HELP! American and/or Canadian Ex-pats...what is wrong with my laundry!!!

[lillabean]

Why is it CRUNCHY? WHAT DO I DO??? My baby's clothes are all scratchy, even if I use fabric softener. I have a washer/condenser dryer combo.

Is it my machine? Is it the hard mineral water in London?

Do they make "American" style washers and tumble dryers here? Can anyone recommend a brand?

My baby gives me such dirty looks when I try to dress her in these sandpaper garments! (and let's not even talk about my towels....)

Any other ex-pats figured out a way around this problem, is it just me?

Please help, else must consider life as nudist!

Can't say I've noticed tumble dried clothes over here to be any different from tumble dried in the states. But, I wil never never never hang my clothes on a line to dry.

I think the washers over here are better. They take ages, but I swear the clothes come out cleaner.

"But, I wil never never never hang my clothes on a line to dry.
"

oh no
very dangerous behaviour

Uwila, you don't put woollens and silk thingies in the dryer!

she is in very resticetd underwear as it all shrinks

My niece did her Scottish relations for show and tell at school one year.

'And they have to wash all their dishes by hand'

The ultimate in deprivation.

well hanging out of washing does give your neighbours information about yourself that you hope they would never find out

for instance my neighbour washes all her husbands underpants for the week on sunday morning and then hangs them out. there are six pairs and me and dh joke that her dh goes commando on a sunday (they are in their 60s)

Why will you not hang your clothes over a line to dry??? I'm baffled by the need to artificially dry everything... a good fresh wind or heated recirculated air?

We have one of those indoors drying rack dooberrys that hangs from teh ceiling (used by some people in kitchens to hand pots and pans from). This means items whihc you woudl rather not share with your neighbours can be dried. Also mean sthat you can dry stuff when it is raining without resorting to tumble drier.

pmsl - my neighbours know that I have 2 children - a pink one and a blue one... and that I am obsessive about seperating my washing!

you COUNTED?

Is counting against the law somehow?

We have indoor racks, we're not supposed to hang washing out in our development. Anyway, I'd forget and leave it out there for days, no doubt.

But someoen might see {whispers} theri underwear on the line ! Far better to have recycled air in environmentally-unfriendly artificial dryers ?!

I have pretty underwear, so tis ok

no ..fios neighbour!

the pants are the only thing on the line EVERY sunday and yes I counted

No-one hangs washing out to dry over here in Colorado. In some areas there are by-laws against such things like there are in Germany. So everyone tumble drys and believe me I find it criminal when it's sunny and 38 degrees outside. Needless to say some of my stuff goes out on the deck to dry

I'd be more worried about the fact her husband only washes his pants. Does the rest of his clothing just get dirtier and dirtier?

well there are 4 shirts on hangers on the line today

but on mine there are hops

Because hanging them out to sry;
Is subject to the weather
Takes too long
Gives me stiff scratchy clothes
Shows off my underwear to the neighbors

No way. Can't do it. It ranks up there with separate taps for hot and cold water. I hate that too. I like most everything else in this country. But these are two thing I could not and can not conform to.

Yeah, the separate taps are weird and pointless.

But hanging clothes out is great. Well, we hang them up inside, but we wouldn't ever get a dryer. (But then, I didn't have a dryer in Canada, just hung things up inside.)

aaah laundry
never ind the middle east
get us onto laundry adn we are away

I cannot conform to metric in baking and cooking.

No can do.

I buy all new recipe books off Amazon.com the American site and have them sent to my parents' addy there and then they bring them over b/c I want them imperial.

We don't have any outdoor space so if we want to line dry it's use racks or take the clothes to MILs back green - and then she says it's bad luck to take wet washing out your house and into another. WTF?

Yeah, if someone wanted to bring there laundry over and hang it my house I;d tell them it was bad luck too!

Ah, but baking and cooking with scales is much nicer than with cups. I have a nice little metric scale that I can zero after adding each ingredient ... much nicer than NA recipes.

But if you don't hang things up to dry, you don't get that lovely line-dried-outside smell to your clothes and your sheets.

I've just been sniffing my washing...before I saw this thread!

I have a washer/dryer and it's shit, btw. I never use the dryer bit. It just crumples the clothes beyond the wit of any iron if they're dried to bone dry, or it makes them sweaty and hot and then clammy and still wet when they've cooled down.