The Laundry Lair

I know I've written about our laundry room before, but I thought I'd take some pictures of it for those of you who haven't seen it (which is most everyone). It's kind of a creepy space. Our apartment opens into the basement, as we are basement-level unit. (Technically, they call our kind of apartment "garden level," but it's basically a basement level. I think "garden" is supposed to make it sound fancier.) It tends to make people wary when I tell them that our door into the basement is located in Claire's room. Never fear: there are two doors (with multiple locks) between her room and the basement. Plus, you can't get into our apartment from the basement if the doors are closed and locked. No problem.

Anyway, I hate our basement. There is decent lighting available, BUT to get to the light switch, you have to make your way all the way across the dark, creepy basement to get to it. It's like spinning your wheels, I think. So, Brad got a super powerful tap light and mounted it on the wall right next to our door so that I can illuminate the pathway to the other light switch that is right over the machines. Over the past few months, I've discovered a dead mouse on the path from our door to the light switch (my tap light is powerful but not quite powerful enough to light up everything). 

In addition to the dim lighting, things that make the basement creepy are: lots of random items that have been stashed down there, like broken lamps and chairs; LOTS of exposed pipes; and mysterious sounds that remind me of scenes on murder-mystery dramas that make viewers go, "Get out of there!!" to the soon-to-be-victim.

Once arriving at the machines, you find one washer and two dryers (side note: I'm pretty sure half of the people I know in Boston don't even bother with dryers...so I'm not sure why we have two of those and only one washer. Why don't they bother with dryers, you ask? Because it's pricey. Ours is really reasonable: $1.75 for 63 minutes. One of my friends would have to pay $1.00 for 6 minutes. She rarely dries her clothes. That's just an annoying amount of quarters to have to keep up with all the time.) Our washer is $2.00 a load, which is also reasonable, given that a more standard rate at laundromats is $4.00. You have to REALLY want to wash your clothes in this city. Confession: I cram a LOT of clothes into those machines. I pretty much try to do a load of whites/lights and a load of darks/brights per week, plus two loads of diapers. That's $8.00 right there, folks. Almost a whole roll of quarters. Most of the time, I air dry most of our clothes and combine things from the whites and darks load for one cycle of laundry. Do what ya gotta do, right?

To put clothes in the washer, you wedge yourself in between the washer and dryers...and turn your back completely on the labyrinth of mystery that extends past the dryers. <shiver> Surprisingly, Claire LOVES going to do the laundry. I wear her on my back in the Ergo carrier, and she thinks it's a grand adventure. She's actually disappointed when we're done. She's a strange child.

Despite my distaste for the laundry facilities here, I am SO thankful that we have laundry in the building. I'd never get anything washed if I had to haul it two blocks away to The Missing Sock every time. On the ice in the winter? While sweating buckets in the summer? I don't think so, buddy.

Blown out flash...but you can see the "wedge space." When Claire is on my back, she likes to bang her head into the side of the dryers. She thinks it's hilarious.

More realistic lighting.

A glimpse into the Labyrinth of Mystery. 

This is a glimpse back toward our door. This is with my taplight on, too. Cree-py.

And that's a brief glimpse into life in the city. Won't miss this aspect.