Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Decline of the American Laundromat

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 206 posts

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#31

Post by danielparks »

ams6110 wrote: post #15
freetime2 wrote: post #7

From the article: Laundromats’ margins are further thinning as the price of water and sewage services have risen across the country. Utilities make up by far the heftiest of Lavanderia’s expenses, costing over $100,000 each year. Add to that the roughly $30,000 Tillman spends fixing his aging washers and dryers, and the laundromat is left with about $140,000 of profit each year, a number that continues to dwindle. Fo…

Solar water heating seems like a no-brainer for a laundromat. Most are in strip malls or freestanding box-type buildings with a lot of flat open roof space. Article also didn't seem to mention cost of emplying attendants. Never seen an unattended laundromat -- people need help with jammed coins, etc. and to prevent vandalism.

I don't remember seeing any attended laundromats when I lived in SF in 2013. I was in the Nob Hill area.

Somebody did come by to close them, and there was generally a number you could call if a machine ate your quarters.

When I moved to Portland I was impressed by all the apartments with in-building washers. I quickly realized they were a necessity here since there are very few laundromats.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#32

Post by greggman »

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.

Unless it's gone up, the cost of fluff and fold service in the mission is cheap enough that it's not much more than doing it yourself. Especially when many laundromats where is > $2 for a wash load and similar for a dry load. If you have to separate your loads it can easily be $12 to do your laundry yourself. You can probably get it done for $15 and have several hours of your life to do something else.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#34

Post by dijit »

greggman wrote: post #28
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…

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.

Europe is a broad stroke.

UK, sure, Sweden.. not so much.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#35

Post by danans »

greggman wrote: post #28
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…

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.

Not certain how you can describe all of Europe that way. In my experience, European countries have very good upkeep of public spaces even by higher developed world standards, and especially compared to the US.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#36

Post by skrebbel »

greggman wrote: post #28
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…

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 Luxembourg. That entire country is so clean and tidy that it almost looks like a cartoon.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#37

Post by Veratyr »

greggman wrote: post #28
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…

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.

There are other places yes but out of the countries I've visited, the US is definitely one of the worst. All the Europe I've visited (Paris, Berlin, Zurich, Istanbul, south-eastern region of Russia) has been about as well kept as Australia, my home country. Aside from Malaysia, I can't think of a country that's worse than the US. Even the (disclaimer: nicer, less impoverished) parts of Mexico I've visited were arguably better maintained.

Another disclaimer: I live in the Bay Area and that's where most (but not all) of my feelings about US public spaces come from.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#38

Post by dtech »

Veratyr wrote: post #37
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.

There are other places yes but out of the countries I've visited, the US is definitely one of the worst. All the Europe I've visited (Paris, Berlin, Zurich, Istanbul, south-eastern region of Russia) has been about as well kept as Australia, my home country. Aside from Malaysia, I can't think of a country that's worse than the US. Even the (disclaimer: nicer, less impoverished) parts of Mexico I've visited were arguab…

It might be the large US population of homeless people worsens this (especially in the bay area), as they have no better option than to leave their waste in public places.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#39

Post by DrScump »

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…

  SF is a pile of poo compared to an average Dutch city.
SF is a pile of poo compared to an average American city, too.

Re: The Decline of the American Laundromat

#40

Post by Symbiote »

dtech wrote: post #38
Veratyr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other places yes but out of the countries I've visited, the US is definitely one of the worst. All the Europe I've visited (Paris, Berlin, Zurich, Istanbul, south-eastern region of Russia) has been about as well kept as Australia, my home country. Aside from Malaysia, I can't think of a country that's worse than the US. Even the (disclaimer: nicer, less impoverished) parts of Mexico I've visited were arguab…

It might be the large US population of homeless people worsens this (especially in the bay area), as they have no better option than to leave their waste in public places.

That's still the US's problem to fix though. Other countries provide public toilets.

With a quick search, I can only find maps for the London Underground and Britain generally:

[1] http://content.tfl.gov.uk/toilets-map.pdf

[2] https://greatbritishpublictoiletmap.rca.ac.uk/ (many semi-public also listed)

Post reply on HN