Airing my Dirty Laundry....

Oh blog sweet blog. I missed you so. I wonder if phychiatrists would recommend blogs as Anger Management tools. It certainly works for me. Today, I would really like to make a sign that says "stay out of my fucking laundry room" and post it on the door.

Now, let me say, my laundry room is far from fancy, and it is far from clean. it is in the basement, under the kitchen and the basement stairs. It is all cement except for brick walls from about 3/4 up to the ceiling (the house foundation.) It isn't painted. The ceilings are open beams, with old cobwebs and ceramic knob wiring. The sink is ancient, it hangs on the wall. I do have a new washer and a 6 year old dryer, the newer hot water heater, then a nice counter top that they built for me to fold clothes on. There are four clothes sorters with 3 bags each, and two garment racks to hang clothes on when they are out of the dryer or air drying. I have a big braided rug on the floor and I sweep up the floor with a bristle broom every month or so, shake out the rug.... you get the picture. An overflowing garbage for lint from the lint trap. It's your basic place to do laundry. However, I am always behind. It is beyond me how one couple can wear so many clothes. How can we fill two hampers in one week, not including sheets, rugs, towels, blankets.... It's insanity. Every weekend I have at least six loads (and I mean full loads) usually more like 7-10 loads of laundry to do. And if I don't do laundry one week, it easily becomes 14-18 loads by the next weekend. SO unless for some reason We are gone for the weekend, I average 8 loads of laundry a week. I usually do a load on Friday, like jeans so we have something to wear for the weekend, and then I do all the loads on Sunday. Sunday is the "unwritten" cleaning day for me, but that is another post altogether.

I hate hate hate laundry. When I first moved here, I lovedl laundry. I took a special sort of pride in perfectly matched socks and fluffy folded towels. I folded my underwear. I did ALL the laundry and put ALL the clothes away myself. How stupid. Evan used to wash clothes but it was so unorganized it drove me nuts. He never sorted clothes. He put everything he wore that day into the washer, and then into the dryer, and then he took out what he wanted and left everything else in the dryer, door hanging open, pant leg hanging out, clean sock on the floor. When he took off clothes, he slid out of them like snake skin and left them in a pile. I still have to shake his jeans out when I wash them, from each pair falls 2 scrunched up dirty socks and a pair of boxers. Guaranteed. And the occasional quarter, bic lighter, and guitar pick. I can not TELL you how many times he has washed a bic lighter and then I find it between the washer and dryer cycle. He would fold towels for me and each towel would be folded a different direction and when he stacked them precariously, as soon as you tried to transport the stack upstairs, it would fall over into a heap. It drove me C-R-A-Z-Y.

I took over laundry. I insisted that it be sorted by me. I hated how he couldn't put a shirt on a hanger and have it stay there longer than the 10 seconds it took to hang it on the garment rack. Then would I would attempt to carry laundry upstairs, all the shoulders would pop off the hangers and they would slide to the floor. I can not begin to tell you how annoying I found this. So I started doing all the laundry. Matching all the socks, folding everything, and putting everything away. All I asked was that he carry the dirty clothes downstairs for me each week. Well, that got old fast. Now I have been begging Evan to beome more involved in laundry, We fought endlessly about the "open dryer." I was sure that leaving the door open and clean clothes hanging out of it, was an evil, dirty thing to do. Not only were clothes wrinkled, but they would get CONTAMINATED with basement air! Mice could get in! It was just WRONG! I finally got to the point where the towels did not need to be refolded and the shirts were staying on the hangers. I have to say that on an average, Evan does 2 out of 10 loads of laundry. But he NEVER EVER EVER puts laundry away. And neither do I. So basically, every morning we have to go to the basement to get dressed. That's where out clothes are. Why do we even have closets and dressers? Clothes baskets are not to carry dirty and clean clothes to and from the basement, they are what our socks and underwear are stored in until we need to wear them. Looking for something? Dig through one of those 5 clothes baskets stacked in the corner.

It's TERRIBLE! I HATE it! But I can't handle it alone. Not anymore. It's too much.

So this sets up to the fact that the clothes are all over the basement. Folded and hung and ready to be worn. Usually the clean underwear are in a swirl on top of the dryer. Sometimes they make it to the dresser, but only occasionally. And only if there is an empty clothes basket (yeah right!)

So last week, the contractor was pulling old old wiring out of the basement ceilings and properly running the new wiring through the floor joists. This took alot of pounding and drilling, and we were just notified of what was happening when I went down to see what was up. I didn't mind much, they were making a hellacious mess of wood shavings and black flecks that look like mouse poop but were actually pieces of the casing around the old wires, falling from the ceiling. The basement floor was so full that I couldn't even walk across it, but they swept it up later that week when they finished (at least for the week.)

Now when I went downstairs to get clothes to wear, I noticed that there is sawdust ALL OVER OUR CLEAN CLOTHES in the laundry room. Embedded into my good sweaters and in piles on top of sheets and towels. Also all inside the laundry sorters and on top of the dirty clothes all sorted and ready to be washed. All over the floor, all over the rug, all over the washer and dryer. EVERYWHERE. And it is so embedded into my sweaters that a lint brush and a sweater shaver won't get it out. I have to hand pick it off and then rewash everything so that the dust and the black crap comes off. I had to empty every laundry bag and shake it, shake the rug, sweep it all up. ARGH!!!! So now instead of the 10 loads of laundry that I had to do today, I have like 14, as I rewash all the stuff that got full of sawdust. And did I mention that last week they suddenly took to washing their paint brushes and stain brushes out in the sink down there? less than 6 inches from our good clothes hanging up on the garment rack? When I went to put on a bra last week the left side of it was ORANGE where they had gotten paint all over it? All I can say is thank the fucking lord it was an old Wal-Mart Bra and not a new $50 Victoria's Secret Bra. I would have gone ape shit.

Partially my fault. I guess who leaves clean clothes in their laundry room? But on the side of common sense, I have to say that no matter WHERE I was drilling, if there were stacks and hangers of clean clothes, expensive sweaters and bras around, I would NOT be drilling on top of them. I would either lie down a sheet of plastic or cardboard, or notify the owner of what I wanted to do, and give them a day to get the room cleaned up and prepared for the work.

Am I overreacting? Please let me know before I go post a mean ass sign and start padlocking my laundry room.