So I just moved to DC and was in need of doing my laundry. Since I wasn't familiar with doing laundry at my apartment unit, I decided to drive to this place because it was close by. There was another laundry place closer but since I use YELP religiously, the rating and the reviews showed it was a horrible place so I decided to go to this location....since it was further from my apartment and it had decent reviews.
Now I get here and I'm the only person here. I'm not familiar with laundromats because prior to moving here, our place had an in home laundry unit...so this is new to me. So I get in to the place and I see that they have a money exchange because the place is a coin-laundromat. So, I exchange a $20 bill and go to the first unit I see. I inspect each unit and there are more than 50% of the larger washing machines that say out of order or cold water only. Many of them smelled funny as if someone washed a dead animal in the washing machines. And since I'm washing whites and some bedsheets I wanted to wash them in "HOT" water so I found the first laundry unit that didn't smell funny and that did not have any "taped" sign specifying "COLD WATER ONLY."
I find a machine and feed it $4.50 but the number doesn't change to specify that the money was being fed. I thought that it would start the moment the specified amount was fed into the machine - but it didn't work!!! I feed it again a second time and noticed that the numbers started to go down - $4.50 turned into $4.25, so forth and so on until the machine still didn't work. Now it went back to "pay $4.50" so I looked around and saw there was a help number to call and so I called it. The number was (703)554-7475. I got connected to Daniel who asked me which machine ate my money. He then asked if it was the first machine closest to the vending machine and I said yes. He then advised to slam it on the area that looked like a clock dial, and after doing so it started working but after I already fed it $4.50.
Daniel did apologize and said that there was an attendant that would come in about 45 minutes from the time we spoke to open up the shop. He advised that she would be able give me a refund of the $4.50 that the machine first ate, before it started working.
Ok so now I'm using 2 small machines and 2 large ones...and mind you, the machine costs $4.50 to operate (larger machines) and smaller washers are $3.75. But all the machines that I used, both large and small , I chose to use hot water and all came out cold. I could tell because I felt the glass window of each machine. And all were ice cold. It's December so I get that it's cold, but none of the washing machines I used felt warm, even though I chose the hot water setting.
Once the machines were done and I pulled out the clothes...all were still very wet. It was as if the spin cycle didn't work and the clothes were still dripping with moisture. I was pressed for time so I didn't make a huge fuss out of it. I just threw each batch into a dryer and hoped the dryers would do their thing!
It was nice for this establishment to return the money that the machine ate, but the washing machines smelled funny and the clothes came out very wet. I'm not sure if I would come back to this place, but the last review was from a while ago...maybe things changed since then? I'm not sure, but I give this place 1 for cleanliness, 1 for machines with more than half showing out of order or cold water only. I do give the attendant who came in credit for being polite and giving me my money back, but I'm sure Daniel told her about the situation so she was aware of what happened to the machine and how ate my money. read more