The Decline of the American Laundromat
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
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.
After we had our first child there was a stretch where my wife and I were both sick for about 2 weeks and the laundry ended up building up significantly. We had probably 10 loads worth to catch up on and it was going to take all of at least one day, maybe two.
Threw it all in the car, went to the laundromat and had it done in 2 hours.
Laundromat's are now how I explain "the cloud" to non-technical people.
That is quite brilliant analogy. I always used "printing something off at Staples/Fedex" - no need to own a printer, deal with buying reams of paper and ink cartridges if you do not print often, you use the cloud printer of the Fedex locale to get the single spot job done.
They provide lots of services to make your life easier, like heating and AC. And they handle the maintenance: if the parking lot needs to be re-striped, they will take care of it. You get to concentrate on just running your business.
It's scalable in the sense that you can rent a bigger suite if you need more space.
Some people are concerned with having all their juicy business secrets on someone else's server, but it's not all that different from your landlord having physical access to your offices with filing cabinets in them.
Borrowing from your analogy, I have large on-prem servers so I don't need the scalability of the cloud.
10 loads total.
1. Put 3 loads in washer. Wait for cycle. 7 loads waiting to start.
2. Move 3 loads to dryer. Put 3 new loads in washer. 4 loads waiting to start.
3. Move 3 loads out of dryer and fold, move 3 loads from washer into dryer, put 3 new loads in washer. 1 load waiting to start.
4. Move 3 loads out of dryer and fold, move 3 loads from washer into dryer, put 1 remaining load in washer. 0 loads waiting to start.
5. Move 3 loads out of dryer and fold, move 1 load from washer to dryer.
6. Move 1 load out of dryer and fold.
Total run time, 5 cycles.
10 loads at laundromat
1. Put 10 loads in 10 washers.
2. Move 10 loads from 10 washers to 10 dryers.
3. Move 10 loads out of dryers and fold.
Total run time, 2 cycles.
Compounding variables are overfilled dryers that may result in clothes not getting entirely dry or a very busy laundromat with limited available capacity. At the laundromat, you begin folding while adding time to any load that needs it. At the home dryer, the entire line cycle is blocked for the additional time needed by each blocking dryer.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not advocating for letting laundry build up just so you can go do it at a laundromat. The convenience of having it in your home is well worth it - but if for some reason you do have a huge build up it's a great way to buy back your day / weekend if you want to be able to leave the house.
Laundromat: Time and hassle to bundle everything in the car, take it to the laundromat, babysit it while there (you can't go anywhere else) and bring it back home. Completed sooner, but with more overhead and focused time.
Home laundry: take it a load at a time. Completed later, but you can do anything else (even leave the house) while loads are running. No transportation overhead.
Both models have advantages, and I've done both. Mostly depends on how much hassle it is to trundle everything to the laundromat, and how soon I need the backup cleared.
>1. Put 10 loads in 10 washers.
>2. Move 10 loads from 10 washers to 10 dryers.
>3. Move 10 loads out of dryers and fold.
As if. More like:
1. Arrive at the laundromat and realize there are only four washers free.
2. Start three loads because the fourth one doesn't work no matter how many coins you put in.
3. Wait for a dryer when the the three loads finish. Because washers are faster there are already two people waiting for a free dryer. You realize there's no point in hurrying to do the next three loads, since your first three are only making the dryer situation worse.
4. One dryer is finished but nobody is there to unload it. What's the etiquette at this place - should you take a stranger's load out and put it in one of the dingy carts? You wonder how big the owner of those clothes is, and if he's sane.
5. Eventually you get ten loads of clothes through three washers, read an entire three year old issue of Glamour magazine upside-down to make it last, and get all but the last two loads through the dryers before deciding to dry the last two at home by draping them over your furniture.
Total run time, a little over five hours and ten sanity points.
There's probably another cloud analogy in here somewhere.
A guy I know who used to manage cloud development at RedHat mentioned to me that one of his developers quit, bought a laundromat which eventually became several laundromats, and now makes more money running his laundromats than he ever did developing cloud software at RedHat.
I believe the laundromats are in Raleigh, NC and he does his own maintenance. Those factors may help quite a bit compared to the businesses described in the article.
I too would prefer to just go spend 2 hours to Get It Done(tm) and cross it off the mental checklist. Plus in this particular instance it's a snowball effect for me on productivity - as I see progress and my house gets cleaner I feel mentally better and am able to more easily focus.
Humans are strange.
It still won't compare to the laundromat, but chewing through a backlog 100% faster would make a big difference.
I will steal that explanation. Thanks !
:P :)
"So you put the load from the washer into the dryer, but if you have a second load you don't wait for the first load to finish drying before you put the second load in the washer, do you?"
Probably doesn't work as well in countries where people mostly buy the all-in-one units.
Not much to add.. just felt like professing my love for that Sunday arvo ritual.
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.
UK, sure, Sweden.. not so much.
London is an exception when it comes to the UK, there is a lot more investment in public services and it's not a true representation of Britain due to its multicultural component.
London is more multicultural than the rest of Britain.
even if you count the duo-culture the rest of britain has (Pakistani is usually what people refer to when defining "multi-cultural" in the greater context of the UK) then London is still absolutely outclassing everything else by an amazingly wide margin in terms of multi-culturalism.
You could argue the Polish influx has created a tri-culture, but really, I lived in London and my neighbors were Russian, Estonian, Finnish, Canadian, South African, Eritrean, Saudi, Indian, Danish, Italian, Brazillian and there was even a girl from Zimbabwe. Nothing like where I came from.. That's a true multi-culture.
Regardless, as a person having lived in 2 comparable places in different countries I see a huge difference in the way public spaces are treated (to the benefit of Sweden). I don't doubt that the parent has similar experiences as I wasn't saying it's uncommon. But I have this opinion having actual experience. If you do not have similar experience you are not an authority to tell me how things are.
I'm not sure what point you were even trying to make, that Britain has more than just British culture therefore my argument has no ground? :S
And then I haven't even mentioned Luxembourg. That entire country is so clean and tidy that it almost looks like a cartoon.
SF is a pile of poo compared to an average Dutch city.
Americans in general just don't seem to care about public spaces, pretty much anywhere in the country. I've travelled to many US cities and the only reason other cities some how feel "cleaner" is because there's literally nobody walking in them.
The cities made for walking (like NYC and maybe Boston) are on par with SF. Maybe less dog poo everywhere though.
NYC is better, but still fairly grungy. Boston is substantially better along these metrics. Montreal and Quebec city, two of the oldest and, by dint of age, pedestrian-friendly cities on the continent, are leagues ahead of SF as well in this respect.
SF is great. Love the vibe. But lets not kid ourselves into thinking it is clean.
Ok, I've gotta take issue with this.
Dutch people litter. All the time. People rarely seem to clean up after their dogs. People place their trash bags out on the curb (where there aren't underground bins) far earlier than they should, resulting in trash-strewn streets and fat, obnoxious seagulls. It's a mess. Beer cans left on bridges and park benches. Energy drink cans tossed to the side. Cigarette butts strewn carelessly. Firework refuse absolutely fucking everywhere a few weeks either side of New Years. Bikes left as litter.
There's always someone who comes along with a street vacuum, or a team of people going along with bags and pickers. It seems to me that people have little respect for not littering because it's always someone else's problem, and there's always going to be someone cleaning up after you.
So if by "we" take care of public spaces you mean "lots of people get paid to clean up others' carelessness," sure, but in six years I've seen little to suggest that not leaving trash just anywhere is strong tenent of Dutch culture.
My hunch is that urban areas of the NL are essentially all developed and man-made, in that every street, sidewalk, tree, bush, patch of grass is planned and raw, untouched nature is relatively less accessible and visible. Therefore people perceive this urban "fabrication" with its attendant cleaning staff as less precious, less worth keeping clean than some primeval forest or national park.
I could be wrong, of course, and this is all just my own perception. But I really fail to recognize the cultural cleanliness that you say embodies the Dutch.
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.
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)
SF spends an absolute fortune on homeless people. That, coupled with its temperate climate, makes it a magnet for many types of homeless people.
Wonderful personal trip on the winding mountain roads and experiencing the abrupt climate|vista changes in an hour+ from pacific coast to desert. Morning 50 degrees, afternoon 80+.
It was my first time in norcal and the thing that shocked me the most (reading my emails to friends from that time) was the filth, poverty and mental illness in the towns and cities.
Lol what? In Berlin you see heaps of trash, broken furniture and fridges on the sidewalks once you leave the main roads. The city stinks in the summer (guess this is due to not enough water in the sewage). In Neukölln (and other parts of the city) you gotta take care of druggies everywhere. Parts of the city have a severe neonazi problem (left-wing and "foreign looking" people are getting beaten up, and their cars torched). Rents are skyrocketing and the government doesn't care much except to fight those who protest against gentrification.
I don't get the Berlin hype. Really not.
St. Petersburg is much nicer than Paris (at least in the summer). Surprisingly, the it is cleaner even though the country is poorer.
As a Californian, of course, they have far fewer homeless people there :)
Neither do we socially support those properly, turns out running mental health and substance abuse support is difficult, politically charged, full of potential for liability, thankless and expensive.
I have older relatives who were involved in the mental health system in the 50's and 60's, it was, to put it mildly, not a particularly humane time but "it sure got crazies off the streets".
On a related note, in .jp the police can detain you for about a month without charging you.
Yet public places are immaculately clean.
The fact is that western people and law enforcement tolerate vandalism, littering and antisocial behaviour.
Recently, on Seattle's airport train, I saw a person openly taking garbage out of their bag and throwing it on the floor. No one said anything - just another day on the dirty train.
I don't think someone would dare do that in Japan or Singapore.
But guess what, US has highest death rate from illegal/dangerous drugs, which to me is almost like suicide.
A public bath has an entrance fee and staff, including cleaning staff.
While a train station doesn't have an entrance fee, even to access the elevator.
The streets are even more "public", in that speech like preaching has very few restraints. But a public bath has no obligation to allow yelling and preaching.
One of the ways people do public baths in the US is to join a gym. Another option is to go to a spa. Those two provide most of the market need for a public bath.
Other cultures also integrate a social experience in the public bath, but that is coupled to historical reasons not related to your objection.
"I paid taxes this year, therefor I am entitled to do whatever I want with public property."
It's one of the reasons something like the autobahn can't work in the US. Some Americans just love to drive 20 mph under the speed limit in the left lane because "I'm a taxpayer and this is my road! I can do what I want." A no-speed-limit highway in the US would require one lane per citizen.
No, it would just require speeding tickets to be less lucrative than impeding traffic tickets.
Combined with the resentment that most people have towards subsidizing public facilities and services used by/built for those who need them (even though in the USA, it's a fraction of what's used towards foreign interventions), there's little if any incentive in maintaining, let alone building more public/publicly used places, especially ones that will end up being used exclusively by the people they want nothing do with (who often internalize this open resentment and further contribute to the problem of poor quality public facilities).
You could argue that we are just using coded language for homeless people, which often is more of a combination of mental illness or substance abuse problems and abject poverty. But I think there are plenty of people that ruin public services aside from the homeless. Even as a lifeguard of private pools, I've had to deal with large amounts of litter, abandoned trash, and feces/urine on regular bases.
I was waiting for the subway, and this guy leaning against a trash can throws his trash on the ground. If I didnt see things like this nearly every day I would write it off as a one time occurrence.
OTOH, the US does have public pools. I've never been to one, though, so I have no idea what they are like. If anyone has experiences, please share.
I imagine the public baths in Japan are similar. So, there is an entry fee that funds a small staff to keep the bathhouse in good repair.
Edit - as an aside, I visited Iceland in January. The public baths/pools were amazing. The entry fees were minimal (a few euro, a bit less than entry to a pool in the US). Facilities were all clean and well maintained. But, it's also part of their culture. Like bath-houses in some nations, people go to the pools to hang out and socialize in the evening.
This is a very SF-centric view of the US.
The closest I've come to this in Boston is seeing people sleeping on subway benches.
>I can kind of see it working in smaller US communities Communities that small do not need laundromats. Cities and suburbs have done a very good job making themselves so impersonal that you don't really get that level of community except in actual "small" towns.
Not really. Every major American (and in my experience, Canadian, though it is slightly better up there) city has this to varying degrees.
Take a tour of the subway and you'll agree.
Urine, feces, and homeless people, oftentimes who are mentally disturbed, are part of my commute.
Like you mention, Urban areas in most of the US tend to be overrun by poor and downtrodden and are generally unsanitary. But my personal experience, of having seen gentrification here in Austin, Texas, has been that Urban areas in America are maintained well when those areas are out of the reach of said poor and downtrodden. e.g. in Austin, the downtown region is infested with homeless people and panhandlers, whereas the new development in north austin (called the Domain) is much much cleaner. So I don't think Americans in general are prone to littering or keeping urban areas dirty.
I'm not reacting to any offense, as I agree the US has these problems. However this also describes very well my time spent in metropolitan Spain, France, and Italy.
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
I wish there were more public baths. There's one around the block from me in Cambridge. It's a wonderful place in the middle of winter.
http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Sex_Panic_Closes_Bath...
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/26/nyregion/state-permits-clo...
In reality the total number of incidents of unsavory rendezvous in the bathhouses were probably not much higher than in countries with more extensive public bath house culture, but the percentage of patrons who went there for other reasons was considerably higher.
Basically without the normal activity masking it, the unsavory activity stood out.
I personally do 80% of bathing at the gym after exercise.
I'll frequently grab a bite while doing my laundry, and the "comedy" is a useful inspiration to get it done earlier in the day, so I don't have to listen to it. (It is really, truly awful.)
Thought it was the best idea I've ever seen implemented.
Now I can put laundry in, it's OK if I don't attend to it immediately, and finally I can hang-dry my laundry at home, which is not just hugely more climate-friendly but also helps prevent shrinkage. An undeniable win all around.
If you need a quiet few hours, a walk is just as fulfilling and much less obligatory :)
I do wonder where are the differences coming from.
In fact, building the network of government owned laundromats would be better fit for centrally planned economy of the USSR. My guess the only reason it never happened is the inability to build a reliable heavy duty automatic washing machine.
I get it that additional, large appliance may be somewhat unwieldy, but I don't think more than having to haul your clothes to get them washed.
Not that people don't own them now, but what they own now is a straight-up upgrade from what they had before.
At this point I'm sure there will soon be a market for laundromats in Poland, at least in the more urban areas. But it'd be a hard sell for the vast majority of Polish folks.
They were called 'prachechnaya'.
And the situation in the USSR wasn't that rosy. Only 70% of the population owned these tiny machines.
As with many things in the USSR, it may well have been regional and time-dependent. My memories are from mid-80s, although I know that my family had one before then. I didn't know anyone whose family didn't have one, and we weren't a nomenklatura family or anything like that - just a regular Soviet family with boring everyday jobs (teachers and engineers) - and neither were our neighbors and acquaintances.
Even the tiniest studio apartment in the UK would come with one. You very rarely see laundromats in the UK (usually in areas with a very high concentration of students, as halls of residence provision can be poor for them).
Why don't they have them in the US? You have water and electricity, so I can't understand why this is a big deal.
It's also possible that there's an expectation that you always have a washer/dryer combo, whereas having just the washing unit isn't uncommon from what I've seen in the EU/other parts of the world and then just having an air drying rack for drying. I was a little surprised when I first moved abroad at not having a dryer (and annoyed admittedly), but I got used to it pretty easily and just adjusted my laundry schedule. Likewise, the size may be a difference in expectation, as many people expect full sized units installed, not compact units.
Plus a unit with an in-unit washer and dryer generally costs more than a similarly sized unit, and part of that space is taken up by a washer/dryer.
As for the reason why many don't - historical (they weren't designed when household washing machines didn't exist and were never retrofitted), and slumlords not wanting to manage another appliance.
Add to that nowadays Americans don't do much air drying of their clothes so a washer without a dryer is much less appealing. As long as you had physical space adding a washer to an apartment that wasn't designed for one is cheap. Adding a dryer is very costly - dedicated plug or gas line plus ventilation to the outside. So if it's not economically worth the dryer upgrade than most landlords just won't bother with a washer upgrade either.
If your landlord doesn't provide a washer and your apartment doesn't have washer hookups you could always get a portable washing machine (or jury rig a regular washer to be 'portable') for any apartment as long as you had somewhere to store it. I've even hear of someone splitting the water line under the sink to install a washer in a rental.
Same thing with dishwashers, some apartments have them, some don't.
[1]One apartment I lived in though had all the washing machines and dryers in the shared basement and they were coin operated and we weren't supposed to use them after 9.
When the tenant does finally move out, it's not uncommon for the landlord to renovate, add modern amenities, and raise prices significantly. Hence in-unit washing machines are on the rise and laundromats are on the decline. But it takes a long time for the process to play out.
Condenser dryers are pretty easy to install - all you need is an electrical outlet.
However, it looks like they're about 3x the cost of a vented dryer.
And smaller capacity than vented ones.
> Ventless dryers also take longer to get your clothes dry. A vented dryer might finish a Normal load in about 45-50 minutes, but a condenser or heat pump dryer could run for an hour and a half. Want to dry a bulky blanket or comforter? You could be waiting more than three hours.
http://laundry.reviewed.com/features/everything-you-need-to-...
Maybe it's the 240V mains supply?
I also had no idea what you meant by "special" circuit.
There are plenty of appliances that require more than 120V, and operate safely at these voltages.
That there is little incentive for landlords to spend money maintaining their property under various rent-control schemes is the real cause for issue.
Also RE: "much less appealing," should have specified "much less appealing to a prospective tenant than a washer/dryer combo thus wouldn't command higher rent thus isn't worth a landlord's time and money even if space is available right next to the sink for a cheap install." Line drying is much more common in other parts of the world.
(Aside: as it turns out, I didn't know how washing machines worked, and I spent like a year washing my clothes without soap before the attendant told me. I now know that a "pre-wash" is... exactly what it sounds like, and it's not compatible with putting detergent tablets directly in the drum.)
Also, a lot of landlords will rent out washer/dryer sets to tenants for another monthly fee if they don't have their own to hook up.
For most people, going to a laundromat is a necessity, not a choice to make their children build character. One "chooses" to go to a laundromat as much as one has chosen there place to live; which, in San Francisco and New York, can be limiting.
I enjoy the old-school video games.
I enjoy the idea that a 2-hour load is not only cut in half, plus a multi-load wash is done in one hour.
But most of all, it's the last respite that I feel comfortable sitting down and doing absolutely nothing. It's generally quiet enough that I can just let my thoughts roam, watch the TV, play video games, or even take a short walk.
Maybe it's nostalgia, or that I never lived in a place with a well-functioning washer and drier, but for a short bit of do-absolutely nothing moments, I'll happily take the laundromat over the beach any day.
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.
For a small business that pretty much runs itself, $140k / year actually seems like a pretty good profit to me. So I guess the issue is not so much that the laundromat business is unprofitable, but rather that compared to the value of the land it is sitting on, $140k/yr is a pretty terrible ROI.
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.
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.
In the case of Lavanderia, since he is lucky to own the land, he is also mindful of the highest and best use of the land.
And if you have the extra capacity, you'll use it more often than you would if you had to go to the laundromat for the annual duvet cleaning.
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. :)
Unfortunately, most good deeds go unnoticed. I hope they're advertising well to the kind of people who could really use a service like that.
Helped with a pantry service for a church, so often a week would go by that no one would show up. Infuriating. Food had to be thrown out.
I don't recall seeing them in east Asia and in Western Europe you can find some here and there --but definitely not very prevalent.
Plus, it's more convenient to have a facility in each unit, or failing that, in each apartment complex. You don't have to lug your stuff blocks away and have to interact with, at least in the US, odd elements, every so often.
On the other hand I do on occasion appreciate the big-loader units.
Here's a bunch (note the page numbers at the bottom):
https://loco.yahoo.co.jp/search/?ei=UTF-8&genrecd=0412010&ar...
In my apartment hunting, I usually found that apartments which lacked a hookup were also built before it was a norm to have such a thing.
Seeing that American landry is almost entirely vented drying, a dedicated space of 30 square feet with an outside vent, sewer drain (and vent) and hot and cold spigot are nearly required. It's easy to see why so few old apartments have in-unit w/d hookup.
Do any places accept digital pay? Perhaps for a token machine. I notice may of the two buck car washes now accept electronic money.
I stopped in Klamath Falls, Oregon to do three weeks worth of filthy clothes while out traveling this summer and found a spectacular new laundromat which accepted Apple Pay! That's now my first line discriminator when looking for a laundromat on the road, if you take Apple Pay I'm picking you. That will weed out the low end mildew, lint, and mold holes that you sometimes find.
Much cheaper than paying for an apartment with a washer/dryer!
With the cost of soap and quarters for the machines etc it's almost cheaper than doing the loads yourself, definitely cheaper if you factor in the value of your time sitting around for 2 hours doing laundry.
There's a few "Uber for laundry" type startups that slap an app interface on top and charge 2-3x the price, but the old school laundries are efficient and cheap - they have your number on file so you just call and say "Pick up please" and they come. Very efficient marketplace.
You don't have a washer/dryer in your apartment in NYC unless you're a millionaire (somewhat facetious - but it's definitely a rarity due to old buildings/plumbing - many leases specifically forbid installing your own too).
Dry cleaning is per garment, though.
Calgon, take me away.
I use one and I enjoy it oddly enough-- its quick but just enough time to get some reading done or people watching.
We are near a university, so I think this works out better than say a rural or low-income area. We have a large homeless population around here who use the establishment, and can be a bit bothersome in some of their behavior when visiting (such as whore bath in the bathroom).
We have free WiFi as well.