How unsafe is my apartment laundry room right now?

May 8, 2020 4:09 PM

The one vector between me and total isolation is my apartment laundry room. Am I overestimating my risk?

I am in a better coronavirus situation than many. It’s me and my three-year-old, and there is no other adult to fail to comply with the rules. I continue to get paid and am working from home. I do get occasional grocery delivery, but I do have enough stockpiled at this point that I don’t have to do that very often and I could cut that out if I need to for the time being.

I am prone to anxiety, and in the past have fixated on small details as an outlet for this. For example, when my son was a baby I did a lot of reading about and see if sleeping situations and was extremely vigilant about his crib and its condition. My rational brain knows that the odds for such a thing to happen are remote. But it was something I could control and it gave me comfort to control it. I feel like this laundry situation might be the same thing.

I do feel nervous when we go outside but I’m careful to not touch anything and sanitize our hands as soon as we are outside. So I tell myself that’s OK. But the laundry…there is no getting around it. It’s a communal laundry room. It’s making me crazy to the point I’ve contemplated moving.

To be fair, the last time I visited the laundry room was this morning. I went first thing in the morning and the only person I encountered was the super, and she was gloved and masked and in the process of cleaning the elevator buttons. I do think my building is taking the reasonable precautions. I guess I’m just not really clear on how big a vector this might be? Like, I could be terrifying myself over a strawman here?

So, talk me down from the ledge. We stay away from people, we wash our hands as soon as we come inside. Are we likely to have anything dire occur to us from our visit to the laundry room?

posted by ficbot to Health & Fitness (12 answers total)

I wear gloves and a mask and don't spend any time lingering in the building laundry room. If there are people there I come back later. It's a little wasteful on gloves because of all the trips between cycles so sometimes I just wear one on my dominant hand and use that for pushing buttons.
posted by perdhapley at 4:32 PM on May 8, 2020

The CDC’s stance seems to be that person-to-person transmission is the main vector, and touching contaminated surfaces is only “thought” to be a possible minor vector. Avoiding other tenants and washing and sanitizing your hands (Both before and after) should be good. Ask your super if she’s also disinfecting the laundry machine surfaces, and if not, strongly urge she do.
posted by ejs at 4:33 PM on May 8, 2020 [19 favorites]

We have communal laundry rooms. Management makes sure all the surfaces are sanitized daily, by the cleaner who wears a mask and gloves. They have also installed a container with wipes in each of the laundry rooms, so people can wipe down the machines/surfaces they touch prior to use. People are also trying not to be in the laundry rooms at the same time, and of course lots of handwashing.
posted by gudrun at 4:45 PM on May 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

We have a lot of the same anxiety, and have tended toward hypervigilance on cleaning EVERYTHING. We wear masks and use clorox wipes to thoroughly clean the doors and buttons of the machines and any other areas the clothes might touch, the laundry card, and the laundry soap bottle if we happen to set it down. We also use contractor bags to carry stuff in and out, but we throw out the bag if it touches the floor of the laundry room. We don't use the carts or tables.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:51 PM on May 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

I use a communal laundry facility that is in a hallway one floor down from apartment door. I dump the laundry bag into the front load washer, shove the bag in on top of the laundry, insert the card, press the buttons, close the door, and then walk back up the stairs and push the apartment door open (I have left it ajar, less dealing with doorknobs) and then immediately wash my hands.

If I needed to touch more doors, I would probably bring a paper towel, and be vigilant about which side was the "hand" side and which side was the "touching stuff" side. I'd use the paper towel for opening doors, opening machines, touching buttons, handling the laundry card. I might throw one paper towel in the trash in the laundry room and then have a second in my pocket for the apartment door. If paper towel waste were worrying to me (it is) I'd probably use some fabric and add it to laundry if possible or start the new laundry container with it, but...I do not have a three year old around who might go spelunking in the laundry.

I don't think I would bring a laundry basket into a communal laundry facility, but that is not based on any science, just my own comfort. Luckily, I don't own a laundry basket.
posted by bilabial at 5:32 PM on May 8, 2020

Depending on the size of your building and your neighbors' interest, maybe your super could arrange a signup sheet (possibly online) so people schedule times to do laundry and you don't have to worry about running into other people.
posted by pinochiette at 5:34 PM on May 8, 2020 [5 favorites]

Transmission vector explanations - I would love these to be true and there are certainly enough references to source material that they should be.

In general: do not stay for a long time in a confined space where people are breathing; and, as a poor second, don't touch things and then suck your fingers.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 5:52 PM on May 8, 2020 [15 favorites]

I would share your anxiety about the situation and would take similar precautions. They seem about right.

As for me, I have been definitively cut off from laundry facilities and so I am now doing all of my laundry by hand. Let’s face it, if I’m not leaving the house there’s not that much laundry to worry about. The climate where I am is very good for drying outside, but I’ve dried enough clothes in hotel bathrooms that I would be drying stuff indoors if I needed to.

If nothing else you may be able to cut down on trips to the laundry room by doing smaller bits yourself.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:56 PM on May 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

I, too, live in an apartment building with common laundry facilities and am also washing nearly everything by hand. Highly recommend! The peace of mind is worth it! Though I’ve handwashed my clothes in the past of course, I found this article (sorry paywall) informative and kind of amusing (“Step 3.. Use your hands to mimic the agitation of a washing machine...”). To lower my activation energy, I’ve taken to bringing a small pile of clothes with me into the shower a few times a week. I let the clothes soak in a basin with detergent while I shower, and while I rinse myself off I also rinse the clothes! (A rinse for you, a rinse for me, a rinse for you... How bad is it on the covid scale of badness when one starts anthropomorphizing clothes?)
posted by nemutdero at 8:06 PM on May 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

To address your actual question, I agree that the risk of using a communal laundry room is probably small but certainly non-zero. My apartment building has a sign up asking the residents to not shake out their laundry so as to avoid aerosolizing the virus - while I appreciate the forethought, it didn’t help my anxiety about using the laundry room. If you are worried enough that you are contemplating moving out, another option is to buy a portable washing machine. It will cost $$$ and the hook-up process can be a pain, and I ultimately decided against buying one, but something to consider.
posted by nemutdero at 8:21 PM on May 8, 2020

When I googled countertop washing machine, I found some that were smaller and cheaper than the one nemutdero linked to, but I don’t know anything about hookup. With a three-year-old, so small clothes that get dirty often, with a very small machine, you could probably significantly reduce trips to the laundry room at least, which would help with your anxiety. I do think that you are probably pretty safe with taking precautions, but reducing your anxiety is important if there’s something you can do.
posted by FencingGal at 5:42 AM on May 9, 2020 [1 favorite]

I have been using the apartment communal laundry room as normal, except for immediate handwashing afterwards. Reasons for my lack of anxiety:
a. Soap is the virus killer.
b. Viruses are not like bacteria, they don't "breed" and proliferate outside of the host animal. Even when there is detectable RNA from the coronavirus left on a surface, virologists emphasize that detectability is NOT infectability. (Sorry for the made up nouns).
c. The laundry room is ventilated to the outdoors.
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:11 AM on May 9, 2020 [7 favorites]