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Original poster

DP has never been to a launderette.

129 replies

OpiesOldLady · 21/09/2019 10:48

I know it sounds silly, but it threw me a little. To me it's a normal thing to do - if you dont have a washing machine or dryer or you need to clean a duvet or something - you go to a launderette. He said he's never needed to as his parents always had a washer and if it broke they went to family etc. I guess it just highlighted the difference in our upbringing - we didn't get a washer til i was about ten and Saturday mornings were spent in the launderette. I can still smell the humid soapyness even now.

What normal things have you or your DP never done?

OP posts:

SunshineAngel · 21/09/2019 13:21

I've never been to a laundrette to do any washing. My dad used to take his work shirts to be ironed because he didn't have time and didn't think it was fair to expect my mum to do them, so I've been with him when he's picked them up, but that's ages ago.

gubbsywubbsy · 21/09/2019 13:21

I haven't either ..🤷‍♀️

Coffeeandchocolate9 · 21/09/2019 13:23

Using the uni laundrette was a rite of passage

I had a boyfriend in my 20s who lived in a tiny grotty flat and used a laundrette. He lived in Blackpool and I saw a lot more deprivation there than I ever had.

I wash duvets in the bath.

Noubliette · 21/09/2019 13:35

I get it. As a young adult making my own way in London bedsit-land, knew them well. It's a feature of backpack life also. Especially if you work where you travel and reside for a lengthy period. I think only an industrial washing machine could handle the workload of a busy hostel and the big hostels in Earls Court didn't bother providing their own. Maybe it's an artifact of late 90s early 2000s.

At home (70s/80s) we had our own machine but hung out to dry.

Sparadrap · 21/09/2019 13:40

Ooh ooh I’ve got a laundrette claim to fame. I used to use a laundrette in London owned by Linda Robson’s (birds of a feather actor) sister. Apparently Linda used to pop in to see her sister there but sadly I never saw her.

My friend had never used a leisure centre until she had children. She grew up in Singapore as an expat child and went to boarding school. I met her in a baby group and we took our babies swimming together. I was pleased there wasn’t a baby pool poo evacuation on her first visit

Anothernotherone · 21/09/2019 13:52

Noubliette depends where you backpacked - when I was working I hand washed, when travelling there were people who'd collect laundry and bring it back for about a penny, or if not I hand washed. I don't think I saw a launderette or a washing machine when I was backpacking.

OP I'm older than you and my parents always had a washing machine.

I met a girl at university who's parents didn't have a telephone - that was unusual. We didn't have one in halls either, we had to call from a line of call boxes in the foyer. She'd call her parents' neighbors and ask them to tell her parents to be at theirs in 15 minutes and hope there'd be a payphone free to call again then. They didn't have a car either and neither had a licence but they bought her a car so she'd be able to go home and back more easily with all her stuff, so it wasn't money - she was actually one of only two people I knew at university who had a car.

Nobody at my university had mobiles yet my sister was at a different university at the other end of the country at the same time and most people had mobiles and cars. It wasn't a higher ranked university, just a different type of student for some reason I guess! The contrast was weird. I'm sort of glad I didn't have a mobile though, as they can be a bit umbilical...

Anothernotherone · 21/09/2019 13:56

My younger children have never been to a leisure centre and although the eldest has she was a baby/ small toddler and doesn't remember. They don't exist where we live, there just isn't the concept. I told my DS1 about leisure centers a few months ago for some random reason, and he thought they sounded like a cool idea...

backouch · 21/09/2019 13:57

Neither have I. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Michaelbaubles · 21/09/2019 14:00

I don’t like the idea of those outdoor ones - the best thing about laundrettes is the warm soapy comforting smell of them. The hypnotic sound of the machines and the billowing warm softness of everything when you take it out of the drier.

I’ve used them quite a few times - living in a flat without a washing machine and on occasions when stuff’s broken. We went in one in Napa Valley that apart from us, was exclusively frequented by immigrant Mexican workers that was kind of fun (a view into a side of the town tourists wouldn’t usually see).

someoneontheinterweb · 21/09/2019 14:05

I’m another person thinking that this isn’t that unusual. I have vague memories of going to a launderette briefly with my mum when I was very young, but I’m guessing grandparent’s must have been busy or away because we’d usually just use their machines if our washer broke. DH and I had ours break once, and we went to his mum’s with our essentials until we ordered another. I’ve used communal wash rooms in hostels and shared accommodation, but never a launderette.

The thing I’ve had pointed out is unusual is that I’ve never ridden a horse. I’m from a city and a working class background and it wasn’t exactly a common hobby. I now live in a more rural town, where it seems to be something everyone has had at least one go at regardless of finances and class.

Teddybear45 · 21/09/2019 14:06

It just shows the levels of poverty sometimes. Even before we had a washing machine (when I was 10) we never went to a launderette as it was too expensive. We would wash clothes weekly ‘Indian style’ on a paddle board (with vanish soap) in the back yard as would most Indian / Pakistani / Bangladeshi families in the area. Duvets would be battered on the clothes line with any stains then scrubbed off with a damp cloth and vanish - they would take days to dry out completely so only washed duvets in the summer. White shirts would be bleached and starched by hand. Everything was pristine though and we often came to school in cleaner clothes than kids whose parents could afford launderettes / their own washing machines.

Anothernotherone · 21/09/2019 14:07

MiniMum97 our washing machine broke down twice - first time we got it repaired which cost a silly amount relative to the value of the machine, the second time and we ordered a new one which arrived the next day - it was about 9 years old and DH did some internet research and decided it wasn't worth repairing. The nearest launderette is 20 miles away, not near where either of us work with only roadside pay and display parking.

If my machine broke and I needed to wash before I could get it repaired/ a new one I'd ask a neighbor (we do have that kind of neighbors, in fact some of their kids slept here last night) or take a load to work No family within hundreds of miles now.

My machine has an 8kg capacity and fits a single duvet. We don't have double duvets, we have a single each on a king size bed and obviously the kids have singles. I wouldn't go back to a double, two singles is much nicer.

Redglitter · 21/09/2019 14:13

To all those who've never been to a launderette, what do you do when you want to wash a king size duvet, or your washing machine breaks down

The Dry Cleaners here do duvets. Mine goes in there. If my washing machine broke down I'd go to my Mums or a friends until it was repaired

InglouriousBasterd · 21/09/2019 14:20

I suspect this may spawn another thread along the lines of ‘AIBU to have never washed my duvet?’

We had one on site in halls at uni, I used to quite enjoy it bizarrely. There’s one round the corner now (London) that gets decent footfall I think.

DecomposingComposers · 21/09/2019 14:29

To all those who've never been to a launderette, what do you do when you want to wash a king size duvet, or your washing machine breaks down

I put my king size duvet in my large capacity washing machine.

If my washing machine breaks down I call the repair man out.

x2boys · 21/09/2019 14:30

Most people have a washing machine these day s ,s my washing machine is currently broke so I went to the launderette last week and need to go again it's a ball ache though and costs a fortune .

Bloodybridget · 21/09/2019 14:34

Laundrette use very much depends on how old you are and where you live, I think, I'm old and we went often when I was a child in London, there are still plenty round my way (still in London) but when we had a second home in Suffolk and needed one, none for many miles around. In fact someone we asked, said did people really go to them as she'd only seen one on Eastenders!

Laniakea · 21/09/2019 14:38

I was born in ‘75, I don’t remember my parents not have a washing machine - I’ll have to ask them when they got one.

At university we had a utility room with a couple of washers on each floor. After that there was always a machine in private rentals (London in the ‘90s). The biggest duvets we have are double & my machine fits them. If they breakdown we wait until they are repaired/replaced or if something needs washing urgently we’d use a friend or family member’s I guess.

DamonSalvatoresDinner · 21/09/2019 14:40

I used a laundrette way back in the late 90's when I moved out on my own (well with my friend) and we were both 16. Could afford rent and council tax but not furniture and white goods like a washer. The laundrette was on the next street. In any other house anywhere else we would likely have been screwed because the only other laundrettes I had ever seen were on a campsite I'd holidayed at as a child and the other was where Pauline Fowler and Dot Cotton worked in Albert Square. We were in the North West of England and it certainly wasn't a posh city by any means but I guess people still had their own washing machines.

JuneSpoon · 21/09/2019 14:42

I'm not sure I've ever been to a laundrette. ... I used to drop bags of washing off to a service a few times after DS was born but I imagine that's a more middle class experience than the laundrette you mean. I drop off duvets to be washed too. Otherwise ... Nope

jackparlabane · 21/09/2019 14:42

We didn't have one when I was a kid, but as it was a posh town the local laundrette closed so my dad and I had to walk two miles to the nearest one, laundry in a pull-along shopping basket. Until 1985 when we moved to a house with a washing machine.
In 1993 I lived in a flat with no washer so went to the laundrette once a week. I now live round the corner from a laundrette but I've only ever used it when a child has puked on a double duvet!

Laniakea · 21/09/2019 14:42

We didn’t have a TV until my mid teens but that was for ideological rather than financial reasons!

ffswhatnext · 21/09/2019 14:45

what do you do when you want to wash a king size duvet, or your washing machine breaks down

When I did have a kingsize one, it went to the dry cleaners at the end of the road.
Washer breaking down, good insurance. Also, loads are done when needed so I don't let things mount up and need a day doing it. So not an issue if it breaks down. Friendly neighbours also help, have let a neighbour use mine in the past. And if needed several doors to knock on,

boujie · 21/09/2019 14:53

I've never been to a launderette either!

notacooldad · 21/09/2019 14:57

what do you do when you want to wash a king size duvet, or your washing machine breaks down
I take my duvet to work.
If the washer breaks I can go a while without the machine until we get it repaired or we get a new one. At a push I would take my clothes to work if I needed something urgent.

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