Clothes Left in the Laundromat

[BWJR]

Just curious, How many pounds of clothes do you think customers leave in your washers and dryers each week. I'll bet I have between 50 - 100 lbs every two weeks. I would like to hold them for customers longer than two weeks, but I don't have the space. I don't understand how customers don't miss their clothes. I know if all my socks and underware vanished from my top drawer one day and I did my laundry at the local mat, I would take a trip the same day to ask if I left it there. I mean where do they think all this stuff goes. Do they just go out and buy more on credit or what. It's amazing that people who can't afford to buy their own washer and dryer can afford to buy new replacement clothes at the rate that they leave them behind. Unless of course the clothes that are left in my laundry are from people who were kidnapped and at that point they either don't care or don't need their clothes any more. It's a real mind-bender!

BWJR

[Andy]

Customers may not be able to afford new clothes but they do buy and wear them. I am certain most of my customers spend more on clothes than I do. In fact I have a few pair of great jeans that someone left that are now part of my wardrobe.

[Kitty]

Thats alot of laundry. We had the room so keeping the clothes more than 1 month would not have been unusual. We would have people come several weeks after the fact, as they were just starting to miss some items. We would bag the items and pile them in a corner. Always drying what was wet

[Duane]

Back in April....

Gentleman came in with a laundry basket (upright kind with a lid that you usually put in the bathroom to collect dirty clothes), soap, dryer sheets, softner, bleach and a stain stick. Put the clothes in three Neptune washers, started them and left.

Never came back. Everything was just sitting there including his laundry card with $8 on it. We dried and folded everything and put it back in his basket. Still sitting in our back room.

I figure one of the three reasons below is why he never returned.

1. Got hit buy a bus and was killed.

2. Won the lottery and really doesn't care.

3. Arrested and put in jail.


Reasons 1 & 2 gives me the option of getting rid of the clothes. Reason 3 makes me want to keep them for when he gets out since I don't know why he would have been jailed in the first place.

[pete f]

Ahh,, the question I have pondered many times. I understand forgetting a load while you are there, but surely the next day when you have no jeans to put on something must come accross your mind. Less than 1% of the people ever call me about the clothes they left. I get 4 times as many calls about clothes that are STOLEN out of a washer/dryer....
I leave stuff in the machine for 1 day, take it out the next and put it all on the bulkhead behind it for another day, then dry it or if from a dryer I put it in a bag and store it for about 2 weeks, then toss it.

[mike]

Andy,

Just be sure that you don't wear those jeans at the store !

Because if the customer comes in one day, and says,
"hey, I have a pair just like that"........

And for goodness sakes, when he says that, DON'T blush or stammer, like I do !