Continuing on in the vein of apartment living adjustments, this episode will be about the laundry situation. As the units do not have hookups for washers and dryers, we have four laundry rooms spread across the campus. Open from 9:00AM until 10:00PM, they are convenient oases for those needing to do laundry.

Of course, there are wrinkles.

First – machine hogs

The doors unlock at precisely 9:00AM, and by 9:00:32 all the washers are full and running. The early crowd gets in and monopolizes the rooms.

This drives my wife nuts, as she walks down with our laundry in a basket to find all the machines occupied, even when she is early (for her).

Second – broken machines

As the tenants aren’t the owners of the machines, they often are out of service. Perhaps they overfilled it, and ran it too full, or perhaps it is just time for something to break. Regardless of the root cause, far too many of the machines are inoperable.

There is of course a phone number to call for service, and tenants can call, but most do not. In fact I would say that virtually none of them will call. They seem to assume that the property management team will track and report the non-functioning machines. But since they do not do their laundry, unless someone complains, they do not know to call.

My wife has reported broken machines in three of our 4 laundry rooms. Finally they are being fixed. Hopefully, that will reduce the contention for the machines.

Rays of light

One thing that is cool, is that instead of needing a fistful of quarters, the machines use smartcards that are rechargeable. No need to make a special trip to the bank to buy rolls of quarters.

Summary

Life in an apartment is interesting. Having lived in condo’s and houses for the last 15 years have insulated me from some of the frictions that are in normal lives. So it is good to experience the other side.

I am just hoping that we can afford a house when our lease is up here and we can move into something that is more permanent.