LAUNDRY

[ailbhe]

OH GOD THE LAUNDRY

OK, it was wet at the end of last week, and we did almost no laundry on Monday, so that's part of it, but today we did MOUNTAINS and ACRES and the WASHING LINE BROKE and I want to know why laundry is such a vast part of my life.

Here's the tally, for one week:

Mine and Rob's bedding, one load.
Children's bedding, one load.
Towels, one load.
Nappies, four loads or so? Astrid got a clean nappy about 8am, then two more before 9 am, and one at about 9am. Nappies are srs bsns in this house.
Rob's clothes, we know from prior measuring (no, really) constitute a load a week.
My clothes are a bit less, and the children are probably a bit more between them, so that's two more.
There are also occasional duvets, one per machine load, cushions, fleece blankets, floor rugs, and so on, but probably no more than two Big Household Things loads a week? I'm guessing here.

So that's eight loads, plus nappies, most weeks? I suppose if we got some dry every single day it would be do-able. I should probably try putting the children's clothes in a separate basket for a few weeks to see how much they really get through.

Comments

[rmc28]

When we had nappies, it was 6-7 loads a week of nappies. The clothes for the three of us make up about 3 loads a week, plus at least one towels/other high-temp load. Bedding doesn't get done as often as it should but in theory is one load a week.

The lodgers need to do laundry sometimes too; it runs most days even without a nappy bucket.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a colossal amount, but thinking about it, it's only the same amount of laundry we have, multiplied by the extra number of humans in the house and plus the nappies.

We don't do all the bedding every week. Sheets and duvet covers get changed every other week, but pillowcases every week. We wash towels about every 3 weeks because with fewer people, it takes longer to have enough to make a load (and I do towels at 60ºC+ for hygiene reasons, which means they can't go in with clothes).

Are you the only person who's able to do the laundry? That would get me down fast. Do you have space for an indoor clothes-hanging rack? We have a collapsible one, and it's what we use instead of an outdoor line, since I don't have the energy to check if it's raining and rush out to bring clothes in.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

laundry really does take over the world! i've never managed to figure it out either.

[nitoda]

It does seem a lot. We're a lot less frequent with bedding changes, but don't have children any more. I don't know how big your washing machine is, but I really notice the difference now I have one which takes 9kg loads. It's intelligent enough to manage itself in terms of how much water it uses with smaller loads which is great. I tend to do about 3 loads a week for just the three of us adults, not counting Marjorie's gym kit which is often washed separately, on a quick 30 minute wash cycle. I used to want to wash bedding and towels at a higher temperature for hygiene but Marjorie convinced me that if I use a bleaching agent with the detergent i can wash those things at 30 with other things ... so I'm trying it out adding Vanish Extra Hygiene to loads with those things in. I used to always wait and do a boil wash for tea towels and dish cloths but again Marjorie doesn't approve of my heating the machine that much, so I'm using the Vanish Extra Hygiene stuff - I found it really difficult to get any sensible scientific advice that wasn't aimed at hospitals in terms of washing temperatures and hygiene, I must say.

[ai731.livejournal.com]

We need to do a minimum of 4 loads a week for 2 adults to stay on top of the laundry: 1 load of DH's work clothes (which he does himself - he currently works on a farm and so his work clothes are nasty) 2 loads of regular clothing, and 1 load of bedding and/or towels (including tea-towels).

[ailbhe]

Oh no, Rob does various bits - he does all the most disgusting laundry, for a start.

[ailbhe]

Ours is 7kg and again uses less water or does a shorter cycle for smaller loads.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Sympathies. I think we do about twelve loads a week for four adults and two children, but that's a guesstimate, because we each do our own apart from djm4 and me, who use a single laundry basket between us and divide the responsibility roughly equally. It was much harder before the kids were old enough to do their own, and we use the tumbledryer more than we'd ideally like. On the odd occasion when the dryer's been broken and it's been raining, it's driven me to distraction.