4 Week Old Laundry

4 Weeks without a washer creates quite the pile of laundry!

5 weeks ago, just before I was leaving for a 10 day stay in Wisconsin, we discovered a slow, steady leak coming from our washing machine. The machine still worked, but produced a river of water, streaming out from under the washer, around the legs of our pantry shelf, back behind our water heater, out into the kitchen floor. And it just wasn't working soaking it up with towels - the pile of clothing decreased slightly but the pile of soaking wet towels grew. It was time to get a new one!

After negotiations with our landlord and searching Craigslist and scratch and dent stores, we found a nice, fairly new stacked washer/dryer unit. Finding the unit was tricky since it had to stack and had to be small enough to fit in the tiny nook in our little pantry at the back of our small galley kitchen in our less-than-spacious condo. But we found one!

So, last Saturday, Chris and I rented a truck from Lowes, made the 30 min drive to the pick up location and purchased the unit. And despite all the smallness that was required the machine was huge! There was nothing for it but to muster up our strength and load it up. It was superhuman-like. Chris on one end, me and the very nice young woman who sold it to us on the other - staggering across the apartment courtyard - taking a breather at the truck - one last heave and onto the flatbed - wide-eyed looks of amazement at the effort!

The loads of laundry were diminishing in my mind as we drove home.

The cement flight of stairs up to our condo was looming large in Chris's mind.

"Honey, how are we going to get that beast up our stairs?"

So we rang up all the big strong guys we knew (which wasn't many. There's something about liberal arts Graduate students. . . not usually the biggest and the strongest who don't even need to exercise.) But, we were feeling pretty confident by the time we rolled up to 1800 C.

The guys loved it. Who doesn't like a little community project on a beautiful Saturday afternoon? The ladies watched on the sidelines as the men discussed the techniques and options for carrying the gargantuan machine up the stairs. Finally, the white beast was lifted, mounted the stairs, slowly through the doorway, across the living/dining room, a brief stop at the edge of the kitchen to ensure it would fit between the fridge and counter, then eased back into it's spot, stopping with just enough room to squeeze back and hook up the water lines and vent. Good work by the men!

The pile of laundry had almost disappeared in my mind!
A quick run to Lowes - dropped off the rental truck, picked up some supplies and back to hook everything up.

3 hours later we were still trying to "hook everything up" - but 15 years of corrosion doesn't budge very easily. One of the old supply hoses was rusted fast onto the valve and no amount of twisting, turning or banging would loosen it. Finally my heroic husband cut the hose off with a snips! A few more connections and we would be filling the tub and washing away!

There are 2 "Rules of Connecting a Washer" that I learned while working with my Dad. When connecting the hose to the plastic inlet valves on the washer 1) Don't cross thread them. 2) Don't over tighten. Well, I didn't do either of those. I just tried to unscrew the old hose - the wrong way! Needless to say, the threads on inlet valve no longer existed by the time I realized what I was doing.

To wrap up this overly long story . . .

• I stripped the inlet valve
• I attempted numerous "home fixes"
• None of them worked
• We finally called a repairman
• The pile of laundry grew for 6 more days
• The repairman came on Friday and
• We now have a beautiful working washer and dryer
  

Who knew staying home and doing laundry on a Friday night could be so great! It was just about the most exciting thing to hear the water filling, load the stinking clothes into the tub and here the whirring of the spin cycle. Small delights!

The final episode in this long story was waking up Saturday morning, having left a load in the dryer and a load in the washer the night before (there were a few more loads in the baskets as well). Chris rolled over in bed and said "I have a surprise for you - but no hints." When I walked into the living room, there were piles of folded laundry covering the couch! What a husband! He had gotten out of bed after I fell asleep and dried and folded, dried and folded, dried and folded. .