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The Decline of the American Laundromat
- dizzystar 9y agoI hope this isn't entirely true. Granted, many laundromats are trashy with broken machines, but most are well-maintained. There are a few benefits that mean a lot to me. 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.
- webwielder2 9y agoI guess people will be nostalgic over just about anything.
- nefitty 9y agoI spent a lot of time in laundromats as a kid. My mom owned one at one point as well. They have a palpable pre-internet feel that is hard to come by these days, especially while still in civilization.
- minikomi 9y agoI live in Japan where Laundromats are often attached to Public Baths. I love going to my local, taking a soak while the load runs, and then coming out and having a coffee while my clothes go through the drier. Not much to add.. just felt like professing my love for that Sunday arvo ritual.
- justinjlynn 9y agoThat sounds quite nice. I wonder why public baths never really took off in the States. In the records I can find, they seem to have a less than savoury perception.
- circadiam 9y agoHave you ever seen a naked average American?
- Veratyr 9y agoI don't mean to offend but I suspect it's because people in the USA, at least in cities, just can't take care of public places. 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.
- acabal 9y agoI'm happy to say good riddance. When I was young I had to carry the family's laundry to the laundrymat, wash and fold it there, and carry it back, every other week at least. It takes hours, and at the time you couldn't do much while sitting there and waiting (nowadays I suppose you have smartphones and laptops). The whole thing was just an exhausting, dreaded hassle. 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 :)
- freetime2 9y agoI think this article is less about the benefits of laundromats vs. in-unit washing machines (most people would choose the latter), and more about the struggles of people who are unable to afford apartments with in-unit hookups and who now have to walk an extra couple of blocks to do their laundry.
- tener 9y agoInteresting. For a generally rich country the economics seems odd. In contrast, my grandmother was definitely not a wealthy person and she could still put aside the money for the washing machine in the height of the communism. There were no laundromats anywhere. I do wonder where are the differences coming from.
- gpvos 9y agoI guess government is sometimes better able to provide basic services (a place to connect your washing machine) than private landlords. A failure of the market.
- woobar 9y agoThese 'machines' were not connected to anything. On your laundry day (yeah, you will spend a whole day doing laundry, and not just loading and unloading a machine), you will pull it in your bathroom. Then connect one hose to the faucet, run another into the bathtub. They were absolute crap. Laundromat is a big step up compared to that. 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.
- freetime2 9y agoFrom the article: 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.
- Nition 9y agoEspecially if costs are like $150,000 ($100,000 + $30,000 + a bit extra). That's almost 50% profit.
- chias 9y agoDon't forget actually buying all the machines to begin with.
- ams6110 9y agoSolar water heating seems like a no-brainer for a laundromat. Most are in strip malls or freestanding box-type buildings with a lot of flat open roof space. 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.
- icebraining 9y agoIn Europe, all laundromats I've seen were unattended :)
- danielparks 9y agoI don't remember seeing any attended laundromats when I lived in SF in 2013. I was in the Nob Hill area. 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.
- mc32 9y agoYou know, it's weird, but in other populous cities around the world, it's unusual to come across a laundromat (aside form hotels). I mean, if you look hard enough you can find some, but not easy. 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.
- kalleboo 9y agoSweden is one country where it's common to have a free laundry room or two in the basement of each apartment building. Only downside being since there are few (but large) machines and many units, you need to book a time days in advance.
- icebraining 9y agoIn Brussels they're absolutely everywhere. This page lists 42, and I'm not sure it's complete: https://www.hours.be/brussels/brussels/laundromats https://www.hours.be/brussels/brussels/laundromats
- minikomi 9y agoTokyo has a ton, often attached to public baths. Here's a bunch (note the page numbers at the bottom): https://loco.yahoo.co.jp/search/?ei=UTF-8&genrecd=0412010&areacd=13&property= https://loco.yahoo.co.jp/search/?ei=UTF-8&genrecd=0412010&ar...
- gpvos 9y agoIn Western Europe they're everywhere, at least in the larger cities. In Amsterdam I have two within walking distance. In Central/Eastern Europe (former communist countries) there are fewer to sometimes almost none.
- nradov 9y agoYes I can confirm there are very few Laundromats in Serbia and Croatia. There are laundry services where you can drop off your clothes to be cleaned, but no self-service machines.
- poulsbohemian 9y agoInterestingly enough, a new laundromat just opened in my 30,000 person rural community.
- blahedo 9y agoI did the laundromat thing for four years in grad school, then ten years in various units with in-house washer and dryer, and then back to a laundromat for the last six years. It was undeniably convenient to be able to wash something on a moment's notice or at night or whatever, but I have to say I really like the fact that for a 2-3 hour investment of time every 3-4 weeks, I can get my laundry all done, at once, because the laundromat lets me work massively in parallel. And because I'm running it all in parallel, I can sort the loads differently for wash and dry: for washing, sort by colour, and for drying, by fabric delicacy (jeans can take high heat, anything with elastic stays on medium or low, etc etc). My landlord has said it's fine for me to buy a washer/dryer (there is a hookup in the basement) but I've found I'm really not in any rush to do so.
- freetime2 9y agoWe recently purchased a combination washer/dryer unit. We throw the dirty clothes every night before bed, set the timer (electricity prices here are lower over night), and the clothes are all washed, dried, and ready to be folded when we wake up in the morning. The only manual part of the process is folding/putting clothes away - but those tasks aren't really parallelizable anyway - so I fail to see how adding in a trip to a laundromat could yield better efficiencies. 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. :)
- honestoHeminway 9y agoIm still waiting for soft robotics to solve the folding.
- crooked-v 9y agoI do hope all the laundromats don't go away, simply because I need one of the extra-large washers to be able to wash my comforter every so often.
- ehaskins 9y agoMy parents owned laundromats my whole life, and I was being taken along to help install and service laundry equipment when I was pretty young. 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.
- borski 9y agoTIL there is a Coin Laundry Association, and that they have a biannual conference in Las Vegas.
- icebraining 9y agoGeorge Carlin joked that every group that made it in America had its own magazine to show for it. I suspect industry conferences are the business version of that :)
- iamatworknow 9y agoGophercon was a few weeks ago in Denver. At the same time the "National Cattlemen's Beef Association" was also holding a conference at the convention center. My coworkers and I joked that we should ask them to make us burgers.
- madcaptenor 9y agoSo do they take the coins from the laundromats and put them in the slot machines?
- mattdoughty 9y agoWhen I lived in the US, the lack of in-unit washing machines was quite unexpected. I had to pay $2 to use the shared (between 2 apartments) machine even though we as tenants paid the electric and water bills.
- EADGBE 9y agoMost newer buildings being built (though those are hard to find, sometimes) always have a hookup available. 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.
- trumpownsyou420 9y agodisgusting, no thanks.
- bguillet 9y agoIt has always surprised me how rare, at least here in the bay, washer/dryer hookups are. I can't remember renting a place (even my shitty student studio) without them before.
- c3833174 9y agoOne accessory that is sometimes sold with washers in europe is a small U-shaped plastic thing to hang the discharge pipe in the sink, which coupled with a small tap on the sink water line is enough to allow the usage of a washer.
- bguillet 9y agoIt has always surprised me how rare, at least here in the bay, washer/dryer hookups are. I can't remember renting a place (even my shitty student studio) without them before.
- roel_v 9y agoIt's weird you'd get planning permission for building residential buildings with units that don't have washer/dryer hookups in (some places in) the US. (At least my take away from TFA was that there are still new buildings being build like that)
- gpvos 9y agoI really don't see why more laundromats haven't added cafés and internet/wifi, or even small eateries. Or conversely, some cafés haven't added small laundromats.
- Severian 9y agoI work a single day at a laundromat/bar combination to supplement my income and actually be on my feet for a day. Most people are amazed it isn't more popular when they discover it. Having a cold draft while waiting for your wash or folding your clothes can be quite nice. We even have regulars who just drink. 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.
- jccalhoun 9y agoThe laundromat I used in grad school was owned by Korean immigrants. They opened up a little restaurant that became popular enough that when I went in to do laundry one day during the summer they told me they weren't running the laundromat during the summer.
- nfriedly 9y agoThere's a laundromat in my town, and once a month a local church (the First Brotheren Church, I think) provides free laundry service for anyone who wants it. They provide the soap and the quarters and then while your laundry is getting washed they provide food to eat. It's a really great community outreach service.
- EADGBE 9y agoThat's a church I could get behind. 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.
- nfriedly 9y agoIts advertised a few places around town. There's only about 1,200 people in my town, and they've been providing the service for a while, so I'm petty sure everyone in town knows about it.
- peter303 9y agoDenver has a portable laundry truck with three washers and driers. It runs off of fire hydrants. It goes to homeless camps, providing a needed free service. Some private charity funds it.
- nfriedly 9y agoThat's awesome!
- al2o3cr 9y agoOne thing I didn't see mentioned in the article or here: a good laundromat typically has machines you wouldn't want to squeeze into your house. For instance, the one close to me has washers that accept 70+ pounds of laundry at once - great for washing blankets & other large items. Having that machine at home wouldn't make any sense, given that it's really only needed a couple times a year for an individual person.
- Retric 9y agoHaving an over sized washing machine is actually well worth it so you wash that comforter more frequently. IMO, every 2-3 weeks is completely reasonable. It also makes washing pillows much easier.
- fuzzybeard 9y agoThe cost difference between a moderately sized washing machine and one that's a few cubic feet larger isn't that much. Over the lifetime of the machine it pays off. 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.
- api_or_ipa 9y agoUnfortunately initial cost isn't the only constraint. Apartment style top/bottom washer/dryer combos can only get so big. In addition, larger equipment requires greater amounts of electricity to run and maintenance can be a bit more expensive (larger parts).
- jessaustin 9y agoIn many places, water is scarce enough to discourage industrial-sized washing machines.
- brightball 9y agoI live in a house with a washer and dryer. 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.
- simonsarris 9y ago> 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.
- adrianmonk 9y agoI use renting an office suite instead of owning your own building. 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.
- fuzzybeard 9y agoDoes this only make sense for small machines? I bought a gigantic washer/dryer and have no problem working through a large buildup that results from some disruption in life. Borrowing from your analogy, I have large on-prem servers so I don't need the scalability of the cloud.
- nsxwolf 9y agoFolding the clothes and putting them away is the big issue for me.
- gwbas1c 9y agoWhen I lived in San Francisco, I paid for a laundry service. Picked up clothes and dropped them off a few days later. Much cheaper than paying for an apartment with a washer/dryer!
- EADGBE 9y agoCurious, what's the average price for something like that? Do you pay by load or garment?
- garethsprice 9y agoNot sure about SF but NYC is teeming with laundries that'll pick up, clean, fold and drop-off for about $1 per pound with a $10 minimum. I drop off at my regular place (it's half a block, on the way to work) but friends use services that pick up and drop off within 30-45 minutes. 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.
- EADGBE 9y agoI've never used it (T-Shirt and Jeans programmer; oh so hip!), but there's an overnight delivery service for dry cleaning to my kids' daycare. Also thought that was pretty smart.
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoSlapping a pair of $1-$3/load machines in the basement of a 8-unit building is easy money for landlords and they get to say that there's "laundry in building" and tack a couple hundred bucks onto the rend even if there's no practical way for all those people to make use of it.
- searine 9y agoLiving in NYC opened my eyes to how awesome laundromats can be. All your laundry done at the corner store, coming back neat and folded for a dollar a pound. Calgon, take me away.
- costcopizza 9y agoI dunno, laundromats seem to be doing a-ok in the Los Angeles region. Even in nicer neighborhoods you can find one pretty dang quickly. I use one and I enjoy it oddly enough-- its quick but just enough time to get some reading done or people watching.
- peter303 9y agoPlus with most laundermats still cash, many under report revenues for taxes. I presume thats where the cliche "money laundering" may have come from. Do any places accept digital pay? Perhaps for a token machine. I notice may of the two buck car washes now accept electronic money.
- dajohnson89 9y agoStay tuned for my new ICO -- LaundryCoin
- jws 9y agoDo any places accept digital pay? 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.
- jamesblonde 9y agoIn rental accommodation in Sweden, a communal laundromat is the norm. You typically have between 2 and 10 machines, and you book your times. We also have tumble driers and drying closets and even manglers. As a database person, I batch my laundry just like operations in my transaction. Actually, the analogy I use when explaining batching is the dishwasher. Imagine picking up 1 plate at a time and putting it in the cupboard.