Taking the jug is stealing. People who do, are sleazy.
Using a cup from the jug is borrowing, and should be past on.
By the way, I have tried to get ‘lending libraries’ started in building laudromats, and they never caught on
In my building there’s a little cabinet next to the machines with shelves that are marked by apartment. That way people can leave there detergent down there (because I sure don’t like lugging that heavy thing either). I haven’t noticed a lot missing. In an unmarked situation, I don’t think I’d use someone else’s detergent, but I wouldn’t necessarily assume that they wouldn’t use mine.
A few years back, neighbors of ours, Mr. and Mrs. A, left a very sleek bookcase in the parking area. It stayed there for several days, and Mr. Rilch and I, who can always use another bookcase ;), started to be tempted. We asked if it was being abandoned, and were informed that it was not. I forget what their reason was for leaving it there so long, but I remember that it sounded lame.
The next day or two later, neighbor B backed his car into the bookcase and damaged it slightly. When he informed Mr. and Mrs. A of this, they were irate. Mr. Rilch and I overheard part of this. If anyone had asked us (they didn’t), we would have sided with neighbor B. The bookcase was positioned in a way that did not make it impossible for him to back out of his space, but did impede his ability to maneuver. The longer it stayed where it was, the greater the odds of such a thing happening. He did not, as they demanded, compensate them. Their bookcase, their choice, their risk. After that, building management forbid any property to be left in the garage at all. Said neighbor C, who was asked, “I don’t leave my tools in the garage, because I KNOW what will happen to them.”
My old apartment had a sign on the laundry room door that said that all property left in the laundry room would be “disposed of” if left for three days. They didn’t want people leaving clothing, detergent, etc. there. Perhaps your building manager was cleaning up the laundry room, assumed it was “abandoned”, and “disposed” of it (took it for their own use, probably).
People would also occasionally leave stuff in there on purpose with a sign that said “FREE”, knowing that either some neighbor would take it home or that it would be disposed of.
Perhaps other apartments are different, but in the ones I’ve lived in, it’s been either a stated or unstated rule that you weren’t supposed to leave anything you wanted to keep in the laundry room.
I’d lug the jug, myself.
I personally wouldn’t use it. However, I’d also never leave my detergent in a common use laundry area because not everyone thinks like me.
That said, however, I resent the double standard that seems to apply to less expensive items like detergent, hair products, and magazines.
I once left two magazines and a collection of Peter Arno cartoons in the coatroom at my first college. When I returned a few hours later, they were gone. Now, this was not like leaving them on a table in the coffee shop or something. This was a depository, where people would leave coats, books, and even backpacks, secure in the knowledge that they would be safe from light fingers. No one else reported stuff missing that day or afterwards. A leather jacket and several pocketbooks with god knows what in them were left undisturbed, but my magazines and book were tempting beyond endurance.
I think the reasoning is that magazines, detergent, condtioner and the like don’t count as “property”, because they didn’t cost much. Or because the second two are to be used up, and not everyone hoards magazines, as I do. But this is bullshit. They’re important enough to take, but not important enough to get upset about if they’re taken from you?
I eventually found used copies of the magazines, but I was never able to replace the Peter Arno. You wouldn’t think the kind of person who would like Peter Arno would be a thief, would you? It was probably just the kick of taking something, anything. And, as I said, the thief didn’t fear being run to earth and charged with an offense, as they would be for a leather jacket.
[sub]“You and your rapierlike wit!”[/sub]
Stated by the management, either in the monthly newsletter, or by direct conversation. Before where I live now, I always lived in pretty–heck, sometimes very–nice apartment complexes. Bikes in bike racks: fine. Anything else left outside the confines of your apartment: you had 24-hours to retrieve it or the maintenance staff would dispose of it.
Currently I live in a 100-year-old historic residential hotel. It’s owned by a couple, not a company, and the very idea of someone tripping over something in one of the hallways or on the stairs and getting hurt is anathema to them. There is a special table in the laundry room for discarded clothes, there is a shelf in the lobby for used books that we are free to take, and one of the tables in the communal kitchen is for sealed food that you don’t want so that others may take it. While detergent on a shelf in the laundry room is neither dangerous not “trashy,” the owners and manager lump it in with all other unattended/abandoned articles.
I would not use it for two. reasons. One I do think that unless it was labled ‘for everyone’ that it would be stealing. I also am picky about what brand of detergent I use on my clothes.
When I do my laundry I take my detergent back to the apartment once I have all the loads in to prevent any ‘accidental’ use of my stuff. Once there I pick up the dryer sheets and go back and wait it out.
Assuming there are not scads and scads of detergent bottles, making an ad hoc private use scenario, I would have no qualms in using some of the detergent in the event that it was there over 24 hours. Leave something where it’s not supposed to be for a day, I can’t see how you’d expect nothing to happen to it:
Either:
A) The donor was being altruistic, hey, thanks!
or
B) The donor was lazy or forgetful. Charged 14 cents.
If this went on long enough, I would return the favor by way of leaving donuts/dryer sheets in the launder center for common use.
Ok, I should explain since I posted the remark that got you started on this.
I personally wouldn’y have taken the detergent because, I dunno, I just wouldn’t have.
BUT. I have never heard of anyone leaving something they wanted to keep unattended in a public place for weeks on end. I have seen people abandon perfectly good stuff in our complex all the time. It happens a lot. My complex also provides a lot of things like that.
SO… it would not be inconceivable to me for someone to assume that a jug of detergent that has been sitting in the laundry room for two weeks (the amount of time you said it generally takes to get taken) as being either abandoned or for common use. In fact, it makes a lot more sense to me than someone left their detergent that they wanted to keep in the laundry room where anyone could take it.
You’re absolutely right, Rilchiam. Woe be to the girl, especially in the dorm I lived in my freshman year, who accidentally left her shampoo and conditioner in the shower. Gone that morning! Those little dry-erase pens from the message boards on people’s doors were often swiped, too. Extremely petty theft.
I’ve also noticed certain house guests who use my shampoo when they stay over. I’m not mad about it, but it seems rather odd to me–I always pack my own. Some people must assume that the host provides shampoo (like a hotel).
I might use detergent that has been sitting there for a while, especially if I had forgotten to bring my own and didn’t want to walk all they way back to my apartment. Laundry rooms are a pretty common place for people to abandon things to the community, and a half empty bottle of detergent is a pretty common thing to want to abandon (for example, when moving). If the bottle has been there for a long time (and not sitting on a running washer or something like that) then I’d probably think that I might as well use some before somebody gets around to throwing it out.
I really don’t think you can consider this stealing. If you want to abanodon your stuff in a public place for long periods of time without any hint that it belongs to a specific person, then I really don’t have any sympathy for your self-rightous manufactured outrage.
Hark! An abandoned box of detergent! Yes, truly, I walk past the laundry room to exit my apartment and there has been a big box, filled to the top with powedered detergent. There is no label, it is sitting on the table.
Yes, it has been abandoned. It belonged to a tenant on the third floor who left it behind when he moved out two weeks ago. He did not leave a note saying it was for everyone’s use, he just brought it downstairs and left it.
So yes, it does happen. (I asked someone who was using it, because I wondered who it belonged to. Apparently he was afraid it would spill in his overpacked car.)
However, if someone now took that entire box away to keep for him- herself, I’d be annoyed. The intent of the former tenant was to leave it behind for everybody. “Communal use” still doesn’t mean “you alone get to keep it.”
Also, our landlord is only permitting the box to stay there because it is for everyone. We’re not allowed to leave our own laundry supplies in the laundry room because it gets too cluttered and messy. If I labelled my detergent and left it there, it would get dropped off at my door with a terse note.
I’m moving and the laundry room is cleaned by the super every other week. “Abandoned” supplies are thrown out if they’ve been there since the previous cleaning.