling? Would you have felt justified in going around and checking to see if they someone else’s clothes were ‘dry enough’ and then moving them out to use the dryer, even if they had money on it yet?
Nope. If the drying cycle has finished and there are no other available dryers removing someone else’s clothes is perfectly acceptable. Provided you put them somewhere like in a basket or on a clean counter rathers than dumping them on the floor or something nasty. If you don’t want to risk other people moving your clothes be back when the cycle finishes. This was the standard rule both in college dorms I’ve lived in and commercial laudrymats I’ve used since then. If a commercial place has an attendant you might ask them to remove the clothes so that you can’t be accused of stealing things but that’s just to CYA.
After a reasonable wait and asking dudes. The “reasonable” depends on circumstances, but I’d say 5-10 minutes.
Sometimes if the clothes are still damp, I put more of my very own $$ in there until they are dry, then use the remaining time + more $$ for my clothes. If you remove damp clothes, the owner may very well think you removed his clothes before the end of the cycle.
In my building, a buck buys you 40 minutes of drying time. If I can be considerate enought to get down there and swap loads* at 39:59, then why the fuck can’t anybody else?
What the fuck was iwakura43 supposed to do? Hang out all day waiting for the shmuck to show up? He had no way of knowing if the guy was going to show up in five minutes or five hours. I’ve seen people leave their shit in my laundry room for days at a time.
Even worse was last time I did laundry. Put my clothes in the dryer, put in my money, pushed START. Let me add that people around here clearly can’t read numbers. If the dryer is empty, the front will read $1.25, if it is in the middle of a cycle or the clothes weren’t removed, it will show the time left in the cycle. Some idiot (twice now to me) has ignored this set-up and opened my dryer to see if it was empty. No, nevermind that it is clear when a dryer is in use due to visual, aural, and tactile cues. Then, the moron shut the door without pushing START, so my time ran out with my clothes just sitting there not drying. AARRRGGGAAAHHH! And of course, both of these times were days where I had only exactly enough money to wash/dry a load of clothes.
I don’t think you read the facts in the original post. iwakura43 states that his clothes were left soaking wet, in another dryer. This tells me that the person whose clothes he moved came back after only a few minutes. All coin dryers that I have ever used have a way to tell how much longer they have to spin, so why couldn’t iwukara43 see that another dryer was going to be available in five or ten minutes, and wait at least that long. See, TWO different people at least came to unload their laundry in the five to ten minutes that apparently was the length of time his still wet laundry was in the one he appropriated.
I read the facts of the original post, and they don’t change anything. How was the OP supposed to know that the user of the other dryer wouldn’t come downstairs and feed more quarters in before his/her time was up?
Hell, why were his five or ten minutes any less valuable than the douchebag who stole his dollar?
Not the dryers in my building. The only way I figured out that they last forty minutes was by timing them the first time I used them. A courtesy for my neighbors - this way, I know when it’s time to clear my shit outta the way so they can use the facilities.
The only other courtesies I owe them are waiting a minute or two - five tops - after the end of the cycle before I take their stuff out and put my stuff in, and not folding stuff as I pull it out of the dryer if somebody’s waiting to use it.
If you’re drying ten pairs of blue jeans and need extra time, or you just plain don’t want anybody to touch your stuff, the only way to be sure without being a dick is to be there when the cycle’s done.
Imagine waiting in a long line for beer at a ball game. The guy ahead of you decides to go take a piss, or grab a smoke, or catch one of the free t-shirts that those Pepsi people shoot into the stands with the air cannon. After ten minutes of waiting, you’re about to order from the cashier, and the guy comes back, wanting to get back in front of you and place his order. Do you let him in? I sure as hell don’t.
Nor in mine. It’s stupid not to have a timer on there, but there isn’t one.
If the cycle is finished before I get there and I need to move your clothes to dry mine, I will do it with a perfectly clean conscience. If the dryer stops when I’m in the laundry room, perhaps if I have nothing better to do I’ll wait a minute or two to see if you show up, but I have no obligation whatsoever to do so.
If the cycle is done, the dryer is fair game. Granted, if you are moving someone elses clothes out of the dryer, you are obligated to put them in a basket or on a clean counter. Additionally, when drying clothes, it is your obligation to leave a basket on top of the dryer if you won’t be back when the cycle finishes so that the next person has a place to put your clothes.
Also, if someone takes your clothes out of the dryer before your paid-for cycle has finished, you have every right to urinate on their clothes. I think this is somewhere in the back of the “drying etiquette” handbook. True story.
If I understand the situation correctly, the owner of the clothes was, as it turned out, just a few minutes late in getting back to his dryer to put more money in and start it up again. If he had gotten there just a little earlier than he actually did, all the dryers would have been in use, and you still might not have been able to dry your shirt on time. Hence, you bear at least part of the blame for being late to the party.
I agree with this, except that, if the someone else’s clothes are still damp at the end of the cycle, I would take them out of the dryer only as a last resort. I would prefer to find a different dryer or to wait for the owner of the clothes to come and deal with them himself, if possible.
They should post rules on walls so we’re all clear on them.
A few months ago I was vacationing with 5 other families in Canada and needed to do some laundry. So I headed off to the laundromat very early one morning. When I arrived, 8 of the 10 washers were already in use by 3 different parties, including my friend’s brother who was using 3. So I threw in my 2 loads and sat down to chat with my friend’s brother while we waited.
Shortly thereafter 3 different customers came in with their dirty laundry. None were happy about having to wait, but the last guy was particularly disgusted that there were no free washers and sighed loudly and repeatedly when he saw how many minutes were left on each.
Meanwhile, my friend asked me to babysit his laundry while he went to exchange his US dollars into Canadian dollars at a store nearby. As his wash cycles ended, I transferred them over to the dryers and fed them, knowing my friend would reimburse me when he returned.
Ten minutes later, when my own loads were complete, I proceeded to move them to the dryers. As I loaded the last load in, the grumpy old man who had watched me transfer five loads over, just couldn’t remain civil any longer. He pointed to the five machines and said very loudly. “I’m sorry, young lady, but it’s just plain rude to hog FIVE machines at one time.”
Well, my jaw dropped. First of all, I wasn’t using five washers at one time and secondly, if I had 5 loads and 5 washing machines were free when I walked in, why wouldn’t I use all five? Isn’t a laundromat first come first serve? Isn’t being able to do multiple loads simultaneously part of the appeal of laundromats???
I resisted getting into an argument with the old man, but I do wish they’d post rules so everyone would understand laundryroom etiquette. Not only in my own situation but in the OP’s situation as well. I’m not sure who was right and who was wrong.