Place Items In Spare Clothes Basket

Dear Miss Manners: I am president of the board of directors of an older luxury condominium high-rise populated by busy professionals and retirees alike, and my question concerns our laundry facilities.

There are a generous, yet limited, number of coin-operated washers and dryers in the building, and occasionally all are in use at the same time. These machines indicate the time allocated per load with large, bright LCD numbers, giving every user exact notice of when his washer or dryer cycle will end so that he may know when to return to empty the machine.

How should one approach the aggravating situation created when all of the machines are in use and someone carelessly allows a cycle to end without retrieving the laundry?

Is it appropriate to remove the previous user’s unattended items? If so, how long should one wait before doing so? Where should one place them? When removing someone’s things from a dryer, does one have a duty to fold items so they don’t wrinkle? (I refuse to!) I try to wait patiently, but for no longer than 30 minutes. I put the items anywhere there is space, using reasonable care not to damage the other person’s things or to put them in harm’s way.

I will post your response in all of our laundry facilities in an effort to abate this periodic frustration.

Gentle Reader: Could you also put in a few of those plastic laundry tubs and mark them “unclaimed laundry”?

It’s not that Miss Manners wants to avoid dealing with the etiquette angle of this question; it’s just that she has trouble working herself into a lather over the rudeness of someone’s forgetting when their laundry cycle will be finished - however annoying this may be to others wanting to use the machine. When she rates callous behavior, mistiming one’s chores is not high on the list.

That does not mean that others should have to wait or take over caring for the tardy person’s laundry. Moving it to a basket would be enough. It would probably also be enough to encourage promptness.

Dear Miss Manners: What place, if any, does the mother of my stepdaughter have in the events of my husband’s family?

I certainly welcome the presence of my stepdaughter, who is married and almost 30 years old, but both my husband and I are dismayed that her mother still tags along to funerals, weddings and other gatherings. The girl was a result of an affair, and although my husband financially supported her, he never married her mother. This woman never married and hasn’t had any direct involvement with my husband for nearly 19 years.

Gentle Reader: Presuming that you acknowledge the mother’s involvement in any family matter pertaining to her own daughter, Miss Manners will admit, as you wish her to do, that someone who never joined a family can hardly claim to be a part of it. She can also understand that this lady’s presence is something of a nuisance to you and your husband.

But she hopes you will allow for the pathos of the situation. Clinging to such an identification after all these years is so sad that Miss Manners finds herself hoping that you will put up gamely with the presence of someone who is, although not a relative, the relative of a relative.