The apartments with the well organised timetables are the right thing to do. Certain apartments which have no schedule and have only one washing machine, for the whole apartment block, just "free for all" really suck. Certain people abuse their privileges and take 18 hours for all their junk. Other people just remove your stuff just after you've placed them in for a wash. Really annoying.

I can see both sides. We have two laundry rooms but can only use one as the key thing won't make one go. I always put my name down for a Thursday but on a couple of occasions have got downstairs and found it to be in use with what looks like 7 full loads drying on the wind machine. What should I do in that situation? Should I stop the machine and remove all the other persons clothes and take down the still wet washing or leave a polite note? or lurk until the interloper returns? Usually I leave it a couple of hours and go back and normally the stuff is all gone and it is my turn. Twice though the individual has taken all day and I never see who it is. This causes me to go over my alloted time and get a complaint from whoever has booked it after me. I yearn for the day I get my own machine

If someone complains at you for going over the allotted time, why can't you complain at the person washing during the time you have booked?

If you don't know who it was, leave a post-it note on their washing basket politely pointing out that you had booked this slot and written it in the book.

Our apartment block is supposed to have a plan but we decided long ago that it was plain stupid so we agreed to wash whenever we needed to (and it wasn't already occupied). A couple of times someone slipped a load in when I wasn't quick enough to go down and continue with my wash but I just left them a note saying I wasn't finished and would let him/her know when I'd got through the remaining two loads.

Usually it's just a case of a bit of communication and everyone knows where they stand. If someone is taking the piss with the washing facilities let them know.

Good luck!

I think I'm pretty lucky in my apartment building, There are only five or six residential flats, the rest of the building contains offices. Even so, I still book my time in, always the same day same times, everyone else does the same so we each have a day to ourselves, plus some times here and there where you can nip down and see if it's free.

One thing that bugs me is we're still not allowed to do washing on Sunday, even though the washroom is 2 floors underground and the residential flats are on the third floor. It can't be the noise, and no-one can see the the laundry hanging out to dry, wtf?

me too. there are only 6 people in the apt., and the one lady only does laundry once bi-weekly...I figured out early enough that most people tend to stick with their reg. day. Like, the girl across the hall, I noticed she's always signed up Tuesdays, ALWAYS....so I haven't had any issues in regards to finding a time slot, unlike our first apt. which was hell.

The Sunday thing does bug me a bit....as you mentioned, the machines are waaaaayyy downstairs, with not one, but 2 doors to shut out any sound they *may* cause...what's the biggie? oh well...

My biggest problem is the "energy saving" bulls*it dryers that don't work. Whats the point of having a machine that takes 5 hours to dry what should take just 1 hour? Equally hard to see any real energy savings unless one prefers to hang up their clothes like they did half a century ago.

Maybe it's just me but I find that tumble dryers make clothes shrink. Our flatmate used to buy trousers too long for him so they'd fit when they came out of the dryer. Now THAT'S forward planning!!

I just use the dryer for towels and bedding. The rest goes on the clothes horse on the balcony.

I only use the dryer for towels and sheets otherwise all the adult clothes come out ready to be worn by our six year old. The wind machine thing is a brilliant idea - in theory. In practice it does take around 6 hours to fully dry something - oh, for the days when I not only had my own washing machine, it took around an hour to dry outside our flat - on any day and I had somebody to do it all for me

I totally agree with the sentiments here. My building has only 1 washer and 1 dryer and the dates are pre-allocated i.e. you get a day once every 10 days to do your laundry. Not so bad, but sometimes someone will sneak in and steal your day. I hate it when that happens. With the rents I'm sure we're all paying, can't they put in a few more machines? Sigh!

We have pretty new dryers (Miele) that take 50 minutes so I think your dryer is defective.

we also...washing at 40 degrees takes 40 minutes and drying just enough for good ironing (shrinking never happened to me) takes 35 minutes...

with the Sundays i understood is actually the religious thing...that's what i heard...you know...Christians are supposed to rest on Sundays...

The washing machines suck in Switzerland. It takes 1 hour and 30 minutes for it to wash. The dryers in Switzerland really suck. I mean, after 1 hour and 30 minutes everything is still not dry!!

I have to agree that the apartments that have a set laundry day schedule are really a big hassle. I lived in one place (not long thank god!) where you got one set day PER MONTH!! What a disaster. Any other time we had to go ask the landlady for the key.

Since then, I've sworn to never ever move into an apartment building again that had these rigid rules.

I now live in a place where there are only 4 apartments per washer & dryer, and we can do laundry any time of day or night whenever it's free, also on Sundays. The laundry room is in a separate little building so you can't hear anything, so no one cares. I love it.

The thing is, I think the quality of the washers is MUCH BETTER than in N. America. In Canada, I used to have to pay a whopping $1.75 per load, that only "washed" the clothes for about 15 or 20 minutes, had no temperature control settings beside cold or hot (more like tepid), and left sludgy soap bits on my black clothes. Usually they would come out mangled, still with stains on, and loads of residue. I had this at all the diff apartments I lived at in Canada because they all had those terrible top loaders.

Front loaders are much better and wash my clothes better, are more water efficient, and I only have to pay for the amount of electricity used, so it's a lot cheaper than $1.75 for 15 mins of sloshing back and forth.

Yeah, right.

If it's that bad, have you ever considered moving apartment or talking to your landlord?

I don't know why it is like that.
I lived in one place for 3 months, had a serviced apartment, brand new washer and dryer in the apartment and it took a total of almost 3 hours to do laundry!

Now I'm living in an apartment and there are two new machines and two new dryers and they still take 3 hours to do laundry. They just suck!

Is there any place selling North American standard washing machines and dryers here????????????

The point is in North America I did my laundry in 1 hour. Here, I don't want to waste 3 hours of my lifetime on laundry...especially with the set time period when I can do my laundry. It's BS if you ask me. Get a decent dryer and a washing machine and you will hear less complaints and people can wash their clothing 2 times a week isntead of every 10 days.

I dunno, all the washing mashines I ever used were done in an hour tops. Same for the dryers.

I doubt that this has anything to do with N.A. vs. European/Swiss standard.

to cut things short, why don't you?

although if you do live in an apartment block quite often there's no space for a washer/dryer in the bathroom - i've chucked mine in the kitchen. bliss...

Make sure your rental agreement allows this - many apartments are excluded on account of the noise.

Sorry Cant agree with the statement the North American Washers and Dryers are better than Swiss. I have houses in Both Canada and the USA and I can tell you from personal experience that washing machines and dryers in North America are CRAP.. We have been using our Miele Washer and Dryer.. now 18 years old with out any problem what so ever. On an average it takes as some one said about 50 mins to do a load of either washing or drying. This is also using the machines for about 5 loads a week. In the winter months everything goes into the dryer and I have as yet to have anything coming out shrunk. And none of that fluffy junk that is always present with NA dryers. Additionally the washers here boils the water so whites comes out as it should be "white" and not that pixxy yellow as with NA washers.

No thanks! When I was in Canada I had to babysit every top loader I used because the clothes got wrapped round the middle bit causing the machine to stop every ten minutes!