Wednesday is Laundry Day

Welcome to the wonderful world of communal laundry...just another way to complicate your life as an already bewildered Swiss house wife.

 

"Whaaaaat? Noooo!" was my response when I arrived in Switzerland and Steve explained that we don't have our own washing machine or washing line in our apartment. Instead, we have a communal washing machine and line in our communal laundry, a mere 4 flights of stairs below our apartment, which we share with the 9 other apartments in our block. 

 

During Steve's explanation of how to approach the communal laundry situation, he stressed that it's important to remember that one does not simply wander in to the laundry room in their free time and throw a load of washing on, any time, on any day. Instead at the beginning of the year one has to choose either one afternoon or morning a week that they will dedicate, for the rest of their life, to do laundry. 

 

After much strategizing Steve and I decided that Wednesday afternoons for the remainder of our stay in Switzerland will be LAUNDRY DAY...and we will fight to the death anyone who attempts to come between us and our Wednesday laundry commitments.

This sudden commitment left me with increased anxiety and many unanswered questions such as what if we come home from holiday on a Thursday and have loads of washing to do, do I have to wait a whole week to do it and what if I get a job that doesn't understand the importance of my Wednesday afternoon washing endeavours ;-) The answers to these questions still remain a mystery.

   

If perhaps you're wondering why there's a cross through Sunday on the washing schedule below (I did too)...remember Sunday is the day of rest...which means no washing!!!

 

 

The dreaded Washing Schedule

 

 

After our washing is finished stewing for an hour in the communal washing machine, which has also stewed 20 other peoples washing in the past week, we then hang it up on the communal washing line. Yes, the washing line in the communal laundry that every person in our whole apartment building has access to 24 hours a day. We just hang it up there...and go about our daily duties and when we come back an hour or even a day later, it's still there...in the exact spot that we left it. 

 

I must admit my Proudly South African heritage made me quite sceptical of this system when I first arrived here, and I would only hang our really old clothes in the laundry in case someone saw something they liked and pinched it. Fortunately over the past 6 weeks I have grown more trusting and now even hang Steve's brand name clothing down there over night. Oh no, not mine...I'm not ready to leave mine down there just yet.

 

Admittedly I do count how many items I leave on the line and then ensure that I collect the same amount of items the following day. But I account that more to being organized rather than paranoid. Unfortunately I really have a bad memory, 6 weeks of unemployment will do that to you, and I usually forget how many items I have left down there and get into a panic when I go to collect my dry laundry and I cant remember if there was 16 or 19 things left down there.  

Our Laundry Room- Instilling trust in me, one day at a time.

 

 

Finally I must admit, being the prude I am, I have not yet mustered up the courage to drape my underwear in all its glory across the communal laundry line. But fortunately or unfortunately, I am one of the few in my apartment block who are so reserved, so often my Wednesday afternoons are spent bobbing and weaving between my fellow residents granny panties and tighty whiteys to find the perfect spot on the line for Steve's name brand clothes.