Laundry!

[azurelunatic]

Week before last, there was a little problem with the laundry room. Not the laundry room in my building, but, crucially, the laundry room with the card machine. Our laundry machines use cards instead of coins, which is a different kind of inconvenience.

I do have a launderizer in my apartment. Sadly, the last time I used it, it made a terrible grinding noise and didn't drain. (I drained it manually with the little hose and a bowl.) I do need to call maintenance on it; I'm waiting until I have the mental wherewithal to make sure things are tidied to my satisfaction.

They'd said that the laundry room in building 4 would be closed until further notice. Further notice having not arrived, and the laundry situation growing critical, I chose to hope that maybe they'd just forgotten to give further notice. I wandered over. The room was locked up tight and still very much looking like a construction zone. The card machine had been taken off the wall.

I contemplated the possibility that they'd moved it to the functioning laundry room, but looked at the time and figured that my window of opportunity for the nearby laundromat was about to close. So I hustled, grabbed all the easily grabbable laundry and a book, and went exploring.

I am pleased to report that modern laundromats often choose to have wifi these days. Wifi! In a laundromat! I dumped all the laundry into one of the big machines and settled in with some trance music and Cyteen, since I have gone a few years without taking tape. I didn't actually use the wifi.

Having done the math, the price difference is on the order of six and a fraction cents between the laundromat and the number of washers/dryers I would have used in the on-site laundry room. My car app thingy claims the cost of gas was $0.29. My knees are happy that I didn't have to haul two large IKEA bags full of laundry up and down stairs with a dodgy handrail.

I may pop downstairs tomorrow to see whether they've put the card machine in the open laundry room.

Comments

[siliconshaman]

Just a suggestion, try seeing if you can gain access to the pump on your machine, because I'd hazard a guess it's got something in it.

and yeah, I'd do the same as you... it might cost a touch under 50cents more, but the saving on wear&tear on the knees and back are worth it.

[azurelunatic]

I rent, and the launderizer comes with the apartment. I am kind of reluctant to try voiding someone else's warranty.

[siliconshaman]

Point, admittedly if it's anything like ours there's a bung you unscrew to gain access to the inside of the impeller so you can clear whatever in there out. But depending on your rental agreement, that might be a service call.

[azurelunatic]

Ah, that. That was the first step after the draining.