Is it wrong that I just piled laundry on the floor?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I like my building. Except for the laundry room. It must be the higher-than-normal ratio of students who live here, but laundry room etiquette seems nonexistent for the most part. I’ve seen loads of laundry removed from a dryer and sit up there for a week or more.

I’m tired of it. I’m doing two loads, and three of the dryers had loads sitting on top of them, clearly having been moved by another dryer user at least a load ago if not more. Who knows how long that laundry has been sitting on top of the dryers, and there’s nowhere else to put it. There are no chairs or tables. When I fold, I do it on top of the dryer I’m pulling my clothes from.

I need two of the four dryers, three of them with loads already piled on them. I either pile stuff really high onto two of the dryers, or since I’m sick of it, pile it all on the floor out of the way. Sorry guys, your mommy’s not here.

I’m really tempted to bag up the stuff that sits for a week and take it to a shelter. It’s clean, after all. I’ve never let laundry sit. I set a timer for 5 minutes before the machine is finished, so I’m down there and ready to remove it immediately. Since I’ve been using laundromats and shared laundry rooms since 1988, I don’t see how it’s so difficult for people to come get their stuff in a timely manner. No one’s ever had to remove a load of my laundry in order to do their own. It’s not hard, people!

2

I think you should.

We have 2 metal forks in the work kitchen. One sat in the sink, used, for a few days. Then the other sat with it, used, for another week.

Last I checked, we have no one that cleans dishes.

I use a plastic fork from some meal I once got, clean it and put it in my desk drawer.

Oops. Meant you should bag it and take to the shelter.

3

Personally I think it’s fine. If I have to run an errand, and am not 100% sure I will be back when the laundry ends, I leave my basket in front of the machine so that if the next person needs the machine they can just dump it in there. If they can’t at least figure that out, it deserves to go on the floor (considering that there’s no other spot).

The sitting there for a week situation is mind boggling. I don’t even know what I’d do. Talk to the landlord/super/building manager maybe?

4

She’s not the clothes police. Moving clothes to the only available resting place is quite different from what is essentially stealing them to give to the poor.

5

Agreed. It’s like people who don’t take their print jobs at work, and just leave them there on the printer indefinitely. You don’t know if it’s garbage or if it’s an important job or who printed it or anything - its just there, getting in other people’s way. A lot of places I’ve worked had an abandoned print job bin; it sounds like you need something like that for your laundry room. I wouldn’t feel quite right about dumping clothes on the floor, but I’d have no problem dumping them into the abandoned clothes bin.

6

Maybe it’s been sitting there so long because its owner had some sort of emergency and either forgot about them or hasn’t been able to get back to them. But regardless, I think moving them to the next available surface is perfectly acceptable.

7

:smack:

You’re right! What was I thinking?! Oh, I know, inconsiderate people who occupy my time.

If they value their items, they’ll take care of them and not leave them in a public place.

8

Make a paper sign that says “Abandoned Clothing Pile–Clothes Ignored for More Than Two Laundry Cycles”, tape it on the wall above a space on the floor and start piling.

Folks who end up with missing clothing or having to sort through piles of other folks’ clothes to find their own (and re-wash since they’ve been on the floor) will learn quickly to keep an eye on their laundry.

9

If it’s any consolation, and I know it’s not, youngsters aren’t the only ones who do this. I live in a 55+ condo community. Each building has three floors and each floor has two washers and two dryers; people from floors other than their own will use other floor’s washers and dryers when their own are in use and will leave their stuff for a couple of hours at a time. I pile their ignored loads wherever I can locate a horizontal surface; I haven’t yet had to put them on the floor but I would if necessary. I haven’t considered donating them to charity but I have thought of holding them for ransom.

10

If they don’t care about their clothes, why should you. Toss their shit on the floor.

Some emergency might of arised or they might of droped dead but life goes on as they say.

11

:confused: “Your Honor, if the plaintiff didn’t want me to steal their laptop, they wouldn’t have left it in public where I could steal it.”

If the property is not abandoned, you have no right to take it. That’s called stealing. Someone being an idiot and leaving property where it *can *be stolen is not a defense for taking it.
Re: the OP, no you’re not wrong. Put the stuff on the floor or wherever it needs to go to be out of your way. Don’t take it to a shelter though, as good as you think that would make you feel.

12

Thinking about how this would play out on Judge Judy (where I get most of my lawyerin’ ideas), I think she would come down hard on both sides, but harder on the side that gave away clothes that weren’t theirs to give away. She wouldn’t have a lot of patience for people who leave their clothes in a public laundry room for days on end either, though, in my opinion.

13

Yes, placing someone else’s clothing in a bag and driving it to the nearest charity collection drop-off (also known as “stealing someone else’s property”) is much less time-consuming than simply placing it on the floor. It seems so obvious.

14

Find an old (clean) sheet of plastic or cardboard box. Dump the stuff there. Create and post the aformentioned sign but add “Your mother is not responsible for retrieving your laundry. Enjoy the wrinkles.”

15

Our laundry room has 10 washers and 10 dryers and I usually wash my clothes either in the middle of a weekday (if I’m home) or in the middle of the night to avoid this problem, but if I need the machine and somebody’s stuff is in there for more than an hour, yeah, it’s going on the floor. If you care that much about your clothes, you’d better be there to get them when they’re done or it’s fair game.

I wouldn’t give the clothes away, though. Throwing them on the floor so they all have to be rewashed seems like punishment enough.

17

In my apartment building I sometimes see kids, say twelve years old, doing the laundry. I wouldn’t be surprised if they forget they started a load and never come back for it. It could be weeks before their mom says, “Hey, where’s that turtleneck with the stripes?!” and maybe a few more days before she figures out to look in the laundry room. We also have a number of developmentally delayed people living here. I try to think charitably about abandoned laundry but yeah, it’s not going to sit in the machine when I am waiting to do my wash.

18

When I lived in an apartment there were so many problems that I found a nice laundromat, one that had an attendant on duty even, and went there. It was actually easier for me, I guess the extra time was worth less aggravation.

19

I agree with the sign first - since there is no laundry room etiquette yet, you need to establish it. Not everything is obvious to people from different backgrounds, and not every student has yet learned to take care of household chores themselves.

But make the sign neutral, leave off the passive-agressive “your mom doesn’t live here” or similar, just state that clothes left lying for more than … time will be taken to …

And yes, get a cardboard box or similar instead of just tossing stuff on the floor.

People can forget things, emergencies can happen, jobs can be delegated around until forgotten … have patience and forgivness for other people making mistakes, because you will need it sooner or later, too.

20

I had the reverse problem recently. I had to use the oversized washer; there’s only one nearby and it’s in another condo building, not my building [edit: same condo development, same condo fees paid], but it’s available for everyone.

So I go over and start using it. I run into a nice lady who lives in that building; she’s taking down her trash. Even though the oversized machine isn’t “hers” nor exclusively for the use of her building’s inhabitants (They have the same number of regular machines every other building has, in addition to the oversized one), I decide it’s polite to ask.

“I’m going to be using the oversized machine for a few loads, I hope that’s all right,” I say. “Oh, of course,” she says, “I’m not even doing laundry.”

30 minutes later, it was time to take our next load to the oversized machine. I go over there and find her taking our clothes out of the oversized machine, dropping some on the floor in apparent clumsiness, and piling the “clean” clothes on top of one of the regular dryers, which is covered with dust and soap scum.

My wife is a clean freak and I know she will not accept these clothes as clean now.

“Uh…what are you doing?” I ask her. “Oh,” she replies, “The regular machines are full too, I had to take something out, I didn’t realize these were yours.”

It’s true…the regular washer and dryer have old, cold, long-abandoned loads in them. The machine she’s emptying, however, has clearly just stopped running and is piping hot. I know it’s just stopped running, because I set the timer alarm on my cell phone.

So not only is she ignoring the fact that only 30 minutes ago I asked if she minded my using that specific machine for a few loads, she’s also acting as if, in a choice between a machine that’s obviously actively being used and two that are long abandoned and cold, it makes no difference whose clothes she removes.

I don’t think she meant anything by dropping our clothes on the floor and picking them up and putting them back in the clean pile, because I saw her do that to her own clothes. But, even if she’d forgotten our conversation, unless there’s some kind of emergency [the Queen of England just invited herself over for High Tea and my best frock is filthy!], why mess with obviously in-progress washing, when there’s old abandoned washing you could move? What makes her laundry more important than someone else’s laundry (that had NOT been abandoned)? What entitles her to just take time and money from other people because she doesn’t feel like waiting her turn?

The whole incident is even more baffling when I reflect that we’ve always had excellent relations with this woman and her family.

Maybe she’s got some kind of syndrome that both affects her short-term memory AND makes her kind of a prick about other people’s stuff?

21

I agree with the box or other spot for unclaimed clothes. And with making the sign neutral. “Your mother doesn’t live here” sounds a lot like “Screw you.” And even if that’s what you want to say, it’s better to just go the polite route. It makes it sound more like an wash room policy rather than a personal issue.