Hand Washing Clothes For Downwardly Mobile Millennials
Like most people who live in a “historical” urban building, I do not have in-unit laundry. I’ve lived in such buildings for almost a decade now, not willing to pay for new buildings that feature such luxuries. Which means for laundry it’s either laundromats or if I’m lucky, aging laundry machines in a crumbling basement that are often broken or in use by one of the buildings other 20 occupants.
The thing is that laundromats are surprisingly expensive and time-consuming. I have to carry all my clothes there and often have to sit there for over an hour. It’s not cheap either. What if I told you that doing all your laundry by hand was competitive with laundromats in both time and money?
You might be surprised, but it’s true. By and large, Americans don’t handwash anything beyond fancy lingerie, but thank god for people who have preserved the art of doing this.
First of all preppers and homesteaders. You know, the kind of conservative hippies that think the world is going to end soon so you better get used to having no electricity? The old way to handwash was mainly a washboard and a wringer, but now they have some new tools that are way cheaper and easily to use. Also there is a market for these that includes RVers, campers, and often the displaced/homeless.
The first tool is the agitator, which slush water into clothes to clean and rinse them. There are a lot of alternatives out there now including a modified plunger like the Breathing Mobile Washer Classic and capsule devices like the Wonderwash
The second is the spinner, which spins water out of the clothes to make them easy to dry. They make both electric and hand crank versions of this. A popular electric one is the Mini Spinner
Having a lot of space constraints in my apartment, I opted for a hand crank device that does both, the Laundrypod. It’s more expensive than a lot of the other alternatives, but as a bonus it serves as the washing container for those of us with bathtubs falling out of the wall because our landlords don’t care. It is also is size-wise mainly appropriate for one or two people, not a family.
Also you will get swole if you use this. Make sure to alternate hands though or you’ll end up with uneven muscles. My method is I soak in warm soapy water for 15 minutes, crank for 1, drain, crank to spin the dirty water out for a minute, refill with water, crank for 1, drain, and spin for one again.
For drying I took a page out of the time I spent in Sweden, where a lot of people line or rack dry to preserve their clothes since the dryer tends to be harsh on them. My laundryroom there had a special drying room with a giant fan. Here I just put on a drying rack and run a box fan. Of course this does take time, you can’t have your laundry instantly this way, but you don’t have to be around waiting for it to finish either (because in a laundry room someone is liable to steal it or throw it on the floor if you don’t grab it when it’s done right away). A bonus is that it also humidifies your apartment in the winter. This Moerman 88346 Y-Airer Indoor Folding Clothes Rack is my favorite drying rack because it can hold multiple loads of laundry (79 feet it claims), though you can get a cheaper one at Ikea (no surprise) called the “Frost“
For REALLY dirty laundry, agitation is not enough. Thank god for Japan, where they have even smaller apartments with even less room for laundry and make these amazing tiny washboards. Just soak your items in warm water and scrub the soiled parts against the washboard for 10–30 seconds and voila! It works even better than some washing machines. I originally bought it because my building’s moribund washer couldn’t handle women’s underwear, which are infamously hard to clean. I know, TMI, but this is just something that happens to us! The washboard did the trick. You can also get a washbasin that has a built in board, but I felt that took up too much space.
From knitting friends I also learned that you can do even less with delicate knits or basically unsoiled items. Just use one of the no-rinse soaking washes like Eucelan. 15 minutes soak, drain, and either put on a sweater dryer if it’s super delicate or spin and put on a rack. If you have very nice items, this is the gentlest way to wash and will leave your clothes in great condition. I wash all my Norwegian and Irish sweaters this way, as well as some merino wool and linen items.
Overall I consider the breakdown this:
Active time is having to do something, passive is waiting. Obviously it’s a lot nicer to spend this time at home than at a laundromat. So you can see how I consider handwashing competitive. I did triple times for handwashing because roughly 3 handwash loads equals one machine load.
Someday I hope to live the dream of in-unit laundry, but it’s not looking good for us millennials. In the meantime, I’m glad I have a handwash system in place.
x-posted at The Reluctant Domestics
