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Laundry Chronicles: A Bad Case of Washer-Dryer Envy

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laundry
By Rebecca Levey
One of my neighbors wears very utilitarian, beige, fairly large bras. One of my neighbors has really ugly 1970s era brown and orange flowered sheets that would look dated on an episode of the Brady Bunch. And one of my neighbors is a total gym rat going through an endless array of workout clothes in a week. How do I know all this? Because I don’t have a washer and dryer in my apartment — I have a communal laundry room where everyone literally hangs their laundry (dirty or otherwise) out to dry. And I hate it.

Of all the things to complain about living in the city, this is the one that gets me the most riled up since becoming a parent. When I was single and then later when I got married but still had no kids I didn’t really get worked up about washers and dryers. I lived in a rental building and figured that’s the landlord’s rule, so be it.

laundry2There are plenty of laundry places that pick up your laundry in the morning and deliver it back that evening all folded and ready to put away. It wasn’t ideal – they always under-washed and over-dried everything, but in the scheme of things it was worth the convenience and price to have someone else do the laundry.

Then I had twins and I needed use special baby detergent and cold water and more importantly the laundry piled up in a matter of a couple days not a week. I started using the laundry room in my building because I couldn’t trust the Laundromat to do it right. When we bought an apartment we didn’t see a single one that had a washer and dryer in the apartment that was in our price range and so it didn’t even occur to us that was something worth holding out for. It became more important to me that I could eke my double stroller through the doorway and on to the elevator than to have a washer/dryer.

I came to rue that decision on many a stomach-flu-filled night when having to run up and down to the basement to do a load of vomit-filled sheets at 3 a.m. made me want to kill every member of my co-op board that vetoed the apartment washing machine.

Later on I realized that our PreWar building was a rarity, as other buildings upgraded their plumbing to handle washing machines. And when we stayed in a house in Italy that was built in the 1500′s and had two washing machines I really almost lost it.

I have no idea how a washing machine became the third rail of co-op board politics but it most certainly is. Nothing gets people more stirred up then the potential to flood thy downstairs neighbor’s apartment. Still, it is crazy to me that in a city where normal apartments still sell for $1,000 per square foot a washing machine is considered a luxury.

Rebecca Levey is a freelance writer and mother of twin girls. She lives, works, parents and tries to maintain her sense of humor on the Upper West Side.  You can follow her travels and adventures at  www.beccarama.com. Read all of her columns for the Westside Independent here.

(flickr photos by Entrophia.net and O Pish Posh)


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