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The Decline of the American Laundromat

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Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#121

Post by garethsprice »

EADGBE wrote: post #114
gwbas1c wrote: post #94

When I lived in San Francisco, I paid for a laundry service. Picked up clothes and dropped them off a few days later. Much cheaper than paying for an apartment with a washer/dryer!

Curious, what's the average price for something like that? Do you pay by load or garment?

Not sure about SF but NYC is teeming with laundries that'll pick up, clean, fold and drop-off for about $1 per pound with a $10 minimum. I drop off at my regular place (it's half a block, on the way to work) but friends use services that pick up and drop off within 30-45 minutes.

With the cost of soap and quarters for the machines etc it's almost cheaper than doing the loads yourself, definitely cheaper if you factor in the value of your time sitting around for 2 hours doing laundry.

There's a few "Uber for laundry" type startups that slap an app interface on top and charge 2-3x the price, but the old school laundries are efficient and cheap - they have your number on file so you just call and say "Pick up please" and they come. Very efficient marketplace.

You don't have a washer/dryer in your apartment in NYC unless you're a millionaire (somewhat facetious - but it's definitely a rarity due to old buildings/plumbing - many leases specifically forbid installing your own too).

Dry cleaning is per garment, though.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#122

Post by striking »

gpvos wrote: post #61
int_19h wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really weird, because this is literally lower quality of life than USSR circa late 70s. Sure, we had really crappy and tiny in-unit washing machines ( http://pics.rbc.ru/img/cnews/2007/09/04/41a.jpg ) - but most people did have one. We didn't have anything like a laundromat.

This may explain why Poland doesn't seem to understand the concept of a laundromat. As a tourist, this can be quite annoying. (Hotel laundry service is usually per-piece and thus way too expensive.)

Yeah, plenty of people in Poland would just wash their clothes either by hand or with a really cheap washer. And dryers were rare and land was plentiful, you'd just air dry.

Not that people don't own them now, but what they own now is a straight-up upgrade from what they had before.

At this point I'm sure there will soon be a market for laundromats in Poland, at least in the more urban areas. But it'd be a hard sell for the vast majority of Polish folks.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#123

Post by erikpukinskis »

Veratyr wrote: post #26
justinjlynn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds quite nice. I wonder why public baths never really took off in the States. In the records I can find, they seem to have a less than savoury perception.

I don't mean to offend but I suspect it's because people in the USA, at least in cities, just can't take care of public places. There's urine in the train stations (either visible or smellable), elevators shut down by faeces, people shouting, yelling and preaching in the streets, also, toilets, often even in private restaurants, are disgusting. I don't mean to say that things are always like this, all the time or in…

"Americans are more likely to pee in the pool than Japanese"... I would love to see that study! I have my own racist hypothesis about the outcome, but yours seems quite rational to me too.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#124

Post by EADGBE »

garethsprice wrote: post #121
EADGBE wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, what's the average price for something like that? Do you pay by load or garment?

Not sure about SF but NYC is teeming with laundries that'll pick up, clean, fold and drop-off for about $1 per pound with a $10 minimum. I drop off at my regular place (it's half a block, on the way to work) but friends use services that pick up and drop off within 30-45 minutes. With the cost of soap and quarters for the machines etc it's almost cheaper than doing the loads yourself, definitely cheaper if you factor…

I've never used it (T-Shirt and Jeans programmer; oh so hip!), but there's an overnight delivery service for dry cleaning to my kids' daycare. Also thought that was pretty smart.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#125

Post by iamatworknow »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #96
Veratyr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to offend but I suspect it's because people in the USA, at least in cities, just can't take care of public places. There's urine in the train stations (either visible or smellable), elevators shut down by faeces, people shouting, yelling and preaching in the streets, also, toilets, often even in private restaurants, are disgusting. I don't mean to say that things are always like this, all the time or in…

> There's urine in the train stations (either visible or smellable), elevators shut down by faeces, people shouting, yelling and preaching in the streets, also, toilets, often even in private restaurants, are disgusting. This is a very SF-centric view of the US. The closest I've come to this in Boston is seeing people sleeping on subway benches. >I can kind of see it working in smaller US communities Communities that…

>This is a very SF-centric view of the US.

Not really. Every major American (and in my experience, Canadian, though it is slightly better up there) city has this to varying degrees.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#126

Post by erikpukinskis »

skrebbel wrote: post #36
greggman wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed but this isn't just a USA thing. Many countries have a culture not taking care of public places. All of Europe comes to mind. As does China.

As a Dutch chauvinist, I beg to differ. We generally take excellent care of public places. This is a combo of culture and government services actually cleaning stuff up every once in a while. Of course, this is HN, so cue some replies about horrible stinky places in the Netherlands, but as a general rule I stand by this. SF is a pile of poo compared to an average Dutch city. And then I haven't even mentioned Luxembou…

In my experience SF is the worst smelling city in the U.S. Compare it to Europe's worst smelling places, not the best ones.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#127

Post by EADGBE »

arethuza wrote: post #108
EADGBE wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very cool that these exists. I had no idea. But I'm just your typical stupid American. However, it looks like they're about 3x the cost of a vented dryer. And smaller capacity than vented ones. > Ventless dryers also take longer to get your clothes dry. A vented dryer might finish a Normal load in about 45-50 minutes, but a condenser or heat pump dryer could run for an hour and a half. Want to dry a bulky blanket or…

I've never waited 3 hours for our dryer to dry anything - in fact even a heavy blanket doesn't take more than an hour.

Do you live in a humid climate? I wonder if that impedes on the dry time at all (having to dry out the air before drying out the clothes drying in the air).

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#128

Post by _jal »

chadcatlett wrote: post #92
_jal wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the same thing at all, but my local laundromat is also a restaurant/bar, and hosts really terrible standup. I'll frequently grab a bite while doing my laundry, and the "comedy" is a useful inspiration to get it done earlier in the day, so I don't have to listen to it. (It is really, truly awful.)

By chance is it Brainwash in SoMa?

The standup gave it away, right?

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#129

Post by iamatworknow »

icebraining wrote: post #41
borski wrote: post #33

TIL there is a Coin Laundry Association, and that they have a biannual conference in Las Vegas.

George Carlin joked that every group that made it in America had its own magazine to show for it. I suspect industry conferences are the business version of that :)

Gophercon was a few weeks ago in Denver. At the same time the "National Cattlemen's Beef Association" was also holding a conference at the convention center. My coworkers and I joked that we should ask them to make us burgers.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#130

Post by Sleeep »

arethuza wrote: post #85
Sleeep wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of apartments in the US have washing machines, I've lived in several apartments and all had a washing machine[1]. As for the reason why many don't - historical (they weren't designed when household washing machines didn't exist and were never retrofitted), and slumlords not wanting to manage another appliance. Add to that nowadays Americans don't do much air drying of their clothes so a washer without a dryer…

"Adding a dryer is very costly" Condenser dryers are pretty easy to install - all you need is an electrical outlet.

I should have specified "traditional dryer." New tech is pretty interesting, I didn't know they existed, but then again I don't pay much attention to dryers other than my own and my own needs ventilation to the outside and a special plug. Price would certainly be an issue in a lower cost rental unit.

Also RE: "much less appealing," should have specified "much less appealing to a prospective tenant than a washer/dryer combo thus wouldn't command higher rent thus isn't worth a landlord's time and money even if space is available right next to the sink for a cheap install." Line drying is much more common in other parts of the world.

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