The Decline of the American Laundromat • Hacker News Board

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#21

Post by tener » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 5:46 AM UTC

freetime2 wrote: post #19

acabal wrote: post #6

I'm happy to say good riddance. When I was young I had to carry the family's laundry to the laundrymat, wash and fold it there, and carry it back, every other week at least. It takes hours, and at the time you couldn't do much while sitting there and waiting (nowadays I suppose you have smartphones and laptops). The whole thing was just an exhausting, dreaded hassle. Now I can put laundry in, it's OK if I don't atten…

I think this article is less about the benefits of laundromats vs. in-unit washing machines (most people would choose the latter), and more about the struggles of people who are unable to afford apartments with in-unit hookups and who now have to walk an extra couple of blocks to do their laundry.

Interesting. For a generally rich country the economics seems odd. In contrast, my grandmother was definitely not a wealthy person and she could still put aside the money for the washing machine in the height of the communism. There were no laundromats anywhere.

I do wonder where are the differences coming from.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#22

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 5:46 AM UTC

freetime2 wrote: post #19

acabal wrote: post #6

I'm happy to say good riddance. When I was young I had to carry the family's laundry to the laundrymat, wash and fold it there, and carry it back, every other week at least. It takes hours, and at the time you couldn't do much while sitting there and waiting (nowadays I suppose you have smartphones and laptops). The whole thing was just an exhausting, dreaded hassle. Now I can put laundry in, it's OK if I don't atten…

I think this article is less about the benefits of laundromats vs. in-unit washing machines (most people would choose the latter), and more about the struggles of people who are unable to afford apartments with in-unit hookups and who now have to walk an extra couple of blocks to do their laundry.

[deleted]

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#23

Post by freetime2 » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 5:50 AM UTC

blahedo wrote: post #13

I did the laundromat thing for four years in grad school, then ten years in various units with in-house washer and dryer, and then back to a laundromat for the last six years. It was undeniably convenient to be able to wash something on a moment's notice or at night or whatever, but I have to say I really like the fact that for a 2-3 hour investment of time every 3-4 weeks, I can get my laundry all done, at once, bec…

We recently purchased a combination washer/dryer unit. We throw the dirty clothes every night before bed, set the timer (electricity prices here are lower over night), and the clothes are all washed, dried, and ready to be folded when we wake up in the morning. The only manual part of the process is folding/putting clothes away - but those tasks aren't really parallelizable anyway - so I fail to see how adding in a trip to a laundromat could yield better efficiencies.

Admittedly we don't really bother to separate anything (everything gets cold water, dry on low heat) - so you may be getting better results than us. :)

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#24

Post by justinjlynn » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 5:54 AM UTC

minikomi wrote: post #5

I live in Japan where Laundromats are often attached to Public Baths. I love going to my local, taking a soak while the load runs, and then coming out and having a coffee while my clothes go through the drier. Not much to add.. just felt like professing my love for that Sunday arvo ritual.

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.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#25

Post by circadiam » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 5:56 AM UTC

justinjlynn wrote: post #24

minikomi wrote: post #5

I live in Japan where Laundromats are often attached to Public Baths. I love going to my local, taking a soak while the load runs, and then coming out and having a coffee while my clothes go through the drier. Not much to add.. just felt like professing my love for that Sunday arvo ritual.

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.

Have you ever seen a naked average American?

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#26

Post by Veratyr » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 6:11 AM UTC

justinjlynn wrote: post #24

minikomi wrote: post #5

I live in Japan where Laundromats are often attached to Public Baths. I love going to my local, taking a soak while the load runs, and then coming out and having a coffee while my clothes go through the drier. Not much to add.. just felt like professing my love for that Sunday arvo ritual.

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 all cities and I understand that it's a minority of people who cause these problems but the problems are far from uncommon.

With a place like a public bath in particular, cleanliness is extremely important and I just can't see it working. It only takes one inconsiderate person relieving them self in the water to ruin it for everyone and I find it hard to believe that in a day in an average US city you wouldn't find such a person. My impression is that it works in Japan because the society is extremely communal and you're far, far less likely to find such an inconsiderate person.

I can kind of see it working in smaller US communities where people know and respect each other though. In small communities, everyone knows each other and people are much less likely to be inconsiderate towards friends and acquaintances than they are towards strangers.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#27

Post by greggman » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 6:18 AM UTC

justinjlynn wrote: post #24

minikomi wrote: post #5

I live in Japan where Laundromats are often attached to Public Baths. I love going to my local, taking a soak while the load runs, and then coming out and having a coffee while my clothes go through the drier. Not much to add.. just felt like professing my love for that Sunday arvo ritual.

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.

Certainly hot tubs in San Francisco were mostly closed due to aids or so I am told

http://articles.latimes.com/1987-05-08/news/mn-2810_1_gay-ba...

Sentos (public baths in Japan) certainly don't have any kind of rep like that AFAIK

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#28

Post by greggman » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 6:20 AM UTC

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…

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.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#29

Post by ehaskins » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 6:21 AM UTC

My parents owned laundromats my whole life, and I was being taken along to help install and service laundry equipment when I was pretty young.

Aside, being the one to climb down into the bulkheads in a laundromat is a good inventive to go to college.

I agree the laundry business is changing and probably declining overall, but I think 2005 is a bad baseline.

In the late '90s some laundry equiptment manufacturers put together unreasonable financing deals for building or renovating laundromats. If you see a laundromat from that time that has Maytag or Speed Queen signs out front it was probably built using one of those packages

The financing was sold with revenue or utility saving estimates that were completely out of line with reality, and many of those stores ended up collapsing under the debt and closing within 5-10 years of being built, and so probably had a peak number of them around 2005.

I saw this first hand having helped build then disassemble more than one store in Wisconsin and Illinois.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#30

Post by CalRobert » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 6:22 AM UTC

freetime2 wrote: post #19

acabal wrote: post #6

I'm happy to say good riddance. When I was young I had to carry the family's laundry to the laundrymat, wash and fold it there, and carry it back, every other week at least. It takes hours, and at the time you couldn't do much while sitting there and waiting (nowadays I suppose you have smartphones and laptops). The whole thing was just an exhausting, dreaded hassle. Now I can put laundry in, it's OK if I don't atten…

I think this article is less about the benefits of laundromats vs. in-unit washing machines (most people would choose the latter), and more about the struggles of people who are unable to afford apartments with in-unit hookups and who now have to walk an extra couple of blocks to do their laundry.

Laundromats are expensive, though. I used one for a while and spent nearly ten bucksa week, even though I brought clothes home to air dry. After buying a used haier hlp21n it paid for itself inabout 3 months.