Superstion

[Tom Ala.]

In my market (cenral Alabama) my stores will be dead on New Years day because of a superstion "If you wash on New Years day you will wash your family away" I can't even get my attendants to work with out hard fealings. I was wondering how previlent this idea is?
Tom

[DuboisLaundry]

I know of a few families that would benefit from this superstion coming true!

[pete f]

Funny you bring this up. I was going to post something about this.
First off, this is not a racist comment. We talk about Hispanic all the time, this deals with the People of color comunuity. There is some sort of superstition to make sure everything is clean in the house before Jan 1. I had no idea, but confirmed this with my attendent. My laundrymat in a concensus area of 98% African American population was busting at the seams the last couple days. I mean people standing in line for washers, every machine turning from 6 am till after midnite. I was told there will be no business on Sunday ( Jan 1) and I expect next week to be slow. this is a custom I learned of at least in some parts of Florida. I had never heard of this before.
As for washing New Years day, I have not heard that yet, but .if the wash has to be done before the 1st, the it sort of makes sense...

happy NY
Pete and Anne

[William]

Pete, it is the same here in SC. The mat was full for the past few days, and well into the night last night! New Year's Eve is the single busiest day of the year for me.

[Quartermaster]

This is a new one to me. I've never even heard of anything similar to this, but then we are located in an area that is 99+% white, middle income. (Not being racist, just commenting)

For the 20+ years that I've had this location (unattended) I was always closed on Christmas & New Years and defended that decision by thinking 'I need a holiday also to spend time with family & friends'. This year, with the Holidays falling on Sunday, and we didn't have any conflicting plans, I decided to be open regular hours. Christmas day was a bit slower than a regular Sunday, we'll see what New Years Day brings. New Years Eve we closed @ 4 pm, the sales were about the same as an average day, a little less than an average Saturday.

[Tom Ala.]

This superstion may have originated with the blacks but 95% of the whites in this area observe it also. The mexicans don't care.
Tom

[SuperMat]

My business week runs fromSun.to Sat. I was closed Christmas (the only day of the year I do so). In the six day week that insued, the mat had it's best week ever. New year's Eve. was jammed. Never heard about the New year's day thing but the "everything clean by the new year" runs hard and true around here. In both African American and Hispanic populations.

[SmartCard]

My mat rocked since Christmas! We were open as usual on New Years (24/7) still had a great day. Today, Monday looks like it will be outstanding, sort of like a regular Sunday. 99% of customer base is African American. I should point out that the first 2 weeks of december were awful.