Laundry Day
Well, it was yesterday actually. No time for much of anything else on laundry day. Actually it was extra laundry day. I’ve only been able to do laundry on the weekends lately, because the MG has been taking the garden hose to the other house to water cement with during the week. What does the garden hose have to do with the laundry? — you might well ask. Too much, at the moment. Here’s a few thoughts on getting the clothes washed in Mexico.
Depending on the age of your house, laundry arrangements in Mexico may be somewhat improvisational, so it was lucky for me that the MG knows all about things like appliances and drains and so forth, because the only thing that I ever knew about them was putting enough quarters in the slots, and operating the change machine, and how they get all bent out of shape if they see you using Rit dye in their machines.
Assuming you want to do the laundry at home, you’ll want to make sure that any prospective dwelling has a washer hookup, or at least the potential for one.
The newer houses I’ve seen have dedicated laundry areas, either in back of the house or in a kind of enclosed service area along the side where the kitchen door is. I’ve yet to meet anyone who uses a clothes dryer, although they can be found in stores. The price of electricity is probably the reason for this. Clotheslines are located in patios or on rooftops. Here in rural Sonora, lots of people just hang their wet clothes over a fence.
Oftentimes in Mexico, the washing machine will be situated outside the house somewhere, especially in the warmer areas. (Actually it’s pretty common in Tucson, too.) But unlike in Tucson (that I know of anyway), in Mexico you can buy waterproof covers that fit over the washer to protect it from the elements. I always assumed these were made by extra-industrious housewives when I saw them, but the MG maintains that they are ready-made.
In older or more humble housing, arrangements vary. Our casita in Yucatan had a hookup area in an alcove in the patio, i.e., incoming water, but it lacked a drain. The MG, aka Mr. Fabulous Fixit, solved this by buying a length of clear plastic tubing at the hardware store and running it around the patio wall where it could spew forth into the street. We confined ourselves to washing at night while living in that place. The clothesline was conveniently located right next to the washer.
In our next place, there was space in the bathroom to put the washer, which was good since we could use the shower drain by stuffing a short length of plastic hose down it. It usually would stay put; when it didn’t we got an unscheduled floor-washing. The downside of that location was there was no threaded faucet for the incoming water; but fortunately the patio faucet was in reach of a garden hose. We hung the clothes out to dry on the roof.
Our present rental also has space in the bathroom for the washer, which even has a drainpipe of its very own. It’s hooked up to the hot water line (which we rarely use due to expense), but again, has no cold water, so we have to attach the trusty garden hose to the kitchen sink (which has a patio-type faucet) some 40 feet distant. The clothesline is in a patio behind the building which is not accessible from the house, you have to go up an alley to get back there, and through a padlocked door.
In our real house, which we’re presently fixing up, we’re going to have cold water, hot water (just in case), a dedicated drain, and no more stinking garden hoses! Mr. Fixit is even threatening to get a dryer, which I think is too expensive. Sure would be nice on some days, though….