Laundry is not hard

[Viohh]

Why do people make such a meal out of laundry? The machine literally does it for you. All you need to do is put the clothes in the machine - a 15 second job? I do 2/3 loads a day no problem with a large dog and twins.

We have separate machines but even when we don’t use the dryer it’s not difficult. Just maintain momentum. And folding is what a 2 min job? I put everyone’s clothes on the stairs for them to take up.

I have every laundry privilege going. Separate washer and dryer, laundry room upstairs, dedicated hanging space upstairs and out, folding space and I don’t mind laundry. It’s never-fucking-ending. There’s two humans and two dogs here and I do ten loads a week in winter. Folding and putting away is most of it, and takes a good twenty minutes. I do it while I’m on the phone. If it’s a chore you hate, you don’t have a great set up, a big family or a high needs child, it’s a significant chunk of time and faff.

You know what I really hate? Emptying the fucking dishwasher. Yes, I know it’s a five minute job. And they’re clean dishes. And the dishwasher does all the work. It’s easy. But I HATE it. So I put it off. And while I’m putting it off, dirty dishes accumulate and then loading the dishwasher is a whole other job, and not just done as you go. But I hate it so irrationally and so much. I can’t get past it. I make my teen do it, which takes even longer and is even harder.

Oh, and washing up water bottles. I’ll take laundry any day!

Do you have a full time job OP?

My bed is two loads, daughter’s bed is a load. Our towels are a load. Dog towels are one load on an average week, two or three on a wet one.

I do one load of school uniform, one of PE kit/swim kit/gym kit, and two loads of regular clothes. Oh, and a whites wash.

That’s ten loads, changing bedding and washing towels once a week. What should I be skipping? This isn’t snark, it’s a genuine question! I don’t think we are ‘so dirty’ - we wear clothes for two days-ish. And I think once a week is reasonable for sheets and towels and sports kit, so I can’t see how I could do less?

I don’t think it takes an hour a day. Probably half an hour, if you include changing the beds, sorting the kits and packing them ready to go again and hanging uniforms etc. A load of dog towels that I just throw in a basket takes a few minutes. Stripping my bed and folding the stupid extra long king size duvet cover does not! half an hour is a significant chore if you work, have kids to connect with, supervise homework, ferry to activities and bloody dinner to make and clean up every bloody night between getting in at 6 and getting kids to bed by 9 and having a bit of downtime. What am I missing?

Well I have to do at least 2 loads a day. One of my aprons and towels for work, one with just my work tunic in.
then there’s my work trousers which need to go in separate because otherwise they will be out of shape.
my kids have PE two consecutive days a week, so that needs washing and they also produce one school uniform each 3 days a week. Then there’s their swimming stuff (which obviously is a seperate load) and then bedding every other week, towels every 2 days and things like that new shirt my husband decided to buy for work that’s brand new so needs washing alone the first few times.
There’s a lot more going on then the standard “I just wash once every 3 days” for me it’s 3-4 times a day every day.

Then there’s their swimming stuff (which obviously is a seperate load)

I have admitted upthread that I take a "survival of the fittest" approach to laundry, and rarely read laundry labels, but this is a new one to me? Why do they obviously need washing separately? (This admittedly coming from a woman who runs a bit of extra shower gel on hers and rinses them in the shower after swimming...)

Surely with kid's clothes, they grow out of them faster than they wear out from washing?

I also take a survival of the fittest approach to laundry and cannot imagine why swimming stuff is obviously different.

I used to wash £60 racing jammers regularly (plus all the training jammers and towels required for 12 hours or training a week) and they were fine in with the normal wash.

I don’t agree that it’s only people making extra work by having 37 hue-based washing groups and washing bedsheets every day that find laundry arduous.

I have the most lax approach to laundry imaginable and still it’s bloody relentless.

It's not the washing, it's the drying part that's so tedious this time of year. We don't have a tumble dryer so I perpetually have two or three clothes airers up in the kitchen. I check for dryness and manage to skim off the odd dry sock from the outer layer now and then but the inner core stays damp for days. I run the dehumidifier and do rotations of wet clothes onto radiators but it's a lot of effort for not much reward. By the time I've freed up enough airer space to contemplate putting on another load, the basket is near to overflowing again. It's miserable!

This is a prank post for reactions right? Surely nobody is that bad at 'reading the room'?

It's not physically hard like construction work or mentally challenging like neuroscience but it's endless, boring, unrewarding invisible work that requires daily drudge and mental planning so if it all falls to one person for a family then, yes, it's hard to carry that responsibility around for years on end.

Thank for reminding me to book the oven clean 😊

Because they are covered in chlorine and that wears the swimming things out quicker, not to mention swimming pools stink to high heaven and so I wouldn’t want to mix that with my underwear for example

It's sad that you've typed that up just to be a d*ck basically. There will be things you find difficult that others find easy but the rest of us aren't twisted and shove that in your face. P.s putting washing on the stairs is dangerous. Just take it up if you have sooo much time.

Chlorine isn't an issue if the clothes are being thoroughly washed in warm water. There's no need to wash them separately.

I’m not sure, I just don’t need my knickers washed with other people’s pee

You (or your children) are immersing their bodies in the water you are so worried might contaminate your pants in the swimming costume is in the same washing machine load as them.

Seriously, what do you think happens in the washing machine? The clothes get washed.

I would rather scrub the oven.
My laundry room is in the basement and I keep forgetting to go downstairs. And there isn’t enough room to hang things up down there so I have to lug a basket back up.

That's what the chlorine is for. And chlorine washes out easily with warm water.

Yes its easy but it's still a shite chore todo hanging everything waiting a day for it to dry as no dryer then ironing and folding, Lucky your so fantastic at keeping on top of your laundry 👏👏

yes, but our grans and mum's had so much more to do.! I'm disabled- 75 with severe arthritis.Imagime life without an automatic washer and a light shark Hoover! I do small loads daily and thus keep on top of it.My poor mum had no machine, her hands were red raw every winter. She had a mangle.

We specifically went for an apartment with washer and dryer included within the apartment, I could not have coped with a shared laundry room and having to book time slots (we turned down employment and moving here sooner partly due to no guarantee of an apartment with included washing machine and having a baby at the time, could not fathom how we would cope with poonamis/blow outs/vomiting bugs etc if you only had a shared laundry room with booked time slots required?) . I wonder if it is becoming more common to have washing machines and dryer included in the apartments.

We did have a shared, pay for (£1 at a time) tumble dryer in one apartment in London once, which we used sparingly, but we had our own washing machine in the apartment and no children at the time so that was manageable at least.

Personally I can't imagine doing 2-3 loads of laundry every day! I get by doing one 1 every other day, despite having a husband (who changes clothes more often than I think necessary) and 2 children. Sure the laundry basket is usually always at least half full, but we have enough clean, dry clothing to get by. I also rarely use the tumble dryer, except once a month when I do a wash every day over 4 days and get all the towels, bedding, tea towels and other tumble dryer stuff done, I also get caught up with all the other normal laundry and get to enjoy an empty laundry basket for a short while,

I also don't iron stuff, huge waste of time imo, we don't need to wear suits/shirts pretty much ever, I got rid of the iron altogether in fact. I do suspect (quite strongly) that I may be ASD, so maybe that explains why I avoid doing too much laundry or adding too much unnecessary faff to the job.

I like to save all my washing up until I run out of clothes and I'm forced to wash everything in one long and boring day of alternating between the washing machine, tumble dryer, radiators and clothes horse. Then I use the piles of dry clean clothes as an open wardrobe until I have to repeat the process.

Spoken by someone who does not also own cats... 😂

Not physically or mentally demanding, but boring, constant, repetitive, thankless and never ending. Washing is created about as quickly as it's done in this house!

Christ if anything I envy you having the bandwidth in your day to take the time to write a post just to make others feel inadequate.

I agree. As I've already said, some people make extra work for themselves - and then like to moan about it!