laundry is not working... - Page 2

[tonttu]

I have 6 kids and I used to drown in laundry , until I have found a system , that works well for us ( mos of the time )

Each kid has a basket in his/her room , where they throw their dirty clothes .

When it´s full , the older ones bring theirs down and I get the one for the 2 lo´s , they share a room with me !

I sort everything in a basket for light colors , black colors , reds and pinks , greens and yellows  and dark multi colors , plus , I have a basket for towels in front of the bathroom . 

Each basket , I have holds exactly the amount of laundry , I can fit into my washing machine , so as soon as one is full , I wash it , dry it and then sort everything into the basket for the individual person 

My older kids bring their own baskets up and put their clothes away , plus I built a closet for the towels in the laundry room , so as soon as towels are washed and dried , they can go in the right place immediately  

Another thing , I have learnt from my own mistake , is never to leave laundry sitting in the laundry room , once it´s done , or else it will pile up beyond belief and if I don´t do it immediately , I seem to never get to it later  

[MrsGregory]

But... but... but...

But then the stuff that touches your butt is touching stuff that touches your plates.

 

[MrsGregory]

I was thinking of combining our clothes.  I hate seeing laundry in the bedroom... yes, even in baskets... yes, I'll wait for everyone to stop laughing at me.  So we have a laundry cupboard built in to the house, and I was thinking of just having a three-bucket system in there.  Except I have way more than 3 separate load-types. 

But, someone help me out here, what if I did a "underpants, socks, and completely disgusting" load, a "jeans and tee shirts and other things that aren't delicate per se but still should be washed in cool water and either hung or low-heat dried" load and then a "Missus' unmentionables and delicate sweaters and bras and basically everything she owns because apparently she never planned on being a parent la ti da" load?

Then I can collect towels from the kitchen under the sink just as I do now, and do them apart from the underwear and bath towels, which I just collect off the racks.

Anyone do a system similar to this with good results?

I would like to do 5 loads a week, and with the capacity machine we have I think this might be doable for me if I can get myself straight.

[sunnysandiegan]

Try it and see how it works! :)

[IsaFrench]

yes, the stuff that touches my butt & whole family's butt,touches the stuff that touches plates ... but then it all gets washed and end up CLEAN !

any towel in the kitchen is usually washed with the daily load => took me years to get into that routine but i like it best because i prefer to have no more than a day's worth of laundry waiting ... i know that worn clothes that are put in a hamper .... do NOT get more dirty by waiting in there .... but i don't like the idea of clothes waiting and waiting to get into the washing machine & now i get real pleasure in hanging it to line dry nearly every day ....

bathroom towels get washed once a week ...with the bath mat that comes off the floor (i resisted on that one for a while but don't want to wash ONE bath mat in a separate load, by itself... after a while i got used to it and it doesn't bother me anymore)

[pammysue]

Originally Posted by MrsGregory 

But... but... but...

But then the stuff that touches your butt is touching stuff that touches your plates.

 

I do a towels, undies, socks, "clothes that DS had an accident in" load with hot water and dry on high. They are pretty well disinfected by the end. 

[MrsGregory]

In my mind I know everything is disinfected when I use the hot setting... in my heart of hearts I am still doing the icky squicky dance.

Heck, growing up if a sock fell out of the basket and hit the floor we had to re-wash it.  I've finally stopped doing that!

[happy2]

Do the terry towels make clothes pilly? 

[tonttu]

Originally Posted by MrsGregory 

But... but... but...

But then the stuff that touches your butt is touching stuff that touches your plates.

 

Oh well , so what if it does !  I figure , none of us have any infectious disease , plus I wash everything AT LEAST on warm , towels and that sort of stuff hot , I use laundry detergent and a tumble drier .

If any germs survives all that , well ... 

[rubidoux]

Originally Posted by MrsGregory 

But... but... but...

But then the stuff that touches your butt is touching stuff that touches your plates.

 

See, I am so un-poop-phobic that I had to sit here and think about whether you were worried about the kitchen towels touching your butt towels or your butt towels touching your kitchen towels.  After having cloth diapered two LO's, I am just completely solid in my belief that anything butt related that goes in the washer will be obliterated by the process.  I have never had any indication otherwise.  I know lots of people feel uncomfortable with it, though.

[Caneel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrsGregory 

But... but... but...

But then the stuff that touches your butt is touching stuff that touches your plates.

 

Yes but isn't your butt clean after your bath?  All you are doing is drying off a (hopefully) clean butt.

I shouldn't tease because I completely relate to this -

Originally Posted by MrsGregory

In my mind I know everything is disinfected when I use the hot setting... in my heart of hearts I am still doing the icky squicky dance.

Heck, growing up if a sock fell out of the basket and hit the floor we had to re-wash it. I've finally stopped doing that!

My family has/had serious germ phobia issues.  Interesting considering my mom grew up on a working cattle/chicken farm.  It is amazing my grandmother didn't lose her mind battling real and imagined germ threats.  My mom is just as bad.  I convinced myself long ago that between hot water, detergent and the heat of the dryer, no germs survive.  I wash everything on hot.

I agree the fewer the items that need to be washed, the better.  Weeding out unnecessary things made a huge difference in my laundry life.  Less things in the drawers/closets makes it easier to actually put clean clothing away.  When we got new towels, I got light blue.  These get washed with both light and dark loads so I always have clean towels on hand as well as items to throw in if I have room.

[LitMom]

I just sort dark and light. Bathroom towels and sheets get washed separately in their own loads. I don't have a problem mixing them in, but we have a low capacity machine, so 4ish bath towels and 4 ish hand towels is a load for that machine. 

We are moving in a few months and I'm hoping to switch it up though. We'll be in a walk up, so I'm hoping to do one of the laundry pod or wonder wash things for many of the clothes rather than lugging up and down. We'll see how it goes though! I'm thinking I may just wash 1 person's clothes per day and hang to dry. Sheets and towels and kitchen towels will have to go all the way down for the electric washer though. 1/week probably. 

[nd_deadhead]

I sort into 3 types - cold, warm, and hot. Almost everything goes into warm - jeans, t-shirts, towels. Hot is just whites (which includes kitchen towels/dishrags). Cold is the smallest category, and I might only do a cold load every couple of weeks. My laundry room has a chest of drawers that I use for storage, and one drawer is for cold-water wash. When the drawer is full, I wash a load.

My biggest laundry victory was buying a bunch of extra hangers, and keeping them in the laundry room. Instead of folding all our t-shirts (which is mostly what we all wear), then hanging them once they reach the correct room, I put everything on hangers right out of the closet. It saves a TON of time - and my sons, who are terrible at folding clothes, can manage the hanger thing.

[otheramerica]

I used to be in your position. ((hugs))

I now do one load a day. Adult towels/sheets (both white), kitchen cloth, and cloth diapers get washed in hot and dried on high, but all clothing is washed in cold. I used to line dry everything but now that I'm working out of the home there just isn't time. I load up a basket every night before I go to bed and put it by the washing machine. In the morning I put the clothes in to wash. I then put them in the dryer as soon as I get home from work that evening. I carry the clothes back up and put the one load away while the boys are getting ready for bed. I have a 2 bag laundry thing (lights and darks) for adult clothes. The boys' clothes, towels, and sheets all go in the same basket and are never sorted by color. I rinse their clothes before washing them because ODS still has accidents pretty regularly. I stopped sorting their clothes by color almost 2 years ago and have never had a problem with anything bleeding, but I also wash everything in cold. 

Reducing the amount of clothing we have has also helped with laundry piling up. The boys have 10 of everything (tops, bottoms, undies, and socks) and one nice outfit per season.  I don't count mine and DH's clothes but I try to keep it reasonable. For me that means that all of our clothes fit on a single 3 foot rod in our shared closet. 

[autumngrey]

I don't sort as a matter of routine. If I have a new article to wash that is particularly bright I might hold it on the side until I have enough clothes that I can toss it in a load without any white-whites as a precaution. Usually, whatever is in an about-a-load sized basket (each person's clothes and bath towels) goes into the washer. I have several baskets for everyone. While one basket is downstairs waiting for a load, there is still another basket in everyone's room for any dirty laundry that needs to be put somewhere in the meantime. It means we have unattractive big plastic baskets (hamper shaped--handy) sitting all over our rooms, but they function well. Whenever DSD admits she has a basket full (or two baskets full ... or that she's out of clothes ...) DH or I carry it downstairs for her and she loads it in the machine. I usually help her fold and put hers away, but trying to get her more independent on that front.

I leave the wash temp on "auto," and I'm not sure how it decides what temp to use, but when I've stopped it--and wiggled the buttons around until I can get the door to unlock--it's felt fairly warm to hot. I choose to trust the machine.

I fold clothes as I take them out of the dryer--not even an intermediate step into a basket. Once the wrinkles are set in an unfolded pile of clothes, I completely lose the will to fold. Folding hot laundry on a cold winter day is almost a treat, even. The dryer we have dries clothes faster than the washer washes them. It may be due to a really good washer spin cycle, though. In any event, if I'm on the ball and hear the dryer finish I can get the dry clothes folded before the next load is done washing. I am quadruple diligent to get DH's button-up shirts out of the dryer while they're still super hot so they only require hanging and not ironing. I'm not my grandma--no ironing underwear (or anything else for that matter).

For sheets, even though I have multiple sets for each of our beds, I try to wash and re-apply the sheets right away, rather than fold and store clean sheets. It seems like hot sheets also go on beds easier than ones with crisp fold lines.

Every couple weeks, or if we're having overnight company, I do a load of whatever towels are hanging up in the bathrooms and the bath rugs. Like sheets, I take them down, wash, and put them right back. If I get it done before the last clean hand towel is used, people can even dry their hands while I do laundry!

I put the kitchen towels and other random things that might need to be washed in loads with DH's clothes. He's a man so he doesn't care, right? Besides, it can't be worse than his dirty socks. 

DH and I work where we can wear whatever we want (so long as appendages are covered) so we don't have to worry about special care clothes. The wool sweaters I have, I try to be careful in wearing so I don't have to wash often, and then I put them in a separate pile to wash them on a cooler, delicate cycle and of course no drying. Otherwise I try to avoid buying anything that requires special wash care. I do turn my jeans and black yoga pants inside-out in the wash to try to preserve the color, but that's about as high-maintenance as I put up with for regular clothes. 

[journeymom]

Everyone has their own laundry basket/hamper thing that stays in their own room.  We've got 3 regular laundry baskets for dumping the clean, dry things into.  Dh and I fold clothes on our bed, ds folds clothes on the couch, dd just doesn't fold clothes. Ever. It's nuts.    But I don't dwell on it. 

We're fortunate to have a laundry room with a utility sink.  Dirty towels go in the sink. 

I sort by light and dark and that's mostly it. It usually all gets washed in warm.  Red goes in with dark, unless it's brand new, in which case I might try to put together a load of all red.  Only recently I started washing my undies on delicate, only because I bought myself a bunch of nice bras, so I toss the undies in with the bras.

I'm very VERY lucky that my dh of 20 years has always preferred to do his own laundry.  And my daughter started doing her own when she was 11.  Ds is doing his own about half the time.  So I've got my own clothes plus the towels and sheets. And some of ds's clothes. 

Originally Posted by rubidoux 

See, I am so un-poop-phobic that I had to sit here and think about whether you were worried about the kitchen towels touching your butt towels or your butt towels touching your kitchen towels.  After having cloth diapered two LO's, I am just completely solid in my belief that anything butt related that goes in the washer will be obliterated by the process.  I have never had any indication otherwise.  I know lots of people feel uncomfortable with it, though.

I've got the same line of thought. 

I know there's probably all kinds of shenanigans going on in that washer. And I highly doubt it's getting obliterated in the washer. Not when there are critters that can live in boiling hot acid water on steam vents under the ocean.  But, yeah, in my head what doesn't get done-in in the wash gets baked in the dryer. 

Even after the dryer, I wouldn't be surprised if someone found some kind of 'cross contamination' between butt towels and dish towels. The thing is, no one in this house getting sick.    Perhaps we're inoculating ourselves with just enough ick to make our immune system stronger?   Anyway, I don't dwell on it.

OK, there's one exception:  the dog's blankets (old towels) get washed separately and never do they mix with body towels. The fur just is never completely removed and I didn't appreciate discovering that I was smearing dog fur on my freshly bathed, naked, wet body. Even if the fur had gone through the washer and drier. 

[OkiMom]

Im seriously laughing over here about the whole butt towel/plate towel conversation..

Laundry now.. We have 2 baskets, one in the master bath and one in the girls bedroom. Only thing that gets seperated out is DH's uniforms because he works with hazmat and I don't want that anywhere near anyone else's clothing.. I generally do the kids load (the girl's room basket) on Mondays, the master bath's basket on Wednesday and DH's uniforms on Saturday. On Thursday I do sheets and towels if needed and Tuesday is catch up if needed.. Soon we will have to do cloth diaper laundry so that will be done every other day unless its needed more often.

I think the thing is finding a system that works for you.. When I had 1 child I use to not even have laundry baskets. DH worked an office job so I didn't even have to worry about his uniforms.. So, everything just got thrown in the wash, when it was full it got turned on. Then diapers got done when the wash was done (every other day at least).. When I had two that no longer worked out well (potty training, we went through a LOT of clothing from DD dropping her clothes in the toilet) so I did laundry one day a week (Mondays usually).. When we had the 3rd I DH started working Hazmat again and spending the day doing laundry was just not something that was working so I came up with what I do now.. In October when the baby is born Im sure it will change again.
 

[Caneel]

Originally Posted by journeymom 

OK, there's one exception:  the dog's blankets (old towels) get washed separately and never do they mix with body towels. The fur just is never completely removed and I didn't appreciate discovering that I was smearing dog fur on my freshly bathed, naked, wet body. Even if the fur had gone through the washer and drier. 

Blah!  Now this I can understand.  What does it say that I can accept butt towels mixed with dish towels in the wash but not animal cross contamination?  We are down to one cat and I still wash his lounge bedding/ towels seperately.  This is a house cat that has never lived outside and eats only the best food.  There are no worm, flea or ick things to worry about (he sleeps in bed with us) yet I do not like the hair issues.

[MrsGregory]

Glad I could really add to the conversation ladies!

So, my husband will take a dish towel and use it to dry the kitchen floor, with his foot, and then pick it up and leave it on the counter to dry his hands on, and then stick his hands in the baby's mouth... and I'm trying to stop hyperventilating long enough to tell him to stop, and his response is always to point out that he is sick much less frequently than I am, and maybe that's due to the fact that he challenges his immune system once in a while.  I don't think I'm germ-phobic.  I think I'm perfectly normal, little on the dirty side, actually.  I'm in deep.

I really can't wash any cat stuff with any of our stuff, and I have to wash the washer and dryer after I wash their stuff.  My cats are also indoors only and fed a high-quality diet, but that fur... that fuzzy, omnipresent fur...  blech.

Most of my wardrobe is in need of a cold, delicate wash.  I think if I start washing some of Little Miss's things on cold I can go to my three-load system (excepting butt towels and plate towels and sheets and cat items, which will all still be separate), and that may help me.
 

[journeymom]

Mrs.Gregory, are you familiar with the mirobiome that lives in all of us?  An adult might have as many as 100 trillion bacteria in just the digestive tract! They're in and on our skin, our scalps, and our mouths. Our belly buttons are veritable jungles. Together they weigh as much as a couple of pounds, like a whole other organ.  And they behave beneficially like an organ, as well.  TWO POUNDS OF MICROBES IN OUR BODIES... 

It's like all the living things in a healthy pond.  Cattails, frogs, fish, algae, mosquitoes and god knows what that can only be seen under a microscope. They all work together, feed on each other and keep life in and on the pond healthy and thriving.  It's like the pond is a living entity. 

While I really don't like to think on the hand towel to floor with foot to counter again, that just seems clearly wrong (maybe because there's SO MUCH DOG FUR on our floors),  theoretically your dh is helping to populate your dd with necessary microbes when he his fingers touch her mouth.  

Anyway, I pretty much can't get my mind around the idea that 1% - 2% of my body is entirely other creatures!