Shout it out: 10 things I hate about laundry

By Kris

1. Every dirty sock, shirt and pair of pants lands in the hamper inside-out.
2. No matter how careful I am, I cannot bleach a load of whites without ruining some other article of clothing within 100 feet of the washing machine.
3. Yet, I need bleach.
4. Men's apparel advertised as "wrinkle-free" is not. It's marketing fraud, and I'm considering initiating a class-action lawsuit.
5. Laundry is the only chore that I ask my husband not to do, based on his alleged track record of overpacking the washer, mixing darks and whites, and mistreating my bras. Yet, strangely, it's the one chore he does whenever I'm not looking.
6. My washing machine drains into a large sink that sits beside it. If anything gets into that sink to clog the drain, my basement floods. I've flooded my basement three times, so far. I now have laundry-related OCD, causing me to go back and make sure the sink's empty at least 20 times a load.
7. With a leaky toilet and a sometimes leaky 3-year-old, I have to deal with at least a few urine-reeking loads every week, requiring nose plugs and vinegar in the rinse water.
8. I am incapable of remembering to add vinegar to the rinse water.
9. Our clothes have so many stains on them that I may as well dip them into a vat of Shout® before tossing them into the washer. Can I just wash them in Shout?
10. Every time I "finish" the laundry, there's more.

What do you hate about laundry?

Comments

[Kimmie]

I really don't mind doing laundry except that my sweetie-pie always has a handful of Kleenex stuffed in his shirt pocket and always forgets to remove the tissues before dropping the shirt into the laundry basket. I suppose I should be grateful that he puts the dirty clothes in the laundry basket rather than leaving it on the floor.

[alan]

Hi all I am alan & I live in a house with 3 girls they all work & I don't so I have to to do all the house work including laundry dusting cooking ect, Iactualy enjoy it it all I fold & put their clothes away for them otherwise it would all end up on the floor again. OH I'm not gay !

[Jenny Freeman]

It absolutely NEVER ENDS!! Never! I cant seem to accept the fact that i have to do laundry every single day of my life (to keep up) Or devote an entire day to it once a week. I get so sick of it that i wont keep on top of it which just makes the whole vicious cycle worse..it makes me feel like a bad housewife and bad mom even (my kids gotta dig around for dirty clothes to wear!) I get so overwhelmed and feel constant pressure that laundry needs to be done.
I would give my right arm to have someone do my laundry for me.
laundry gives me no sense of accomplishment after i do it because it is NEVER all done..EVER..it just keeps piling.

Thanks for letting me vent..I HATE LAUNDRY!

[Sara]

Growing up my mother always told me that every time you take your pants off turn them right side out and always check the pockets.If I didnt do this they didn't get washed.After a few times of getting up for school and not having any clean pants to put on I learned my lesson.Now that I'm grown and do my own laundry as well as my husbands I know all too well why my mama said check your own pockets.This must be impossible for men to grasp.My husband is always leaving things in his pockets.Everything from screws, lighters,markers,money you name it I've found it in our washer or dryer.So I'd tried the "do it or they won't get washed route." That didnt work either he just wore them dirty.So if anyone has any suggestions on how to make a man check his own pockets please let me know.

[Librarymom]

I hate laundry - I teach school all day, come home, fix dinner, work with homework with my five year old, get his in bed, and I crash.
I do all the laundry on Saturday, but lately, for $30.00 a week, I take it to the fluff and fold. I feel I can control that better then being chined all day to the laundry.

[Carol Marino]

What I hate is the way they generally think of me as their personal unpaid maid. Isn't that the definition of slave? No shit. So, after 20 years of this I'm taking off this January for 14 days in Spain and in March for a month in Puerto Rico. What's my oldest say? "I'm just worried about the housework." HAA!!!! Get me out of here!

[meredith]

Kleenex in the pockets.....My husband always leaves kleenex in the pockets of his clothes, no matter how many times that I've asked that he empty his pockets before throwing his wads of clothes in the laundry, there is always millions of chunks of wet kleenex crumbs all over everything....

[Christina]

I have to say two things on what I hate about laundry:

1)My children, who are clearly old enough to do it themselves, 15, 13, & 9, REFUSE to do laundry unless I am to the point of mass hysteria and threatening to send them to school naked the next day.

2)Putting away the laundry. I don't mind so much the folding, or even the washing and remembering to get to the dryer to change them. But the putting away...that never happens. We live out of laundry baskets until it's time to do it again...and then, the basket only gets emptied because I need it for more clothes.

[dozeymagz]

I don't mind laundry - took several years to work out a system to avoid an EU Washing Mountain. But I REALLY HATE folding! Loath it. Detest it. Try to avoid it. Unfortunately this means I have an EU Folding Mountain instead!!!

[Erin]

My boyfriend's pants have some weird pen vortex. I swear I check every single pocket on every single pair of pants and in every single shirt and still, EVERY SINGLE TIME I do the laundry I find a pen in the washer. We've exploded one papermate in the dryer. Thank god the pens he usually uses are the fancy ones that are more sturdy or we'd have to go get new jobs to afford the clothing bills.

[naomi]

I am happy to turn on the machine, or even do the occasional hand-washing. I delight in hanging the clothes on the line, especially nappies. But that is where the joy ends for me... Shameful, really!!!

[Thomas McCroskey]

My wife loves it when I do laundry. I score some serious points. I'm more ocd than she is about it too, and I actually kinda like it. This is real sad; last year we bought a fancy front loader, and I get some kicks using it like it's some new manly device. She freely admits that she hates it all, and can't remember to stay after it when it's cleaning day. I, on the other hand, keep it flowing. I HATE putting it away, though, and with two girls that are about the same size, I've intentionally not learned what belongs to who, so I've not seen the insides of their dressers in quite some time. I will, however, lovingly fold my dear spouse's bras and panties and place them carefully in the correct drawer. I DO NOT try them on!!!

[Kimberly]

Laundry is the very definiton of Entropy.

[Rayne Cedergreen]

My husband does the exact same thing, it drives me crazy. Why when I ask him not to touch the laundry must he be all over it but the cars have had 9 inches of dirt on them since 1999?!

[Barbara]

Folding.

I have the whole laundry process pretty optimized but it all comes to grinding halt when it needs to be folded and put away. I don't know why, I just hate it.

[Amanda]

I hate all of it! And now, with a little one, I am doing it daily. When it was just me and my husband I used to be able to get away with NOT doing laundry until said husbadn would say he was running out of something. He is "allowed" to do his own laundry, he is not to touch mine. AND if he does do wash that involves my clothes he has raised his right hand and promised to read the label as to whether or not it can be dried.

[Sneadwoman]

I have such an issue with laundry and my hubster. He is the poster child for anal retentive behavior. If I don't fold his undies, shirts and T-shirt just so, then it's freak out time. Geesh!

[Andrea]

It never, ever ends. You can avoid dishes by eating out, some cleaning by staying away from home or just not looking, but you always need clean clothes (and with my little potty-trainer, clean sheets).

[rosemary grace]

This is one reason I like NOT having laundry equipment in my apartment. The few months we lived in a place with a washer-dryer stack in it, laundry was a neverending ongoing task all week. Always some stage needed doing. Now I can confine it to one marathon once a week. Though it doesn't always get folded or put away, at least it's clean and DONE.

[Alice H]

The only thing I hate about laundry is having to put it up when it's done. Otherwise I love doing it.

I don't know if my husband pretends to not know how to do laundry or really doesn't know how to do it, but when I had knee surgery a few years ago he shrunk all my cashmere by washing it.

He also seems to not be able to peel hard-boiled eggs, or what implement you use to peel potatoes, though, so I don't know what's an act and what's not.

[Katie]

Eek, I don't hate laundry! I like the warm clean smelling clothes and folding them is like yoga to me. Now dish washing, I HATE that!

[LammyAnn]

I hate every aspect of laundry (except when it's as finished as laundry ever gets)....and the most dreaded is the SOCKS...They never match up---or one fades faster than the other one....it's tedious and I hate it..... although the whole tissue/crayon aspect runs a close second.

[andrea]

I also hate the fact that I forget to empty pockets before clothes get washed. I can't begin to count how many pennies, shredded tissues, rocks, and barbie shoes I have found in the bottom of the washing machine.

[andrea]

I hate the fact that some husbands *pretend* they don't know how to do laundry just so they can get out of it.

Think of it: one red sock in a load of whites - on hot - guarantees they'll never have to do laundry again! (Guys: don't get any ideas)