My First Apartment: How to Survive Using a Public Laundry Room

Laundry. We all have to do it, unless you pay for a laundry take-out service that will do your laundry for you. But since the majority of people would rather spend their money on something else, we brave the chore and move on. But what if you don’t have a washer and dryer in your apartment? Then you have to clean your clothes in a public laundry room at your complex or you use a local laundromat. Don’t worry, we're here to help you with tips to make your laundry experience easier so you can enjoy your first apartment.

Sort Laundry

When you get to the laundry room or laundromat you might find that there isn’t a ton of space to separate your laundry into different loads. Do this in your apartment before you leave. When you do this create a plan of attack. Are you going to do your whites first? Or towels? Yes it will be nice to have all loads going at once but you might only have one machine to work with.

Check Pockets

Another thing that you should do before you leave your apartment is to empty the pockets of your loose change, ticket stubs etc. This may seem a little tedious but it will keep things from getting caught up in the washing machine or dryer, plus you never know what you might find!

Pre-treat Stains

When you're sorting through your laundry (back in your apartment of course!), treat your stains. This not only minimizes the time that you're in the laundry room, but means that you have one less thing to carry from your apartment to the laundry room.

Downsize Detergent

To lower the amount of weight that you have to carry, put your detergent in a smaller container. Look at the amount of laundry you're taking and if it's smaller loads, find a smaller container for your detergent so you can transport just what you need with you.

Quarters

Make sure that you take extra quarters with you. This will help you save an extra trip back to your apartment to get more money when you put quarters in a machine that happens to be broken. Guess what? You won’t be getting your money back.

Kill the Time

If you don’t trust leaving your loads running while you relax in your first apartment or if your apartment complex doesn’t allow leaving your clothes unattended, then make sure you take something to entertain yourself. This will help prevent absolute boredom.

Ways to Cut Down Dirty Laundry Load Size

There are different ways to cut down the amount of laundry that you actually have to do. An obvious one is to re-wear your outfits as many times as you can before washing it. Jeans can be worn several times before washing.

Another way is to take care of the spots when they first happen. Invest in a Tide-to-Go pen to get small spots out before the stain sets in. These are great for little spots caused by splashing coffee on your work shirt or dropping ketchup from your cheeseburger while driving to the movie theater.

Because there are probably a small amount of people who love going to the laundromat, you can have satisfaction in knowing that there are people out there who aren’t enjoying washing their laundry either.