If this is your first time, here are some of the things you might want to know:
- There are 3 sizes for the front load washers: Small, medium, or large. The small is, well, very small and I wouldn't wash more than a couple shirts or a single pair of denim. The medium is probably where most people will want to do their load of laundry. The large can be good for blankets/pillows/larger amounts of clothes/etc.
- Each size front load washer has 3 different price points and generally accept credit card/contactless or coins. Small starts I think at $2.50? Medium starts at $4.50. Large starts at $6.50. You can configure the wash cycle with things like whether you want cold/warm/hot water and so forth. We used the medium at $4.50 and the duration of the washing cycle was about 27-28 minutes. Our whole trip took about approximately 45 minutes, without drying our clothes.
- We didn't use the dryers (our washer at home is broken but the dryer still works), but it appears they cost $0.25 per 4 minutes.
- There is a coin change vendor if you don't have any coins on you, and there is a detergent vendor if you forgot your washing liquids (they generally cost around $1.25).
- Don't wear nice clothing to the laundromat!!! First off, it makes me laugh at the thought of people trying to flex at a laundromat (cringe, L + ratio + you fell off). Come on, are you really going to be this lame? Also, people will be bringing bleach and it can get on your clothing if the residual liquid is still on the washing appliance. Wear clothes that you won't feel bad for getting messed up. Someone wore Yeezy's and I overheard them saying bleach dripped on them from one of the top of the appliances. As much as I would like to see conceited people eat sh*t, I currently feel the need to call this part out for the greater good of the public. So whether I agree with your conceited-ness or not, and if this review saved you from a costly mistake...you're welcome.
Pro's:
- Convenient if you're in the area, and if there isn't many people using it.
- Decent amount of parking, but that's probably because there's a lot of vacancies in this strip mall (the 7-Eleven nearby is permanently closed at the time of this review by the way). If a popular restaurant moved in here, then you can forget this comment all together.
Con's:
- It's a smaller laundromat, and yes the lanes between appliances are fairly small. It only takes about 8-10 people and the place starts feeling very cramped (I couldn't take pictures because of how cramp it was). You're going to be bumping into people.
- Some of the washers seemed to have issues starting the washing process, but there was no sign saying it was out of order. It so happened to be the first one I used, once we loaded the laundry + soap pod in, we tried contactless payment/swiping my CC but it wouldn't work. We then moved to a new machine that worked. The problem is if you're using liquid detergent and you've already poured it into the machine (the instructions on the machine says to load it up, pour the liquids, then pay), you're SoL if you need to move to another machine with liquid detergent. Luckily we use pods so it was easy to take out and pivot to another machine. Regardless of your stance on pod detergents, I would suggest bringing pods to avoid this externality in the future.
- Lots of human factors that can make your negatively impact your experience here:
* 1. People are going to be standing near their appliance, but there is simply not enough room for it. We ended up standing outside and just keeping an eye on our washer to avoid the clutter/feeling claustrophobic inside, and to allow other people access to the vacant appliances to use.
* 2. Also people being inconsiderate by hogging multiple dryers. The theory is it's a thing where if you have one load of laundry, you split it up into multiple dryers so they can dry faster (again, theory). The problem is it's very inconsiderate if you have a room full of people waiting on the dryers. If you're going to do this, do it when no one's around. I saw a couple do this with a room full of people and thought it was extremely inconsiderate.
Overall, I'm glad I was able to wash my clothes, but don't miss the laundromat experience, especially this location's. What would bump this review to a 3/4/5 star would be if this place was a little bigger, had better peak hour management, and staff who could regularly wipe the appliances down to prevent bleach from getting on unsuspecting people's clothing.
I am really missing my washer right now. Too bad due to supply chain issues none of the good brands seem to be in stock for purchase, and no way in hell am I opting in for another Samsung/LG appliance. read more