Laundry day in Juneau

Guest contributor
3 hours ago
3 min read

By Melissa Allen

The price-gouging at laundromats across CBJ has got to end.

I live on a boat, and I don’t have a washer-dryer unit. Every Sunday, I gather up dirty clothes piling in the corner into a basket and drive to Foodland, where I buy a sugary drink and get $20 cash back at the register. With my drink tucked in my armpit and laundry basket in my arms, I head into the Harbor Wash Board to do my laundry.

There is a small pleasure in doing this one household chore out of the house and around other people. Sometimes there’s just a few other loners scattered across the room, scrolling on smartphones while clothes spin rhythmically in the dryers. Often, there are moms and dads folding big piles of clothes while kids squeal and chase each other with laundry carts. One time I came in and there was a guy playing ukulele while he waited for his clothes to dry. Every time I go in, I secretly hope he’s there too, strumming away.

First thing I do upon entering the laundromat is jam my newly-acquired $20 bill in the quarter dispenser in the back of the room and watch the quarters spill out. There is an ATM right next to the quarter dispenser, but nine times out of 10 it is out of service. Sometimes the quarter dispenser is out of service too, and then you have to run around town in search of alternative ways to procure $20 worth of quarters. Spoiler alert – there really aren’t any.

I find that the washing machines — especially the cheaper white ones that cost $3 per load — don’t clean very well at all, so I wash two loads in separate washers at the same time if there are enough open washers available. The nicer chrome machines in the middle cost $4.50 per load and they do a better job. I usually go for those ones for the best possible clean if they’re available. Almost half of the washing machines are out of order, so sometimes you get what you get.

The dryers are nicer than the washers and work decently. Except for the one time they were all broken on the same day. Luckily, a lady pulling her wet clothes out of one of the dryers noticed me walking in with my basket and told me so before I could load up a washer. Another guy confirmed. I ended up driving to Squire's Laundry and Showers in Auke Bay that day. I had hoped that laundromat would have been nicer than the one downtown, maybe with machines that took credit cards instead of just quarters, for example. But it had the same quality machines and the same eerie, fluorescent aesthetic. To my disappointment, the washing machines are actually more expensive by $0.50. The laundromat next to Super Bear, the Wash Dash or Button Mash, is temporarily closed and I never used their services. They’re also pretty big. I throw all my clothes into a single load. They cost $.25 per two minutes.

Since I live on a boat, I need my clothes to come out bone-dry, otherwise the moisture will stick around in my clothes and funkify the fabric. I usually do about 50 minutes of spin time on high heat. That’s $6.25 to dry a single load of clothes.

If I want adequately cleaned and dried clothes serviced at my local laundromat, I spend about $15 a week. Even if I were to cut down to a single wash load in the cheapest washer, I’d still spend about $10 on laundry day.

My fellow laundromat comrades go there for the same reasons I do. They don’t have any other access to a laundry unit, and they want to feel clean in their own clothes, so they must frequent their extremely expensive yet poorly serviced neighborhood laundromat to complete this necessary chore.

I’m just one woman doing laundry for only myself. What is the financial burden of doing laundry at a laundromat in this town for a family of four? Forty dollars a week or more? The price for the level of service these machines provide is insulting.

How could a locally owned business in good conscience price its subpar services so high to a customer base made up mostly of their less-advantaged neighbors?

Everyone in Juneau deserves to feel comfortable and clean in their clothes at an affordable rate. The cost to do laundry in this town is completely disrespectful to the people who need to use these machines.

Laundromats and the governing bodies that regulate them: do better by your people.

• Melissa Allen is a Juneau resident who works in the public sector and lives in the downtown harbors.