How to Do Your Laundry in College

When you start college, your mother won’t be there to do your laundry for you. Therefore, you need to learn how to do your laundry all by yourself. This set of instructions will help any college student learn the basics to getting their own laundry done.  The five steps we have included in this college laundry guide include preparing for a laundry load, sorting clothes, washing clothes, drying clothes, and folding clothes.  A normal load of laundry takes approximately 90 minutes.  By following these five simple steps, you'll have your pungent, pizza-stained clothes all cleaned up in no time!  The faster this laundry gets done, the faster you can get back to procrastination of that homework.  So get those dirty clothes together and let's do this!

Step 1: Prepare for Laundry

Since you've never done laundry before, some proper preparation needs to be done before simply throwing those clothes in the washer.  You need to get the necessary laundry materials collected and locate your laundry room.

Before considering doing your laundry, you need to make sure you have some of the necessary items for the task.

Necessary laundry materials include:
dirty laundry
quarters or a student ID card (we know you are broke, but laundry isn't always free)
laundry detergent
stain stick (for the pizza stains)
dryer sheets
drying rack (or steal a few chairs if you have any delicates)
iron and ironing board (if necessary)

Once you have collected a few of the necessary items (some of these items are displayed in Figure 1 above) you will need to locate the laundry room.

Finding the laundry room
To locate the laundry room, you can ask another person on your dorm or apartment floor or you could just start searching for the nearest dark, musty basement room (as shown in Figure 2 above).  Either way, when you get to the laundry room, make sure that some empty washers are available before you start the next steps.  Another piece of information which you may need to find out is how to pay for your laundry.  Most machines use quarters (up to $1.50 per machine), but modern laundry facilities may use a card scanner that you swipe your student ID card through as money is taken from your student account.  Most likely a sign should be posted with payment procedures.

After figuring out where the laundry room is, it's time to head down with your clothes to make Mom proud and start the sorting step.

Comments

[ilpug]

Here's a tip: If you find that whatever detergent or soap you use doesn't cut the funk, add about two tablespoons of baking soda to the soap. Cuts all the odors. It's also super cheap.

[juicylucys]

We appreciate the feedback!

Thanks for the great advice on keeping clothes fresh!

[Phil B]

This will also be helpful for anyone who lives alone. That could include never-married, divorced, widowed, and those whose wife is traveling. College was more than 40 years ago for me. My clothing at the time was pretty simple and most things could be washed without much regard for temperature settings, etc. One big error that cost me was when I poured liquid bleach into a machine so that it came into contact with a pair of trousers rather than with the water in the machine. (There was no separate bleach reservoir on that machine.) That mistake left a "burn" mark on those trousers, and I had to discard them.

You could do another Instructable on ironing freshly washed clothes. I got to where I could iron a short-sleeve shirt in less than four minutes.

Your mention of avoiding moldy smelling clothes, etc. is important for several reasons. I know a woman who said she always found a way to sniff her date's shirt early in the date. If it did not smell fresh and clean, she knew he was not a "keeper."