All clean and good

[collacentaur]

J and I went on a date to the laundromat last night. And the laundromat is my new hero.

It went kind of like this. I put off laundry so long I ran out of socks. And our sheets needed washing. And J had a mountain in the corner by his closet. So I left him a checklist when I went to work yesterday of the first three loads I needed washed.

J called me around 10:30 yesterday morning to ask if I had heard anything about the washer flooding. Because it was. He had found it unplugged with the water turned off, but figured someone was just trying to conserve and turned it back on and plugged it in. And started a load of laundry.

I charitably refrained from mentioning that if you find a washer unplugged and the water off, perhaps it should be a BIG HINT that something might be wrong. He was trying to do me a favor after all. He hung up to call the landlady and start drying the soggy dirty laundry.

Five minutes later he called back to let me know that the landlady apologized for not letting us know. Apparently it has been broken for a week, and K, the tenant in the back who functions sort of as building superintendent, was supposed to tell us. Mrs. N. said that the repairman would be coming within the next couple of days. K, mind you, has had it in for us ever since J moved in. I would say she hated men, but she certainly seems to have enough of them in and out... She avoids telling us anything until she can get us in trouble for it. I think everyone has heard the garbage can saga by now.

Anyway, Jeff continued to dry the soggy dirty laundry until it was just damp dirty laundry. And I scoped out the laundromat in the middle of Madison on the way home. Pretty big, not many people. We ate dinner, loaded up the car with our mountains, and went.

We arrived at eight, did ten loads of laundry (no, I am not exaggerating - ten washers, eleven dryers because I separated out the delicates), folded it all there, and were home again a little after ten thirty. It was a buttload of quarters, but well worth it to get it all clean and taken care of. And after we had everything in, we discovered the larger washers, so next time we can cut down on the quarter-drain a little.

It could be worth going back again just to avoid schedule problems with K!

Comments

[daeron.livejournal.com]

Garbage can saga?

[collacentaur.livejournal.com]

Well, when I moved in, nobody really told me anything about the way things work in Madison. I knew some of it from working here, but not all the details. For example, I knew Madison has garbage collection twice a week. I did not know that recycling is only once a week, and alternates between cardboard/paper and glass/metal/plastic.

Since I screwed that up before J moved in, K was kind enough to 1) tell me about it and 2) arrange for the town to send me a copy of the schedule. In general, she was pretty friendly until he moved in.

For reference, I took the apartment as of June 1 and moved in around June 15. J moved up on August 23. The recycling mix-up was probably around that same time, because we had a lot of extra boxes then.

At the time I moved in, there were three garbage cans for the building: a small metal one, and two tall tan plastic ones. One of the two plastic ones is clearly marked Apt. 2. My front door is also marked 2. I jumped to what I would think was the logical conclusion, that this can was for my use. But since all three cans varied in their contents, I generally just put the garbage in whichever can had space. And, for the record, usually about 10 the night before the garbage pickup, while the cans were already out at the street. K takes the cans out to the street by about noon the day before the collection, for our building and several others in the neighborhood, and brings them in after the trucks come by.

Time passes, J moved up, life was good. Except that K shot him nasty looks whenever she saw him, and screamed if he appeared somewhere she wasn't expecting, like the sidewalk from the front of the building to the back. No, really screamed, like someone was attacking her. I was there for it several times. One day, J took a bag of garbage out on (*gasp of shock*) a non-garbage day. K caught him putting it in the afore-mentioned can marked Apt. 2. She went into a tirade on how all the cans are assigned and we have to buy our own can. The metal one is hers, and that one is the people upstairs, and this one is someone else's. J brought the garbage back inside rather than continue to deal with her. I really can't blame him. Now, she didn't specify who the "someone else" was, and I'm pretty sure that it was the people who lived in the apartment before us. And I've seen other people in the building putting their trash into cans without regard for what it was labeled.

However, rather than call the landlady and fuss, we went to Home Depot in the pouring rain, and bought our own garbage can. Same size as the tan ones, but dark green. And a permanent marker, which I promptly used to mark our names on the can, before putting it out.

We haven't had any more comments about garbage, but we do sometimes find other people's trash in our can. Odd, for assigned cans, isn't that? And our can is conspicuously NOT moved out front, twice a week - although she will bring it in when we put it out.

Re:

[daeron.livejournal.com]

she sounds like all SORTS of fun.

[turtle-morn.livejournal.com]

I have a downstairs neighbor she should meet.

Re:

[daeron.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. THAT can't be good!