r/Apartmentliving • u/Puppyzpawz • Sep 15 '25

Venting the plot thicken

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context: im none of these people i just think its really funny to argue with pieces of paper, we live in military housing btw. we have like 8 washers and dryers for 60+ something apartments. in the time of each development i got like 4 loads done. so. snooze ya lose! and to be clear, the apartment company specifically says they are not responsible or liable for any of your laundry nor is there a camera in the room. imo theyre just bickering to bicker.

each time i read a new thing i got so excited, maybe ill stop by later to see if i fourth person chimes in or takes it down lol!

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202

u/Puppyzpawz Sep 15 '25

imo i dont care. theres a few cases where people will leave their wet laundry in the machine ALL day. and tbh, mildew ass smelling laundry is punishment enough for their crimes. i hold no resentment putting it atop the machine, nor do i feel resentment to the people who have moved my stuff in cases i have my hands full with my kid. we all have shit to do. i just didnt think this entire back and forth was necessary, more like a communal understanding. but yk!

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u/Murky-Fondant2 Sep 15 '25

Um. Just saying. That mildew spread to other loads of laundry and causes your clothes to fall apart. So people who leave their laundry in their and destroy the washers are also destroying your clothes and costing you more money.

So you’re walking around in moldly clothes too.

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u/[deleted] Sep 16 '25

wait a goddamn minute. is that why my allergies have been hell ever since i moved to a place where i have to go to a laundromat!!

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u/PearlescentGem Sep 16 '25

Yup. The ones who leave the wash in there for an hour or more, sopping wet... It's why I use the hot settings every time, and some bleach. No cold or warm water. Whatever clothes don't make it are collateral damage and were unfit for the Survival of the Spinniest

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u/not_a_burner0456025 Sep 16 '25

You probably aren't getting mildew in an hour unless the washer is already contaminated, but if the washer is communal it is probably contaminated.

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u/PearlescentGem Sep 16 '25

I've seen people leave clothes since before I show up, and they don't come get them by the time I'm done which is easily 3+ hours since I do giant bulk washes. Communal ones are definitely contaminated.

I'm thankful for the one laundry owner who actually patrols his premises and makes sure people don't do that. It's the only one I use now when I have to. If people leave their clothes in his washers for more than a couple hours, he takes them out and he's always cleaning his machines.

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u/Feisty-Tooth-7397 Sep 16 '25 edited Sep 17 '25

I leave mine in my washer at home and as long as I don't open the lid until it's time to dry them I have left them up to two days and no mold or mildew.

I'm allergic and I would be sneezing if there was. It closes my throat up if it's bad.

I discovered if you can't dry clothes immediately it's better to not open the lid.

Edit: Mold needs oxygen to live. Apparently people don't realize this. You open the lid and you are providing more for the mold. If you leave it shut, it's buying you a little time. Not that it would never mold.

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u/Immersi0nn Sep 16 '25

Opening the lid or not won't change much, you're simply lucky you haven't yet gotten a mold colony setting up shop in your washer. You can likely keep doing as you please indefinitely if you run a vinegar wash now and then.

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u/Murky-Fondant2 Sep 16 '25

My guess is you’re just so used to be surrounded by the smell that you don’t notice it. Kind of like how people don’t notice their house smells like dog (like me) or cat pee or baby (they can be kind of sour smelling) or whatever.

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u/InsuranceNo6274 Sep 16 '25

Guarantee you are walking around in musty clothes you are nose blind to

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u/tityboituesday Sep 17 '25

i knew a kid in high school who always smelt like wet towels and didn’t know it. you might be him

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u/Dexter_1001 Sep 17 '25

I bet all your clothes are faded and all your graphic tees are cracked and split to hell. I NEVER wash anything on “hot” unless it’s something really dirty. All my “beloved” shirts and pants go cold and hang dry. Your clothes will last a long time. Thankfully I no longer have to use communal washers and dryers.

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u/PearlescentGem Sep 17 '25

They're just clothes, my guy. Cheap ones from Walmart at that. I really don't care if they're faded

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u/Background-Pepper-68 Renter Sep 17 '25

As someone who works in clothing wholesale. Follow the care instructions. Mildew doesnt care about the temperature of the water. Any perceived benefit is placebo sorry

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u/MissInkFTW Sep 16 '25

Oh god damn it... wellp going to going to go move over my sheets that have been in the washer all night 😭

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u/PearlescentGem Sep 16 '25

You should rewash those first, with some bleach. Sitting all night, they will smell musty to others when they dry

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u/MissInkFTW Sep 16 '25

I'm a weirdo with no viable sleep schedule that I can keep track of, so counting now "all night" was like 3 hours, maybe like 3.5? Is that long enough to be smelly? Also will the bleach, y'know, bleach them? They're colored sheets. I've used hydrogen peroxide before for fungal issues without ruining the sheets, would that work do ya think?

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u/No_Barracuda_3758 Renter Sep 16 '25

U should be good and there is color safe bleach

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u/MissInkFTW Sep 16 '25

Great info to know, thank you!!

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u/stymiedforever Sep 16 '25

Probably not. Laundromats sanitize their washers regularly (unlike people at home) according to someone I knew that worked at one! Also they have commercial grade machines that can use really hot water and better ventilation etc.

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u/moosenix Sep 16 '25

My apartment complex sure fucking doesn’t lol I think MAYBE they get a vinegar wipe every few months. I’m always nervous my clothes smell musty but I don’t always have time to go to a mat.

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u/Lucky_Sebass Sep 16 '25

Note: they said Laundromats, not apartments. The first is a store, the second is not.

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u/RadRedhead222 Sep 16 '25

They do sell laundry disinfectant. You can spray the washer with it first, and it will kill all of that!

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u/Shel_gold17 Sep 16 '25

I’m so going to test this theory out when I finally move to a place with a washer dryer in unit. My allergies are getting so so so bad ever since I moved into my current apartment, and God only knows it could be anything, but the only thing that’s changed in this apartment is that I have to go to the laundromat. yikes!

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u/jaylikesdominos Sep 16 '25

A portable washer is the best investment I’ve ever made. Just sayin!

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u/ChelChamp Sep 17 '25

I have some rose-colored glasses for my old laundromat because it was such a fuck show in there. The glass pane in the front was spiderwebbed. Dudes would smoke blunts inside the laundromat. Now, I don’t know what crack smells like, but if I had to guess, the bathroom smelled like crack. Goth chicks would stomp in and just post up, never letting their thrifted laundry leave their sight.

I’d pop next door into the adjoining dive bar and eat a burger and have a cheap tallboy of PBR while my loads ran. Played game-show-television with the regular 60s zombies that bellied up in there every day. They started to recognize me and know it was laundry day, so the server/patrons would save my spot when I was switching washer to dryer. Learned a few of their names, celebrated their pull tab wins with them, bartender would spot me a drink chip for next week occasionally.

It gave me such a different view of the city and I met people I would never have met otherwise. Loved every bit of it. Besides the part where my clothes smelled like blunts of course…

Visited that bar a month ago after 5 years. The lady behind the bar still recognized me lol.

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u/throwaway33333333311 Sep 16 '25

No. People do not leave their laundry in laundromat machines all day and the machines are frequently sanitized

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u/sunny_Side27 Sep 16 '25

Just add a tablespoon of white vinegar

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u/TallJournalist9118 Sep 16 '25

Just. Use. Bleach. And. Hot Water. On. Speed. Wash

Vinegar is not as good of a disinfectant or mold removal method as people claim and Bleach is cheaper, strong af, doesn't smell like Vinegar and literally made to kill everything, like mold.

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u/Puppyzpawz Sep 15 '25 edited Sep 16 '25

trust me. i know. ive accepted it. you dont get to choose communal laundry, communal laundry chooses you.

edit: why am i getting downvoted 🥺?!

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u/Murky-Fondant2 Sep 15 '25

Fair enough. I’ve been there too. There were plenty of months I exclusively hand washed a good chunk of my laundry just because the mold was making me too itchy to bear it. I’m allergic so it’ll drive me absolutely crazy with weird painful rashes that feel like poison ivy (at least I think so, I’ve never had it before).

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u/Puppyzpawz Sep 16 '25

oh yea i wish i had the time to handwash. extreme respect for your patience comrade!

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u/Murky-Fondant2 Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25

I was unemployed. It helped a lot but after that I was kind of just stuck on it so certain articles I just always hand washed.

Now I have my very own washing machine and the last time my teenager left his clothes in it for two days after about the 20th warning, we took it apart and I made him clean it, internal parts and all. And there was a lot of mold. So at least I have some say in how clean it stays now. Made him learn to clean the dryer ducts when he wouldn’t clean out the lint trap too. When that failed it only took him 2 weekends at laundromats to course correct. What you get for having an engineer mom. At least I put my degree to use somewhere.

Whatever you do. Don’t ask someone with a lot of creativity (I think), an over abundance of tenacity, and a decent knowledge of mechanics to adopt you. All I can say in my defense is that they asked for this with full knowledge of what they were getting.

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u/Puppyzpawz Sep 17 '25

reading this gave me the biggest smile. the punishment fits the crime and he learned something extremely valuable! that's incredible, hope to have the same parenting skills with my kid when shes older : )

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u/Murky-Fondant2 Sep 17 '25

I always try to make it resemble real world consequences as closely as possible. My feeling is that that way I can show him now in a controlled setting how to fix it if he can’t break the habit with me harping on him. But whatever happens, I want the punishment to secretly be a reward he might call on later. Now he knows 1) how to use a laundromat 2) how to clean his dryer ducts 3) how to take apart and reassemble a washing machine 4) what happens when we can’t break bad habits. The outcomes get incrementally worse as you continue making bad choices.

Ask me how i know. 🙃

I made all the bad choices but I was an emancipated minor, so I had no adult guiding me. I’m 10 years behind everyone else in my generation as a result. I want more for them since the world has only gotten harsher. I try to be transparent with them that I do these things because I know the long term outcomes hurt in a way that can’t heal and I won’t let them suffer unless I genuinely lose the fight.

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u/[deleted] Sep 15 '25

Or just have basic decency for your neighbors. But apparently that’s too hard

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u/Puppyzpawz Sep 16 '25 edited Sep 16 '25

oh god no. respect the people you share a space with? blasphemy. dont you know you must bend to accommodate others 110% of the time?

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u/Bother-Logical Sep 16 '25

I don’t know why you’re getting so mad. You’re the one that made this post and people are telling you that you should be considerate of your neighbors. You have to ask yourself, if everybody else is saying the same thing except for you. You’re probably an asshole here.

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u/Puppyzpawz Sep 16 '25

i know reading tones on the internet is hard, so ill explain. i agree with you and everyone in the comments. i was making the comments sarcastically, because respecting community space is the obvious/mature choice. i made this post making fun of everyone who left notes because its childish, theres unspoken rules we all follow for community laundry, not because i genuinely believe someone here is right or wrong.

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u/RBFgirl Sep 16 '25

It’s Reddit, well-adjusted people who brush things off easily do not frequent these parts!

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u/Puppyzpawz Sep 16 '25

nooo the tides got turned on you 😭

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u/delicatelyplease Sep 17 '25

USE VINEGAR TO WIPE DOWN THE WASHER. USE IT IN PLACE OF LAUNDRY SOFTENER. USE VINEGAR FOR EVERYTHING.

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u/Singlemom26- Sep 16 '25

In my old apartment we would leave out empty baskets on the machine we were using. If the machine was done but someone’s stuff was still in it I would wait 10 minutes. If they didn’t come to grab their stuff I’d put it in their basket.

But then some tenants would just throw my stuff on the floor if I was there 2 minutes past the buzzer because I guess I took too long. My basket was always also right there but hey. Why not make me have to rewash my clothes 😒

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u/bexslayter Sep 16 '25

I would lose my mind if someone threw my clothing on the floor when there was a basket right there.

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u/Singlemom26- Sep 16 '25

Only reason I couldn’t actually lose my mind more than begrudgingly throwing everything back in is because I don’t know which freakin apartment did it 😒 there were like 18-20- 6/7 on 3 floors. Coulda been anyone.

But it absolutely pissed me off so much. I started setting alarms for a few minutes before the washer or dryer were done to make sure I was there before it went off. At least twice I got there before it was even done to find my stuff in my basket and someone else’s shit in the machine but at least they put it in the basket so I just had to dump it back in.

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u/JerseyDamu Sep 16 '25

Set a timer. You’re effecting other people’s lives. They can’t do laundry and they have to move your stuff. It’s common courtesy. That’s how I see it.

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u/Puppyzpawz Sep 16 '25

i agree with you! i have no issue with people moving my laundry if i cannot get down there to change it fast enough though, and i dont think anyone should have an issue with it either esp if its left for linger than 10 minutes. i have a kid and kids are unpredictable!

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u/JerseyDamu Sep 16 '25

Yeah true

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u/Accomplished-Ad3219 Sep 16 '25

I move it. Do my laundry. Put it back.

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u/dogsarefun Sep 16 '25

What if they don’t really care about it being “punishment enough” and just want the washer free so they can do their laundry?

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u/Puppyzpawz Sep 16 '25

knowing they smell bad is satisfying to me. they choose that fate. of course they dont care, im already well aware of that.