Overwhelmed by laundry

[Mamalamadrama]

Large family. Struggling to get anywhere with the laundry. Don't have a tumble dryer. Having to dry things on radiators, airers but there is just piles of washing everywhere.
It's driving me insane.

Have you tried a heated airer with a cover?

Can you get a heated airer which charge like 6p an hour? I got one second hand from lakeland for 20 quid n was a life saver to dry clothes.

Can you give any more info? How many household members, ages, do you/they work?
Heater airer is a good idea. Can other members of household help. Even small children can hang washing to dry and put their own clean clothes away.

as a one off to get on top of it could you drag all the wet washing to the laundrette? The winter is always hard to stay on top of washing without a tumble drier, but once the backlog is cleared you should find it more manageable- I do a load a day and dry it on the radiators or the airer overnight.

I feel your pain. It is never ending.

I bought a good decent heated airer, tried the sheet over etc. I thought it was useless and a waste of £200…

@Zola1 yes I have one of those but I don't find them great. They take ages to dry.

Washing line if you have access to outside space. Or take sheets etc to the laundrette.

Weekdays your household op? 12 toddlers is v different to 6 adults who can help for example.

No dryer from moral choice or can't afford one? Can you afford to get the backlog done at a laundrette?

If it's overwhelming you, I would try this (it helped me when mine got too much!)

So, don't look at it all as one massive pile of laundry. That won't help you tackle it.

Try to split it all up into days, and then split it into loads to do each day. Ignore the days you haven't yet reached.

With the loads - do whatever is priority today. So think who's lowest on clothes, who needs what first. Anything that can wait do last. (Bedding, random stuff like that, put that at the bottom of the list).

Once you get through a day or two, it'll all feel a lot less overwhelming.

Or, sometimes I just get it all done in one go and then I can start fresh with a laundry routine. - try to find a way to go to a local laundrette or see if any friends/family can help. Laundrette washing machines are absolutely massive and you can use their dryers too, get it all done in one go, get it dried and folded and then just put it all away. Xx

I hang shirts from curtain pole on landing. There is a radiator under the window stuff dries quickly

Can you cut down on washing? From some threads on here a lot of folk do a lot of unnecessary washing!

A dehumidifier will dry your washing quickly...

@SleepingStandingUp
4 adults
3 school age
2 toddlers.
Tumble dryer is broken can't afford a new one and probably wouldn't be able to afford to run it. Money so tight.

Family of 5 here. I do a wash first thing and if it's not the weather to put it on the line I hang it on the clothes horse. Sheets on the banister and sometimes use radiators if it's a large load.
I do this every other day during the week and bedding at the weekend.
It's dry by the morning when I put the next load on.
I also hate laundry but it's the price of clean clothes, sometimes dh does it or me or dc.

A dehumidifier is amazing - we got one a few months ago and the other day emptied out 22L of water that had collected in about 2 days. Manages to get 2 loads dry in 24-48 hours

Heat pump tumble dryer.

Oh sorry, just saw your earlier post, please ignore. In that case, dehumidifier- that's what I use.

I have started putting wet washing on coat hangers on the shower curtain rail in the main bathroom. It's warm in there- bathrooms are designed to be wet so not worried about mould and can have the window permanently open with the door shut. That's helping a lot. Drys quickly hanging up and seems better then elsewhere

Do a quicker wash not a long one

towels etc bedding I hang over doors and jumpers etc over chairs
Tops shirts on hangers in curtain poles door frames
heated airer with more over the top of it to dry off
underwear over washing basket edges
and wear things for a longer time

We plan our laundry schedule around the weather and check the forecast in advance. Also use the timer on the machine so it’s ready to take out when I need to eg when I get up at 7am.

I tend to do "batches" i.e. a big laundry binge every 2-3 days.

Clear away ALL the dry stuff from the last wash, do several loads, hang it all up together. Leave to dry for 2-3 days. In the spring/summer I wash it the day before, stack it up, and put it on the line first thing, so it's dry by the evening.

A "little and often" approach doesn't work for me, as I'm loading wet stuff onto a half-dry airer etc. etc. and I never seem to get free of it.

1. Wash less - sniff and fold is great for teens and kids!
2. Have different coloured towels for each person (and less of them) so that people don't fling them in the wash after one use. Towels can be used for a week.
3. Why have you got piles of washing everywhere? Is that dirty/wet/waiting to be ironed?
4. Don't iron. Smooth items as you put them to dry and fold up when done. You will not notice the difference I promise. I haven't ironed anything for 5 years, even linen dresses!
5. Get a system - I like baskets for each person in their room and shout out what load for each day i.e. whites, towels, woolens, darks. Don't do more than one load a day or you'll run out of drying space.
6. Dry shirts and jumpers on hangers
7. Get a dehumidifier - an airer full is dry in a day even with no heating on!

I now have a weekly 'schedule' with my laundry, sometimes it does get on top of me as I have a tiny washer, so I do what I mentioned in my previous comment, but weekly:

Mondays - My clothes & Baby's Clothes
Tuesdays - Towels / Muslins
Wednesdays - Partners clothes
Thursdays - Bedding/blankets
Fridays - Baby clothes
Saturdays - Partners work clothes

Each day there can be a few loads but I choose a setting for whatever it is, and split loads so that they 'make sense' - so my stuff, it's usually only worn within the house, it doesn't need a long wash so I put it on a fast wash to get it done with, whereas my partners work stuff is usually filthy and needs a longer wash, etc.

Then with drying:

Tops/shirts get put on hangers, I put a bar across the top of the boiler cupboard so I either hang them on there, on the bedroom curtain pole or my airier has these things that fold out for hangers.

Towels get put on this towel hanger on the back of the bathroom door. Any bedding I usually hang over doors 🙈

I use radiators for smaller things, like the baby's clothes, I can put more of his stuff on radiators than I can of my stuff.

Then I have 3 airers, my stuff gets put on one in my room, the baby's other stuff & partners stuff gets put on one in baby's room, my partners work stuff gets put on an airer in the second reception room downstairs. I hang it all so that once it's dried, it's easy to grab so that it's already folded and I'm not stood folding things forever

@Twillow - definitely what they said about the sniff and fold!!

So 9 people!!? No wonder there is a lot of washing. Although agree with PP - make absolutely sure that everything really needs washing and can't be worn again.

I suggest it might be worth taking everything down the laundrette to use their big driers so that you can initially get on top of it. Once the backlog is cleared, you can then get into the habit of putting a wash on every time there are enough clothes for one, so that you spread across the week as much as possible. Put stuff out on the line if at all possible, just to reduce the number of clothes in the house.