<p>Do most kids do their own laundry, or are the laundry services more popular?
First child off to BS - Exeter.</p>
<p>typically, most guys use the laundry service and most girls do their own laundry...not stereotyping but just an observation</p>
<p>That's probably the case everywhere because guys don't care what everything looks like and girls will have a heart attack if somehting goes wrong when someone else does their landry...</p>
<p>and E&R(the company that does laundry for hotchkiss, and i know exeter and many schools) totally suck...lose everyone's stuff and always mix people's stuff...........but i still use it coz it saves time.</p>
<p>haha bearcats, that's definitely the reason the girls do their own then. I'd probably do it myself, too..</p>
<p>I understand that this is of no help (other than bumping this about 1 thread up...maybe), but when I was in college the laundry service was prepaid with tuition for the men. It wasn't available for the women...supposedly because they have so many fine washables. We had laundry bags and we'd drop the bags down the chute on Thursday night and could pick the clothes up on Tuesday morning, all folded and bundled in brown wrapping paper. One person could grab about 4-5 bundles from the laundry and take them back to the dorm for friends. The problem was that I had to give up my favorite clothes from the past weekend for the next weekend. So, being clever, I went to a nearby dorm (with a different laundry schedule) on Sunday night, put my laundry into their chute and got my clothes back on Thursday. That dorm had a kid who was really small, about 15 years old, who lived there. On more than one occasion I would bring my bag over and he'd be stuck between floors inside the laundry chute. Getting him out meant going to the main floor and pulling out sacks of laundry until he got down to the floor below where he was dropped. But going to the main floor chute meant certain exposure...at my rival dorm...and forever being blacklisted from using the Sunday night laundry drop there. I just dropped my bag -- as gently as I could -- and called down my condolences, "Sorry, kid!" before heading back to my dorm feeling glad that I'd have my favorite jeans and "lucky" shirt for the coming weekend. Going to the laundry building and getting that 18"-24" tall brown papered bundle of clean, pressed and folded clothes was like Christmas. Some of the best money my parents spent.</p>
<p>we used e and r for exeter until my son graduated in june 06. my recommendation is to do it, because they will iron the shirts. they need to wear a shirt and tie six days a week.</p>
<p>I'd recommend it, too, especially if you're an athlete. Some girls who have E&R just don't send their sweaters and nice blouses. I also heard they dry clean unnecessarily and charge you for it. I do my own laundry (E&R costs too much) and it is usually hard to get it done because on weekends when you actually have time to do laundry, everyone else is doing laundry, too and there are only 2-3 washing machines per dorm (depending on size). But-- I know that my clothes wont shrink excessively or mixed up with somebody else.</p>
<p>I use both at Andover. E and R is a little unreliable and besides they take four days to get back to you. Some weeks you just don't feel like digging up the quarters though.</p>
<p>My son used the laundry service at his school. At first he didn't, but the dryers in the dorm took forever and the whole thing was inconvenient. The laundry service worked well and nothing ever got lost. It was especially good for the shirts (dress shirts). My son is VERY picky about his laundry, so this is a high recommendation. At his first bs (the one he got kicked out of) he managed to find a way to use the better washers/dryers in the PE building as well as the faculty machines, until he got caught. The washers/dryers for the kids at that school were truly disgusting. Kids left wet clothes in the washers for DAYS.</p>
<p>my son does his own laundry (no dress shirt and tie requirement) and its worked out fine. He comes home every few weeks tho and generally brings a weeks worth of laundry with him. :-)</p>
<p>One of my friends reports that the laundry room became something of a social center for some girls and that in spite of having signed up ($700) for the laundry service, she never used it.</p>
<p>My daughter uses the laundry service, and hand washes items she doesn't trust them with. Her homework and music practice load is so overwhelming, she would never have time to do laundry on a regular basis. It's become routine for her, and her clothes are neat and folded when she gets them back. One trick I learned from a guy who had been in the Army...buy two of the mesh "delicates" bags with zippers and use those to collect socks (one for whites and on for colors). The service washes the socks right in the bag, and she never loses any that way.</p>
<p>Our son used the laundry service at Loomis last year, but ended up doing a lot of his own (because he likes the smell of fabric softener sheets rather than the sort of burnt smell that the commercial laundry services have.) It was convenient in the beginning and he continued to send his dress shirts and slacks (no ironing for him!) that he wore for the Tues/Thurs sit downs and varsity game days. </p>
<p>This year in college he's doing all his own, but looking for a laundry within walking distance to do the shirts again.</p>
<p>ah
my school offered to pay for laundry service for me:)
i think its e and r and according to what everyone is saying:
i shouldnt give my nice clothes to the e&r?
and i should just hand wash myself?</p>
<p>the linen service (i know exeter has it)... can you trust them w/ your linens? and for the service ($135), they wash all sheets, towels, blankets, and pillowcases every week? do you get those back on time? has anyone heard of them damaging linens?</p>
<p>I suggested and offered my D the laundry service. She declined and actually enjoys doing her own laundry. Make sure to save your quarters, they come in handy when doing your own laundry</p>
<p>Mine has been doing her own at her school. They use value cards (vending machine issued and recharged), so no scrounging for quarters. Five dollar bills are at a premium though, but the school seems to understand and keeps plenty on hand when students come asking for cash from their accounts.</p>
<p>Actually, since she has been home on break, she has been doing her own laundry here too, which is a nice surprise.</p>
<p>D did her own laundry although the service was included in her fees. There was a w & d in her dorm to use free of charge. Only a dozen girls in the dorm, so there was rarely a prob</p>
<p>@ goaliedad: One day last fall, when it dawned on my S that he would have to be able to do his laundry, he started doing it here. We never even asked him to do it. At first there was some teaching, but then he just started changing out loads whenever he walked past the laundry room. That's been a mixed blessing, though. Lots of color catastrophes and fine washable fatalities. My ballpark estimate is that he's destroyed about $300 in shirts. There's no line item for that in the PFS. I guess that cuts against us anyway, on the basis that if he's at BS, he can't ruin my wife's clothes anymore. Then again, he's forbidden from washing anything of hers. She calls it her stop-loss policy. But, yeah, it's very cool when kids demonstrate flourishes of independence that inure to the benefit of the parental units. Of course our insurance agent issued an exclusion to our homeowner's policy should he go so far as to try ironing anything.</p>
<p>@ d'yer: I guess I'm lucky to have a D who goes to a very casual school, so there aren't nice shirts/blouses/skirts to ruin. Hard to make a mess of jeans and hoodies. She learned to separates colors from whites watching me do it for years. BTW, I'm also the cook.</p>
<p>Of course, she hasn't touched the iron yet.</p>