In 2009, on the first night I tried to meet the leasing agent of the first one-bedroom apartment I rented after moving to Boston, this laundromat was a landmark after I exited the B line train. On the second night, when I braved the roads and drove so the train wouldn't make me late for the appointment, the landmark was a different Brighton laundromat, a review of which is forthcoming because of how badly I was recently treated there.
In 2012, I successfully washed and dried laundry here.
Much has changed in Brighton since then, and not for the better.
Since today marked my third or fourth negative experience here since a move back in 2018, and I didn't share the first ones, here's the review I owe you, fellow seekers of value:
The machine that vends detergent, bleach, fabric softener, and laundry bags doesn't work. Management has thoughtfully posted a sign, which you can see in the first of the two photos that accompany this review, warning that it doesn't accept Apple Pay. What they've inexcusably refrained from telling you, however, is that your Discover and Visa credit and debit cards will be declined, too. Per the instructions on the machine, I tapped these two payment methods in succession when the first one I tried didn't work. When that failed, I tried swiping them, then looked in vain for a place to insert cash, concluded that The Found Sock didn't want my business, and, finally, left.
(An eco-consciousness-related disclaimer: Typically, I don't buy the products sold in these machines because they're not the eco-friendly ones. The one here was no exception. But, due to circumstances too crazy to detail here, my detergent was locked in a storage unit I'd forgotten the key to, and this wasn't a job I could postpone until another day. I debated about buying a new container of detergent at the nearby Whole Foods for the purposes of this wash, but have to live in spaces too unstable and on a budget too small to make it wise to have an extra one sitting around.)
Wondering about those aforementioned other negative experiences at this laundromat? In 2021 and/or 2022, my Discover Card was declined by the payment processing device on a washing machine, despite there being no problem with the card, which I'd used successfully elsewhere on the same night, and an image of it as an accepted payment method being displayed on the machine. I think I overcame this by using another machine and paying with a debit card.
After I paid for the wash with my debit card, I found that the dryer would allow me to use the card to add increments of time no greater than two minutes to its cycle. When my efforts to find an employee on duty failed, I was forced to stand beside the machine and try every button-pressing maneuver I could think of to get it to allow me to add reasonable amounts of drying time. To no avail.
Another machine, which incorrectly forms the plural of the dollar bill denominations, appears to dispense debit cards specific to this laundromat. While I flagged it for its incorrect use of apostrophes in the second photo in this review, taken on 2019/04/30, I can't attest to whether it's operational, or, like the laundry supply dispenser, seemingly only mounted on a wall to perpetuate the illusion that this business is able to serve customers.
If your time is valuable, seek another laundromat. read more