Can't cope with washing clothing

[MonsteraMother]

I'm relatively competent in most areas of life except this one. I cannot fucking get it together to be on top of the washing. I sometimes buy new socks just because I can't face the bloody sock mountain and pairing them all up. I own over 60 pairs of knickers as I only seem to have the time and space in my life to catch up with washing during school holidays.

For context, we have a 4 bed house with a washing machine, a tumble dryer and outside washing line but no utility room - just a small office/box room which is always stuffed to the max with the wash baskets and the sock basket. We also have a cleaner once a week but she doesn't do anything to do with washing.

My excuse is that I work incredibly long hours (7am to 7pm) and have 2 young DC. DH does lots to help too with cooking, dishwasher, all school runs but he is also crap at washing. We have 4 wash baskets and they are all full of washing in various states.

AIBU to ask for your help? Surely at my 'close to menopause age' I should be able to get a grip on this one area of life.

Please give me your tips...

Might depend on what shoe size you all are but with socks, my ex and I both used to wear plain black ones so there was no opportunity for mix ups. Same with my kids now they’re teens. We all use the same ones. It helps a bit.

You’re on a headteachers wage. So employ a laundry service, they collect and return in the evening. Or lose the cleaner to pay for it If money is tight.

If you want to do your own smalls then get the kids to pair up socks. Assign everyone in the house a sock colour to make it simpler eg DH red socks.

For clean washing I have a basket for each person as I take it out of drier (or line) it gets put in relevant persons basket it is then their responsibility to take basket and put washing away.
For washing as dirty basket gets full (which is approx 1 load) I put it on before work and switch to drier when I get home.
Ironing goes into a pile and I do that on a Sunday morning when I potter around doing jobs while listening to radio.
Socks go in a pile and get sorted in a couple of mins (either buy plain black so just pair up or very bright obvious a pair so easy to match)

Plenty of people have a cleaner. I don’t mind cleaning but hate laundry so the laundry gets collected, washed dried and folded and returned. Where I live it’s cheaper than employing a cleaner and saves me more time. No shame at being bad at domestic chores if it was never you life’s ambition to be good at them.

What I did. Take it all to the laundrette. Get it all clean and dry. Put it all away, any socks without pairs- bin.
Have one small washing basket, when it's full it needs

Washing. Keep Hangers near the dryer so you put them straight on Hangers when they're dry, then it's easy to put them in wardrobes.

In your case, I’d ask your cleaner if they are interested in doing the laundry as an extra?

It sounds like you have too many clothes.

If you got rid of a lot of them, or at least cycled the summer ones into storage bags in the loft then you sinply wouldn't have enough stuff to make mountains of clothes.

It also makes the putting away easier (the bit I hate the most) because there will plenty of room in drawers and wardrobes without having to cram stuff in.

One wash every day is the key

That is a really long day for you, work wise, so I can understand getting behind on things. I do a wash most days - I set it going first thing in a morning - don't go downstairs without an armful of dirty washing! Then I have a dehumidifier in the office that I hang it out in in the evening. I use the dryer for towels and things. I tend to do a big put-away of clean clothes once a week on a Friday or at the weekend. It's all about getting yourself into a routine.

I have given up on the folding and putting away bits of it all. I just bought a set of baskets - designated to each person (with a separate one for socks/underwear per person). I quickly chuck things in the relevant baskets as I empty the dryer.

And people can find their clothes in their basket.

It’s a definite improvement on the previous piles of completely unsorted laundry to root through all the time situation.

You could do the same and pay your cleaner to put the laundry away from the baskets, I guess.

7 pages in you’ve probably given up OP but as someone who also works similar hours in a school with 2dc, this is what works for me.

4 plastic laundry baskets sit on the side by the washing machine (we do have a utility room which helps here), stacked in 2s. 1 is for me & DH, the other for the DC. Washing gets folded into those baskets when it is clean & dry (either from the tumble dryer, off the line or off the heated airer). As soon as a basket is full it gets taken upstairs & clothes put away. That stops the piles of clothes getting unmanageable. The new basket is underneath ready for filling and then the next load of washing gets brought downstairs in the just emptied basket so there is always a load ready to go on.

I tend to do the quick sorting / putting away each evening while doing bedtime - so while dc are in shower, getting pjs on, start reading to me etc. I also get them to help with putting their own stuff away and usually this is when I stick the next load on. I then hang out on line the next morning (if summer) or put on heated airer before bed / in tumble dryer with a timer set so it comes on while we’re getting ready in the morning. (I know some people would turn their noses up at it sitting in the machine overnight but with the hours we work that’s just a necessity and our clothes are fine for it!)

I iron as needed, not straight from the machine - loads of stuff doesn’t actually need ironing if it’s been hanging up for a while before you wear it. That stops an ironing pile of doom building up.

I have a peg board for odd socks which works a dream - if I haven’t reunited them by the time it fills up (think it has 10 slots), the socks that have been there longest get chucked.

Its not the most interesting job but there is some satisfaction in having a system cracked. Good luck OP.

Perhaps also think about getting rid of some clothes - it sounds like you have so many no wonder it’s overwhelming when you actually come to wash them. Little and often will make it feel easier I should think.

Get the children to pair the socks. Buy fewer types of socks. If children are the same size then they can share, otherwise get dc1 socks all the same, and dc2 socks all the same, the ones with the size marked if they need the same type for school.

Only put dirty clothes in the basket, not clean worn clothes.

@MonsteraMother

get a sock octopus. Clip them up in pairs as they come out of the washer and they dry in pairs.

game changer.

also I now do a load a day (seems to take a day to dry at the mo) and fold.

occasionally I chuck it all and fold it later (headphones and a box set) but I only put my own away.

DH and DD do theirs. I got fed up at looking at the Armageddon like state of their drawers so leave them to it now.

and I only wash whites separately.

Only read te first page but in your situation why on Earth would you not ask the cleaver to stay an extra hour to help get on top of the laundry? Just fyi my cleaver dies laundry and I know others who do as well.

do remember to volunteer for the Samaritans with those empathy skills love

This works for me but not sure it scales up. I have probably 40 knickers and 12 bras. I have four pop up laundry baskets, they live in my bath as I only shower.
One for lights and whites, one for delicates, one for colours, and the last is generally towels and bedding,

so it means when I’m ready to do a wash it’s all pre sorted, when the kids were at home I’d do a load of just knickers, pants and socks, topped up with bedding or towels depending on how much had gone in the drum.

back then all knickers and socks were tumbled dried (and I’ve also got three of those multi peg hangers now). At my daughter house all those items are launched into a basket when dried and the kids pair and sort it before they go to bed taking up their stuff and putting it away.

im a bit of a weather watcher, I prefer line dried so I work out when best to do a load so I can get it dry but also take into account the time I have. So short of time it’s a towel and bedding wash as that takes hardly any time to hang out.

I don’t do it now but when I took an item out of the wardrobe I used to put the hanger in a basket, then all items from washing machine went on a hanger and then on the line, when dry straight into the wardrobe. (I’ve a couple of cheap clothes rails from Argos on my large landing I hang clothes on too when the weathers crap) I changed to ironing clothes I needed on the day, hung stuff was easier to iron, often didn’t need it.

before we go to bed DH sorts the dishwasher, I’d load washing machine and delay a wash, sometimes for up to 23 hours ahead.

You’ve got a case of overwhelm.

Other than the good suggestions about timetabling, a game changer for me was chucking out existing socks and buying a load in just 2 colours.

No more sock matching ever. You just chuck them loose into a draw.

Do it for the whole family. Not that expensive. So worth it.

Get rid of the tumble dryer. It’s an extra stage. We have never had one.

How is loading a heated airer not an extra step though?

I’d be far more put off by that than chucking the clothes in the dryer from the machine. All that hanging up individual pieces and thinking about how to arrange things so everything fits/dries.

Then you’ve got to take everything (one at a time) off the airer again so you can dry anything else. Emptying a dryer into a basket/a pile is easier.

To get on top of it, you could spend a morning in a laundrette, big washing machines and big dryers.

@Topgub Numbnut

Ever heard of overwhelm, ADHD, exhaustion, depression, or any of the myriad of other reasons why someone might struggle with a task like this?

And apart from that - why post just to be nasty??

I keep on top of laundry by doing it most days. However, with the weather the way that it is it has got a bit out of control, so I am sending all our bed linen and the towels to a laundry. I will still launder our clothing.

So, find a local pick up laundry and bag everything that can be laundered and dried at the laundry. Anything delicate or wool etc wash yourself.

Once you are on top of it it will not seem unsummountable.

Then try and do a load every day and get it dry. Put it away as you go along.

We have to cut ourselves some breaks now and then because just life is too much at the moment.

Take the stuff that needs washing to a launderette. Get them to wash and dry it for you. Then you are on top of it and you can get a system in place that works for you. You'll get nowhere with the piles still there. Don't try and do all the washing in one day. Split it up either by colours or by person.

You have too many clothes

Buy multipacks of plain socks

Black and decker heated rail

Set off washing machine and ask cleaner to hang it up when its it's finished