Three weeks ago washer went down. NBD. It’s a ten dollar part and maybe a half hour of labor to fix l. Part is back ordered three weeks so I’m using a laundromat mean time. To make matters worse, a high limit switch on my dryer went out so now I’m washing AND drying at the laundromat until replacement parts arrive.
Yall, it’s twenty five cents for 2.5 minutes of drying time regardless of dryer size.
It’s five dollars, eight dollars, or ten dollars per wash, depending on load size.
One x $5 wash
Two x $8 washes
One x $10 wash
$11 bucks for dryers
That’s fucking insane. A brand new 4.1 cu ft washer is $499 @ a big box store. The matching dryer is $499 also.
Twenty-three trips or thereabouts, to the laundromat and I could have bought my very own washer and dryer. The outsized effect this has on the poorest of us is absurd.
Last time I did this in the rental I lived in it didn’t open the box, it opened the control panel for the unit. Which I would then just use to flip the mechanical switch that told the machine that coins were inserted.
Coin slot boxes aren’t universal, they’re keyed to the box, so you’d need to know the key code to have a key custom made.
The maintenance panels on the units though typically are universal, so you can just pop the maintenance panel open and then you have full access to the machine. All but the most modern ones are very easy to flip on when you have access.