Scenario: 1 washer and 1 dryer to share between 13 units in the building. Each apartment has their own magnet with their apartment number on it, that affixes to a board that breaks down the week into days and two-hour time slots. The idea is that a unit puts their square on the board within the two hour timeslot they want, and then does their laundry during that time. 2 hours is enough to do 2 loads. If a unit needs to do more than 2 units, their magnet will straddle two time slots. Irksome but not offensive. Straddling a time slot can also indicate that a person is not going to begin their slot until halfway through the first slot.
Now, in general this runs very smoothly. Except in the case of Tom and Phx vs. the redhead punk next door.
History: A few weeks ago, I put our magnet straddling two timeslots because I was starting our laundry at 1 p.m. and not at noon. I went back upstairs, grabbed the laundry and headed down to the laundry room. On my way down, I passed the redhead punk, and a feeling of foreboding washed over me. Had he jacked our timeslot? Another tenant, who was just about to wash his car, confirmed my fears. "I think he just beat you."
"I had our magnet on the square!" I protested indignantly, feeling a womanly-rage boil up inside me.
"Yeah, he does that... little fucker." he replied with a grin.
I stormed down to the laundry room, and sure enough, he had slid my magnet down to the 2-4 p.m. slot and started his laundry.
Gone was shy little Phoenix. In her place was a raging, boiling mad woman. (collective gasp from the audience... thank you) I marched back up the stairs and knocked on the door of the apartment he and his mother lived in. I heard a tv on but got no response. I knocked again, a little louder, but still politely. More tv. No response.
Fed up with being polite, I banged on the door so hard it rattled on its hinges. I glanced up and down the hall to see if anyone was going to complain about the noise, but the hall was quiet.
Finally, I heard the door unlock and the redhead punk showed his punky face.
"Yeah?"
"How many loads of laundry are you doing? Just one?" Bitchiness has abandoned me for a quaking politeness.
"Yeah."
"Well, I had reserved this time to start my laundry at one."
"Oh.....sorry 'bout that."
"Ok."
I went back to our apartment, still fuming, and put my laundry in once his was done.
(And there were 2 other times when he encroached on our time because he didn't shift his loads soon enough, and his laundry ended up sitting out wet overnight while we got ours done.)
* * *
Last night: I went down to the laundry room and put our magnet on the 8-10 p.m. slot for tonight.
Tonight: Tom and I got home at 8:30 and he went down to put the laundry in (being the wonderful boyfriend he is :) while I had a shower. When I emerged, warm, clean and happy, he informed me that someone else had put their laundry in the wash and we'd have to wait till it was done.
!!?!!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?
There was no magnet on the board, since ours was obviously already there... but we didn't even have to guess who it was.
We went down again when his laundry should have been done and removed his wash from the laundry to start our own.
Once our wash load was done, we found that he'd been quicker than the last times and already put his load in the dryer. But his dry time still had half an hour left on it.
I was hesitant, my boiling, raging mad woman failing me once again. I didn't want to remove his clothes when he was halfway through the cycle (ok, I kind of did want to) because he'd already paid for the time.
But Tom stepped up to the plate with a firm, "Fuck this," removed the offending damp clothes from their half-complete dryer cycle, and put our clothes in the dryer. He stuck change in the dryer (which added to the time already on it), and started it up.
I was stunned. Thoroughly pleased, but stunned.
So now there are 20 minutes left to wait until our dryer load is done, that is, if the redhead punk hasn't removed them already...
* * *
Yeeessss....
Our laundry is done, dry, and outta there. And our magnet is off the grid, innocently back in it's place with the other unused magnets.
There was still some time left on the dryer, and Tom was in the process of putting the redhead punk's laundry back in the dryer for the remaining time, but the boiling, raging mad woman in me took over and dissuaded him.
I feel a little guilty, but in the words of Tom, "It's not our sponsatility."
(please, no comments about karma... thx :)
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Laundry War
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6 comments:
How frustrating! That's what sucks about living in an apartment, those who obide by the rules get screwed by those who never do.
I never lived in a complex with a laundry facility but my roomie and I did struggle with parking. Richmond is a college town so apartments are pretty thickly settled. Our building had eight parking spots (two per apartment) and our meager parking lot was fashioned so that you had to drive by the building then loop back around and park at an angle in front of your door. A pain in the ass at best, impossible if anyone had guests. The guys next to us ALWAYS had visitors who blocked us in constantly. Visitors who drove a Suburban for pete's sake! We complained to the landlord who did nothing. I ended up telling him one night that I could not pay my rent if I couldn't get to work and I couldn't get to work if I couldn't get out of the parking lot. On the morning my grandma died, my roomie and I beat on the guys' doors, banged the walls, did everything but throw tear gas in the windows so that I could leave. Nothing. I ended up side swiping the truck with no damage to it but a banged up rear quarter panel to mine. After I moved out, the same thing happened to my roomie and she ended up having to pay 500 bucks to the guy. It's so frustrating because really what can you do except fight back dirty?
I had the opposite experience when I was living in an apartment. There was no such organization in our building with about the same number of tenants as yours. If I found a load in the washer and the dryer empty, I would put the clothes on top of the dryer and put my load in. When I came down and found that that person had put their clothes in the dryer, I just went back to the apartment and waited half an hour. Returned, and I could put my clothes in. Other times someone would leave their clothes in the dryer, I would take them out, leave them on the dryer, then use my clothes.
The one experience I wanted to mention was one time I had left the load in the dryer for a few hours since we were watching a movie. I thought that the worst case would be someone would put my clothes on top of the dryer. So I go down and get my clothes only to find that the person who used the machine after I did not only took them out, but folded them and stacked and sorted them very nicely. Wow.
Wow Mindy! That's way worse than what I'm going through--mind you my car has had an attempted and a successful break-in since we moved here. :(
Phil-yes, I imagine there are some pleasant people who will do that for others, but this punk is maaaybe 14, sullen, surly and not one to even hold a door open for me when my arms are full.
I hate surly punks. I would be tempted to give his mother an earful. . Something along the lines of "manners", and "courtesy". If that doesn't work, a smack upside the head will suffice - To the mother. . It's all in how you raise the little monsters.
No comments on karma? But you'll like this karmic comment:
You acted as an avatar of karma. That punk has been building up negative laundary karma for a while now. You, as an avatar of karma, are merely balancing the scales of karmic neutrality. He should thank you and beg you for more realignment.
Your actions were shenright.
Phoe-if his mom had come over to complain, I would have given her an earful, definitely. But I figured he wouldn't say anything to her, and I think she works a lot and very hard, being a single mom... so my war is with him, not her.
Shenry--thank you! As the vodka is numbing my brain, you just made my day! :)
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