Mundane shit that drives me into a rage

[sabotabby]

Dear Downstairs Neighbour,

Yes, I realize that you only own four articles of clothing and you need to get them washed RIGHT THE FUCK NOW, even though I was using the washing machine first. I realize that your situation is much, much more dire than mine. However, that is no excuse to take my clothes out of the washing machine and throw them in the dryer and turn it on. All of my skanky t-shirts are tight enough and my bras would like to retain their elasticity and underwires, thank you very much.

Were you raised in a fucking barn? Because it still wouldn't be an excuse for:

HIM: "Oh, I just put your clothes in the dryer."
ME: "OMG YOU DIDN'T TURN IT ON DID YOU?"
HIM: "Just now. Why, did you have to take something out?
ME: "YES MOST OF MY CLOTHES PLEASE TO NOT EVER, EVER BE DOING SOMETHING LIKE THAT."

Seething rage, and possibly a bill if any of my clothes were damaged in any way,

sabotabby

Seriously, who thinks it's a good idea to put someone else's clothing, especially their bras and wool things, in a dryer?

Comments

[fengi.livejournal.com]

What happened to "dump damp clothes on a relatively clean surface"?

[flintultrasparc.livejournal.com]

That is definitely the unstated protocol. This downstairs neighbor obviously violated a taboo and must be punished, or at least shunned.

[curgoth]

someone who only owns t-shirts and jeans?

[sabotabby]

He's a hipster jazz musician; he should have to dress up sometimes.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

I thought this until 2002 which was the first time I was ever responsible for doing anyone's laundry except my own. My own, of course, consists of cotton shirts, cotton sweatshirts, and denim (i.e. cotton) jeans. It took quite a few ruined clothes before I learned, I'm sad to say. :(

[sabotabby]

I'm paranoid about other people doing my laundry. Seriously, the only person I know who is more uptight about it than I am is my mom.

[hopita.livejournal.com]

My general rule is what fengi said -- "dump damp clothes on a relatively clean surface" -- but -- only if they're no longer warm (assuming the washer was set on one of the warm or hot settings). If the clothes are still warm, I assume that the washer has probably only just shut off and that the owner of said clothes will be along shortly. If they're cool, I feel it's OK to decide that the person has forgotten they were doing laundry or otherwise gotten distracted.

BTW: Worst thing I ever found my neighbors had thrown into the dryer? A cigarette lighter. I left them a big, magic markered note pointing out they we were all lucky as fuck that they didn't start a fire.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

*FEAR*

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

We tend to wash all of our clothes on cold. The protocol here is "Find a clean surface (or, a laundry basket, if the owner of the clothes has left an empty one), and leave things there. The owner will be along in their own time."

[ladypolitik.livejournal.com]

What the fuck?! DON'T TOUCH OTHER PEOPLE'S LAUNDRY, PERIOD!

[apperception.livejournal.com]

No, you can touch other people's laundry, especially if it's sitting unattended for a long period of time in the washing machine or drier. You take it and put it in a laundry basket. You don't put it in the drier.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

That's uncalled for. It's inappropriate and shows no respect for even minimal boundaries. I would be furious and would say something retaliatory.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

I'm serious. I don't think you went far enough. I would complain to them again, and I would complain to the landlady.

[funnel101.livejournal.com]

To be fair, they might have been trying to be nice by putting your clothes in the dryer for you.

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

Sure, but it's the kind of nice that people are when they paint your house for you in colours you hate.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Dude, not nice.
When I was living in an apartment building with a communal washer and dryer I'd either leave a note saying something about putting it back in the sack (which I'd leave there in order for there to be a visual that the washer/dryer was being used).

Now I'm living with my parental units and am only allowed to do the washing if my mother is incapacitated in some way.
So wrong in so many ways.

[sabotabby]

I never think to leave a note because it's never there for more than about 10 minutes. He seriously waited down there until the machine turned off, immediately scooped my stuff out without giving me a chance to get it out, and tossed it into the dryer.

[peterbilt-47.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna agree with funnel and say I think he was probably completely naive to the bad consequences of putting a bra in the dryer, for example (I know I was until just now), and was only doing what he thought you would have to do for yourself soon anyway.

[sabotabby]

He probably was, but given that bras cost a minimum of $30 each, I could do with a bit less nice and a bit more thought.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

What's a bra? (http://sabotabby.livejournal.com/492821.html?thread=11445781#t11445781)

[sabotabby]

I'm going to string one on his front door.

[ironed_orchid]

Erk. Most girls clothing seems to be designed to never ever go in a dryer. I hope the "just now" means that they only spun around a bit, and never got hot.

[sabotabby]

Yeah; most of my clothes, excepting socks, undies, pajamas, and things I'm actually trying to shrink cannot go in the dryer ever. If it's not a matter of them being tight or having bits that can come off or stretch out, it's that they're handmade or silkscreened by a local artist or some shit. In the summer I just hang-dry things on the roof.

They spun around for about a minute and were warm, but not hot. My bras look undamaged but I had a massive rage-out over the whole thing.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I do most of the laundry at my house, and I have one simple rule. If it is in the washer when I come to do laundry, it goes in the dryer on standard setting. If you want this to not happen, then you get to your laundry when the wash cycle finishes.

More shared facilities, say in an apartment building, might be different. I wouldn't dump their laundry in the dryer.

But, at my place, I do.

Also, many boys DON'T have clothing that doesn't go through "wash, dry, wear". Often on purpose, but sometimes because they're not really aware of other choices. I mostly don't own clothing that can't be treated that way, because I don't want the bother of special-handling for my clothes.

[sabotabby]

See, I am willing to strangle anyone who tries to fuck up my clothes that way. It's not like I left them around all day, either. And there were two perfectly good clean surfaces, a laundry basket, and a clothes horse upon which to dump them, even if I had left my laundry in all day. He could even have put it in the dryer and not turned the dryer on.

I only wish that more women's clothing was "wash, dry, wear." If I want something that looks good on me, though, I have to expend a modicum of effort with cleaning it. I draw the line at dry-clean only, though that doesn't always work either.

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

It's been a long time since I've been in a communal laundry situation (tool of the patriarchy that I am), but when I do share laundry facilities, I don't do anything with other's laundry unless I'm requested to, and I expect the same of others. At one point during my first marriage, I took over doing the laundry entirely because my (evil) spouse demonstrated a complete lack of the concepts of shrinkage, colors running, bleaching, and whatever it is you call it when elastic is dried on high heat (ossification?).

I do though wish I had a clothes line again.

[sabotabby]

Laundry's the one thing that I would never ask anyone else to do. My clothing is just too complex for anyone else to figure out. If I'm visiting my mother, and she volunteers to do my laundry, that's okay, because she's more anal about it than I am. But otherwise, nope, unless I somehow befriend a primitivist who likes to wash everything by hand.

Clothes lines are the best.

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

I think there's a stereotypical "male/female socialization" thing going on here, or rather, "people who were socialized into doing laundry while growing up" vs. "people who learned by trial and error when they left their childhood home". (I.e. in my house my wife's the one who's never done laundry as a child and who piled all of our clothes in together into the washer and dryer regardless of colour or fabric, ignoring labels; and I'm the one likely to meticulously separate things, handwash her $130 bras, etc. Different childhoods, different class issues, etc.)

As much as it may rankle you, you have to consider the possibility that this guy really, honestly, never washed clothes that weren't all dryer safe, or that he's never bothered to check and when his own shit shrinks and frays he thinks that's just normal par for the course. Looking at labels and following laundry instructions isn't an instinctive virtue. However, "helping a neighbour out by doing the next step of the process they left undone", is. So while I understand the initial outrage at seeing expensive items endangered, in a communal setting, rather than discouraging naïve but prosocial behaviour, I'd rather leave a note on any unattended laundry of mine specifying that it be left untouched, or put in a basket provided, or otherwise.

[sabotabby]

I just assume that by 30 or so, most people, male or female, know how to do laundry. I mean, it's not exactly a student hovel and I doubt it's his first place since moving out from mom and dad's.

Also, he annoys me anyway because he once insisted on washing "just a few items" when I was down there first. That's just rude and incredibly wasteful. So while he could have had the best of intentions, I'm not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I really doubt that had I not run down and rescued my clothing, he'd have been willing to compensate me for ruining them.

[dendritejungle.livejournal.com]

Probably someone who never actually bothers to READ washing instructions.

*sigh*

I'm sorry to hear about this - did the clothing in question come out relatively unscathed, I hope?

[sabotabby]

I haven't tried any of my shirts yet. No immediate damage to the bras as far as I can tell.

[grimreaperess.livejournal.com]

Possibly trying to be helpful with little or no knowledge of how to actually do laundry.

My sister ruined a shirt of mine by using pegs on the shoulders. I screamed at her then got in trouble from my mum for being ungrateful.

Maybe a sign or something, though I'm sure he's learned his lesson.

[sabotabby]

I don't think I yelled enough at him for him to have learned a lesson.

People who don't know how to do laundry should not attempt to do other people's.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I have a downstairs neighbor that still won't say hello to me because of this kind of situation. She put my clothes in the dryer and used my coins to set the dryer for 30 mnutes (the time of the wash cycle). I ran into her on the stairs and that load hadn't been done for any more than five minutes. (I use a timer upstairs!) I only had 1 or 2 no dry things so I took 'em out and reset the dryer for 50 minutes which is how long it takes our communal dryer to dry a load (and which I don't believe she doesn't know).

Anyways, a half hour later, when she was ready to put her load in, she realized I had reset my clothes so they would dry and she starts screaming how dare I take that long! Don't I know she has to get to work? etc.

Fucking crazies...

[sabotabby]

Oy. The joys of communal living.

[gillen.livejournal.com]

Touching other people's laundry at all is a no-no, but in defense of his turning on the dryer, he is a boy. Boys almost never have clothing that doesn't go into the dryer. I only learned about such things in my twenties when a gf asked me to throw her stuff from the washer into the dryer and then flipped out on me because I hadn't sorted out her bras and scanties. Well how was I supposed to know? They don't pull us boys aside in seventh grade and give us the skinny on laundering womens skivvies and porn only covers the staining and removal of clothing, not the clean up. ;)

[sabotabby]

In my experience, most boys and men never master the removal of clothing either. Unless perhaps I'm sleeping with men who don't watch porn, which seems unlikely.

Maybe I should write a guide.

[pluvka.livejournal.com]

why are so many people making excuses for this guy? i do not get the impression that he was trying to be helpful. or anything other than self-centered and arrogant, really.

[pluvka.livejournal.com]

not to mention all the 'oh men just can't figure that lady-stuff out' nonsense. come ON, people! let's drop the 'men are stupid and can therefore be excused for just about anything' thing, right now. clothing has labels. you know, *i* never was taught how to do laundry. i fuckin figured it out!

[anothereleni.livejournal.com]

I don't get the impression he was trying to be helpful either, unless being "helpful" means helping himself. If he was really trying to be helpful he would have hung her clothes to dry.

I would want to kill. You don't mess with someone's clothes! A lot of people have a really hard time picking out clothing and putting together a wardrobe. It can take years. Not to mention a lot of money. And women's clothing does not leave room for shrinkage. Do the people excusing this guy really believe that adult men DON'T KNOW that clothing can shrink? I highly doubt that grown men don't have that knowledge. And with that knowledge, it only takes a couple of brain cells rubbed together to come to the conclusion that you should leave someone else's wet clothes alone.

[sabotabby]

Yeah; there's a rack, which is where helpful people would put clothes.

Apparently some adult men didn't know that clothes could shrink? I don't know. People confuse me.