During the pandemic, I shared a story of my city-dwelling aunt, who had no access to laundry facilities throughout the lockdown. Her apartment has no connections for a washer or dryer, and she always used the laundromat in her neighborhood until it was deemed a nonessential business. As a senior citizen, she did not want to take public transportation to a different laundry service in the city and ended up washing her clothing by hand in the sink for several months.
While many of us stocked up on food and household essentials to ride out the most stringent months of the lockdown, the inability to do laundry at home threw a wrench into a lot of people’s plans. My readers shared some insightful and creative ways to deal with living in areas without in-unit or in-building laundry, or the complete absence of all laundry services:
Dear Jill: When I was young and staying home with my baby, we were very poor. Carrying laundry the few blocks to the laundromat with a newborn was exhausting. We managed to rent a portable washer. It was pretty labor intensive, since it got its water from the kitchen faucet and drained in the kitchen sink.
I keep hearing about people in big cities who don’t have washers and dryers. I don’t understand why they don’t buy a portable. You can get a portable combination for pretty cheap, and they don’t take up much space. Why are they not doing something like this? Is there no place to connect water? I don’t understand. — Judy P.
In some cases, leases and building codes do prohibit the installation or use of washing machines. Buildings with old plumbing may be susceptible to backups, especially if laundry lint is rinsed into the drain pipes. However, a portable, plug-in electric washing machine isn’t the only option my readers suggested:
Dear Jill: My best advice is to buy a WonderWash and a Panda spin dryer. Then, hang the finished items on a drying rack. It’s saved us from the laundromat for the past three years. — Nancy N.
I wasn’t familiar with either of these products until I looked them up online. They’re both interesting items that would certainly help anyone without laundry facilities at home. The first item is a hand-crank cylinder that holds five pounds of clothing. Set it near a sink or in a bathtub, fill and add detergent. It holds seven to eight shirts or pairs of pants. It sells for about $60, and I cannot see how it would violate anyone’s lease, as it is manually powered and does not connect to the water or drain lines.
The second item is an electric spin dryer that is reminiscent of a stainless-steel office-sized trash can. It sells for about $150. Damp clothing goes in, and the machine whips them around at high-speed to force 90% of the water in the fabric out. It has a drain spout, which you can set a bucket under to catch the water that is expelled. Then, hang to dry in a fraction of the time it would take to dry wet clothes.
When researching this item for this column, I realized that I’ve also used one before at a water park, which had one in the locker room for guests to spin swimwear and towels in before leaving. They do work quite well!
Dear Jill: For the people doing laundry at home, there are three things that will make clothes drying easier (in the absence of an outdoor clothesline, of course.) Most people are familiar with the “X style” expanding indoor drying racks, but you can purchase a hotel-style clothesline that sticks in your shower, pulls out when you need it and retracts when you don’t.
They make horizontal hanging drying racks that hang in the shower, too, with flat, mesh fabric “shelves.” These are wonderful for drying small things, like underwear and socks. I did laundry in my dorm for two years and dried it all with a shower clothesline and hanging rack. — Isabel C.
August 27, 2020 at 11:00AM
https://www.herald-dispatch.com/features_entertainment/jill-cataldo-readers-suggest-laundry-at-home-solutions/article_3dafc490-8257-546e-a707-7709a0eb68aa.html
Jill Cataldo: Readers suggest laundry-at-home solutions - Huntington Herald Dispatch
https://news.google.com/search?q=Laundry&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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