post off: who does the laundry in your house?
I’m very particular about my laundry. My boyfriend decided to do a load of laundry one day while I was out, and I came home to find he had shrunk one of my favorite sweaters. Rather than take sole responsibility for all future loads, I decided to teach him how I like it done. He shared his concern over not knowing what can be dried and what must be hung up. I told him, “when in doubt, just hang it up.” The next time he did laundry, I came home to find my clothes hanging on every surface in the apartment. At least we’re making progress. So readers, who does the laundry in your house? Do you share this dirty job? —Erica P.
image via organize.com
November 2nd, 2009 at 6:03 am
That’s too funny! I do the laundry primarily but I finally have Hubby trained so when he needs to take over he can. When we first got married if he didn’t have a full load he would add towels as filler. Then I would have towel fluff stuck on my sweaters. Big no, no!
November 2nd, 2009 at 7:01 am
My husband does the laundry because he works from home and can do it during the day. It’s a mixed blessing; things sit in the dryer and wrinkle sometimes, and a few sweaters were shrunk early on. It does save me time, and I appreciate his help, but I’d rather do it when I’m there.
November 2nd, 2009 at 7:26 am
My boyfriend does the laundry in the apartment building’s basement laundry room, we hang it to dry together and then I fold it and put it away. Division of labor.
November 2nd, 2009 at 7:43 am
I do my laundry and my husband does his own. I tend to do more of the ‘common’ wash (towels, rugs, etc.) but he chips in too. I’m really interested in others answers…seems in many families the wash tends to end up the responsibility of the women. Why is this?
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:32 am
It’s walking a dangerous line between chipping in and causing a break-up when a man washes women’s clothes. Everything seems to come with special instructions, like “dry for 13 minutes on permanent press, switch to delicate for 7.5 minutes, remove immediately and hang upside-down in a dimly lit corridor in the setting of classical music.” Men, walk with caution.
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:24 am
Everyone does their own, which makes me very happy.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:16 am
Husband seems to take the lead on the clothes washing, but I do the rest- kitchen towels, bath towels, sheets…. It’s a fair division of labor I’d say. But part of me misses the days when we’d take our mountains of clothes once a week in tandem to the laundromat and get tacos and a beer and have a laundry date night.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:04 pm
For sharing laundry: invest in delicates bags. If it is in a delicates bag it gets hung to dry.
option 1 if you have space) a separate delicates/line dry hamper
option 2) put dirty clothes in the delicates bag when it goes in the hamper
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Good for you for teaching him how to do it! You have to start now or you’ll find yourself 30 years later having to do everything yourself . . . ;o)
November 2nd, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I do all the laundry. My husband hates the folding/sorting bit so we worked out a swap – he does the bills and I do all the laundry! Works well for us!
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Sadly, I do one hundred bleeding percent of the laundry around here. The dog refuses to learn how to operate the machine; he claims it’s too hard without thumbs. The one time I let the cats help, my red socks ended up in the white load, so I’ve given up.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:03 pm
i do the laundry. all the time. every time. every stinkin’ time. i live with people who think buying more clothes is an acceptable alternative to washing dirty clothes.
November 3rd, 2009 at 7:58 am
I work from home a couple of days a week, so try to do laundry when I need a break. It usually means we have a lot of kid stuff left to fold come Saturday, but at least it’s clean!