Life at the Laundromat

STAUNTON — Entering the doors of Sunshine Laundry on Grubert Avenue, the only sound to be heard is the swishing of water and the thumping of clothes.

Ernest Rose has been doing his own laundry there for a number of years.

Life of a bachelor, he said.

His favorite part of doing laundry — absolutely nothing.

“I don’t like it period,” Rose admitted.

Laundry is one of those necessary evils. Like having to put gas in your car or washing dishes. You need clothes, and it’s probably for the best to have them clean.

For Rose, he does laundry every two weeks and ends up doing a couple of loads.

“To me, anywhere you have to go to wash your clothes is a hassle,” he said. “But I have to do it.”

He’ll stay at the Laundromat for a couple of hours. “It’s not too bad (here),” Rose said.

One thing he does enjoy is meeting people and passing the time with some conversation.

Laundry Land Laundromats owns more than 100 Laundromats in Virginia and North Carolina, and it owns the ones on Grubert Avenue and Beverley Street in Staunton.

Laundry Land was started by a Danville resident in 1959 and has been going strong since.

One of the realities of keeping a Laundromat going in this day and age that concerns Brad Poindexter, operations manager of Laundry Land, are the utilities.

“That’s the biggest cost,” he said. “People don’t realize gas, water and electricity … how they go up.”

Poindexter said the commercial rates on utilities go up more annually than for homeowners.

But he thinks the Laundromat business has staying power — people have to wash their clothes and not everyone has a washer and dryer at home.

To cut down on costs, Poindexter said, the attendants who usually stay in the Laundromat don’t come in as often and focus on times when more people would be there. “Laundry is a lot of downtime,” he said. “During the day, if you’ve been in the laundry, there are very few people that come in.”

Evenings and weekends, the attendants are there more often, and tend to make people feel safe.

“Most of our employees are there in the evenings, when it gets dark. Usually in the winter time we’ll increase the (attendant’s) hours at some of the stores because women do most of the laundry,” Poindexter said. “What we like to do is have an attendant there in the evenings to make them feel secure. We want something where your mother, your daughter, your sister, your brother feel safe. When you see that attendant you feel a lot better.”

Kristen Decker does her laundry at the Beverley Street location every week. She spends about $20 bucks on four loads of laundry for her household of five.

Most people opt to not sit at the Laundromat the entire time their clothes are being washed. Decker usually goes to the Dollar General next door to pick up anything she needs and pass time.

Others whip out their phones, read a magazine or dip into a book.

Joyce Miller comes to the Grubert Avenue location about once a year, just to get the bigger stuff done all at once.

“If you have a shortage of time, it’s a good place to come,” she said.

It can be costly. Miller said the benefits for her outweigh the monetary cost.

“It’s costly, but a huge time-saver,” she said.

How much?

• To do a load of laundry at a Staunton Laundry Land location in a regular washer costs $2. A dryer costs 25 cents for every six minutes of drying.
• The cost of washing goes up with the size of load and can go up to a total of $4.25.