Laundromat

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coin-operated laundromat in Germany.
A laundromat in California that runs on solar energy.
Laundry invoice for Klaus Mann in Paris, 1938

A laundromat is a commercial enterprise that provides its customers with the premises and the machines for washing , spinning , drying and, in some cases, straightening clothes . Most laundromats are equipped with pay machines for self-service , which is why these are also called coin laundries .

history

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
No literature or individual references given, much seems to have been written from my own perspective.

In the 1920s, electric drum washing machines became popular, replacing the hand washing that had been common up until then to a large extent - except for wool and fast delicates. At that time, however, the purchase of such a machine was still unaffordable for the majority of households. Thus was opened on 18 April 1934, the first public laundromat, probably in Fort Worth in the US state of Texas (other sources call Chicago ). Laundromats enjoyed great popularity worldwide in the decades that followed.

With household washing machines becoming more and more affordable, laundromats are being pushed out of the market in their original form. According to surveys by the Federal Statistical Office in 2004, 94% of all German households have an electric washing machine. In contrast, at the beginning of the 1960s, only around 27% of households in the former federal territory had a spin dryer; a washing machine with a spin function only had 9% at the time.

In laundromats, there is generally no service, the customer fills and starts the washing machine himself. When the laundromat is used, a service contract is concluded between the user (customer) and the company .

While laundromats contributed to improving the supply situation in 1960, this economic sector has been changing since the 1990s at the latest. Many laundromats have since switched to an "all-round service". Unlike in the past, laundromats are now more and more used as “laundry acceptance centers” similar to dry cleaning . The laundry can be picked up again by the customer ready for use. Since the laundry items are subjected to a clean wash and no chemical cleaning, the laundromats can usually offer their services at significantly lower prices than dry cleaning. In addition, it can be observed that tailoring alterations are increasingly being included in the service.

In the industrialized nations , the population has decreased again in the last few decades, since most households here now have their own washing machines. Even so, you can still find laundromats in every major city today. Users of the facilities are people who do not have their own machine, whose washing machine is defective or too small for certain textiles or who want to wash large quantities of laundry in a short time.

Due to the infrequent use of a washing machine, shared use of a washing machine by several residents of a house is becoming increasingly interesting. In residential projects, private washing machines are often replaced by shared machines over time. This is both economically and ecologically beneficial. But even in conventional residential buildings with many small residential units (e.g. apartment buildings or student residences ) where there is no space for their own washing machine inside the apartment, washing machines or tumble dryers with coin insertion are often made available to residents in a laundry room. The providers and owners of these machines are often property managers or caretakers , and there are also commercial providers who specialize in providing such machines in residential complexes.

While the number of traditional laundromats is declining, or there is only sufficient demand in large cities, another trend is emerging. The so-called Internet laundromats or online laundry service providers are becoming increasingly popular. The increasing number of single households as well as the strong population growth in cities like Frankfurt, Hamburg or Munich could play a role here. With these online laundry services, laundry cleaning can be commissioned via the Internet. The offers differ in how the laundry is picked up and delivered. For example, the laundry can be sent by post, the clean laundry is then returned as a parcel. In contrast, other offers provide for the laundry to be picked up from home, to be washed, laid or even ironed, and to have it delivered again after three working days. These services are emerging in the so-called on-demand economy , where specialized online providers, for example, deliver food on demand, clean the apartment and laundry, or offer a transport service.

In addition, the laundromat has achieved cult status in some cases . The laundromat, for example, is a popular object in advertising , especially for clothing, was the backdrop in the film " My wonderful laundrette " and served the WDR until 2007 and from 2009 the station einsfestival as a studio for the television program " NightWash ".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 65th Anniversary of world's first laundromat (English) ( Memento from March 18, 2006 in the web archive archive.today ), accessed on April 17, 2009
  2. ↑ Florentine Dame: Industry portrait: company laundromat. derwesten.de, October 21, 2011, accessed on March 30, 2016 .
  3. ↑ a b Michael Gassmann: This is how the dirty laundry Amazon works. welt.de/, December 3, 2015, accessed on March 30, 2016 .
  4. ↑ sueddeutsche.de: Almost 40 percent single households in Germany. May 28, 2014, accessed March 30, 2016 .
  5. ↑ faz.net: Boom cities Frankfurt and Munich are growing faster than Berlin. faz.net, August 13, 2015, accessed March 30, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Britta Beeger: One Uber for everything - services via the Internet. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 21, 2015, accessed on March 30, 2016 .

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