Rude note left on an apartment washing machine - Germany

I'm mainly just venting a little steam here, if you'll forgive that.

I went to do my washing in the shared apartment washing machine in the basement earlier this evening.

I was in a bit of a rush, and the previous user's wash was finished but not unloaded from the machine.

Typically, people leave a clothes basket with them when they use the machine, but in this case there was none - only a plastic bag on the top of the machine.

So I put the plastic bag on the floor, I emptied the clothes onto the bag, and moved them to the side. So the clothes were on the bag, on the floor, but not touching the floor in any way.

An hour later when I come back to pick up my own wash, the following note is left:


How's that for something to brighten up your Friday evening, and so agressive at that!

What on earth did I do so wrong?

Did I somehow unknownst to myself break some of weird German laundy etiquette?

What's so wrong with placing the clothes in a pile on the plastic bag, given that it was the only container left there.

Does it really matter so much I didn't actually put them inside the bag [I wasn't so sure the bag even belonged to the person whose washing was left there]?

I guess it's possible someone subsequently came along and took the plastic bag on which the washing was lying, and left the clothes on the floor itself, and I somehow got stuck with the blame. But why would anybody do that, for the sake of a cheapish plastic bag?

Gah. I really dislike rudeness, and especially dislike the line about whether I am a foreigner or not. How is that either relevant or even to be assumed?

I have read much about German rudeness on this forum, but so far had very positive experiences with the Germans I have met in the 1.5 years since I moved here. Is this kind of aggression and complete over-reaction par for the course?

I think I know where that persons next load of washing would be going if I came across it...

Simple: write a note back telling them to fuck off. No harm was done. Next time, after putting their clothes on the floor, don't forget to piss on them.

Retort: I'm without character but at least I've got a fudking laundry basket.

I would write a small note and stick it on the laundry machine:

"Hello bitch, It does not matter whether I am a German or a foreigner. Your skanky ass is responsible for your own fucked up laundry, so get your ass down here when it's done and stop occupying the laundry machines. If you are not happy with sharing washing machines, buy yourself a fucking washing machine. If I ever see your shit occupying the washing machine again, next time around, I'll throw them on the floor, I'll sweep the floor with your clean laundry and step over them with my dirty shoes. Have a great day/night, and go fuck yourself."

Wow, seems some TTers have had a bad day.

It would of course be a shock to see my clothes on the floor were it me, i would have put the bag on top of the machine and stacked them there.

Just something about putting the clothes on the floor bothers me, can't explain it,

fudking?

Errr... are you planning to live there much longer? If so, then perhaps starting a laundry war wouldn't be the wisest course of action. I've seen it in a previous building where I lived between two neighbours - an East German family and a US family. It got really ugly to the point that the US family moved out. Bleach got accidentally spilled into the other's laundry hamper, tons of dirt got tracked around when it was time to do kehrwoche, clothes and items mysteriously disappeared, detergent got spilled or kicked over... it was incredibly childish and immature.

I tend to not respond in any way in such situations. Just keep on smiling and nodding a brief, polite hello to the folks when you inevitably meet in the hall, but otherwise just ignore 'em. They are trying to provoke a reaction, so your best revenge to make them uncomfortable is not to give them any reaction at all.

I like the 'are you a foreigner' part. Old habits die hard for these Krauties don't they..

Agreed. I would not be too happy about my clothes on the floor either. And you do not know how long the laundry was done, so who knows, it might have just finished and they were going to check on it ten minutes later. I share a washing machine with three other persons, and we do not take each other's laundry out of the washing machine. Particularly one likes to forget about her laundry and leave it over night or even longer (once she went away for the weekend, in that case we did take it out, but one of us actually hung it up to dry for her), but I would never put anyone else's laundry on the floor (whether on a plastic bag or not). That you were in a rush and could not wait 10 minutes is not the other person's fault. If I was in your situation, I would have just thought, well, too bad, I'll have to do it another time. (If there was a plastic container, I would have put it there of course. On the washing machine would have been better too.)
The line about whether you are German or a foreigner is completely out of line, though, and of course it does not matter whether you are German or a foreigner. (But then, as is the comment by FirstCitizen, so all it takes is a person as classy as FC. )
But yeah, if you want to live there for a while, I wouldn't write another note back (except to explain why you put them on the plastic bag, but do not be an ass about it). One of our roommates does a lot of things that piss us off (like using the sponge we use for washing dishes for her ashtrays, yummy, not paying the €5 for communal stuff but insisting that she has paid it - and I don't think she is lying but she believes she really paid it but we cannot say anything else she will think we are accusing her of being a liar, leaving dishes in the sink when she's going away for the weekend, not doing the cleaning she is assigned while everyone else does theirs, leaving the fridge door open a lot etc.), but what can you do? There are some things that will not be perfect if you live with other people, and you have to accept that some things may not be as you like, that's just the way it is. That may mean that you cannot do laundry whenever you happen to feel like it, and it means that you should still treat others and their things respectfully even if they do not always return the favor. Else things will just turn really unpleasant.

just add a not saying you may be a foreigner but the washing machine was made abroad as well so that is technically a foreigner too.

I caught the typo, but thought I'd leave it in to disguise the swearing.


Actually, yes. But that was yesterday...

I have had similar problems in my laundry room, we actually have to sign up for the laundry room, and in the 3 hour slot I have taken, someone else has taken the machines- pisses me off royally, then they are late! to get their shit out of the machines! So, Yeah, I take it out, and since there is only one communal basket their, but I am using it, I place their stuff on top of one of the machines or if they left the basket then I use that.
I had someone come to my door (as we sign up so you know who it is) and try to bitch me out for taking their clothes out of the washing machine or dryer, and my reply was 'I didn't make the rules, just following them, I had signed up for 7 pm and you started our laundry at 6:30, pushing my time back, you are actually lucky you didn't find them on the floor from a mid cycle stop!'

One time I took clothes out of the washer, placed them on the drying/ironing table, and then did my wash, an hour later when I came back to get my washing and place it in the dryer, the other person walked in to the laundryroom, and as I was putting my clothes in the dryer (their wet wash was on the table), they had the nerve to ask 'Oh, do you really need both dryers' My response 'Yes, they will be avail in 45min, but I believe that someone else has the machines after that, so better check with them'

Leave them speachless!

don't let the note bother you, do you know who wrote it? do they know who you are? just chalk it up to them having a bad day, you did nothing wrong.

That note wouldn't have fazed me one bit. I wouldn't have even wasted any of my time telling the world about it either.

I just think there's bigger issues in life to deal with than an angry note someone left about laundry.

I would have been inclined to leave a note saying: "I'm so sorry I upset you. I would be very happy to do your laundry the next time. Or "Sorry I upset you". "Here's a bottle of wine for your trouble". I would have left this note right beside the note that was left for me.

Thank god I don't have to share a washer and dryer with neighbors. Long time ago I remember I had a neighbor who stole my towels and then later I saw them in the laundry room being washed by her.

Buy your own washing machine

Agree with this approach. Ive had silly anonymous notes left out for me at times too - like the time I once left my bike leaning against the wall for just a few minutes in the hinterhof whilst I nipped back to my apartment to fetch something Id forgotten! People who write notes of this kind arent worth losing sleep over.

Its negativity the other person is throwing at you. You can respond negativity like some have suggested, or you can use some positive energy on the other person. Plus it shows that you are the more superior being in the situation!

Might have, but might not have. Wasting time. Doesn't hurt laundry to have it out of the machine.


That's why the rule should be that any laundry found done in the machine is always removed. Anything else is just wasting time.


Oh you make it sound like eof was unreasonably impatient. Who guaranteed it was only going to be ten minutes? I'd guess most people have other things to do than spend time going down to the laundry room several times to see if the machine's empty. That's why sensible buildings have signup sheets. I'd suggest your building institute one.

Why do you assume it was a woman?

I had never heard of the concept of having a sign-up sheet to do laundry before until I read about it here on TT. I once lived in a 50 story apartment building in Chicago and many other places over the years that had a laundry room and no sign-up sheet was used.

However, I understand why buildings inplement a sign-up sheet, but the whole concept of having to sign-up to do laundry seems, for the lack of a better word to use, so "foreign" to me. I just can't wrap my mind around having to sign-up to have a set time to do a task so mundane as laundry.

I have only seen sign up sheets in Germany, its actually great, if its followed. Most people in my building are respectful of it, there are some that are not so good about it... but that is life.

A funny retort, but the washing machine is Miele so not an option!

As people have pointed out, I don't want to escalate matters, particularly when you share a building with persons, so I'll just ignore it. I'm not going to write a response defending myself either, mind you.

I note bluedave and Mariposa indicate they would not happy to see their clothes on a plastic bag on the floor, so I guess this person feels similarly.

Completely perplexed though, as to what difference it makes whether the bag is on the floor or on top of the machine, so long as the clothes aren't actually touching the ground itself. It's a small locked room. Nobody is likely to step on them or anything, and it's presumably only for a short period of time.

Maybe some of the clothes or something fell of the pile off the bag, I don't know. Wasn't like that when I left though.

I know I personally wouldn't care, and it never even entered my head that another person could give a damn, so long as they weren't on the actual floor itself.

For my personal usage pattern, I would have preferred it the way I did it, because aside from in [more constant] dry weather, I tend to just transfer the clothes immediately from the washing machine into the dryer beside it. I had pushed the bag with the clothes on top, to in front of the dryer.

It is a little more difficult to load the dryer if the clothes are on top of the machine, but it's not like it makes much of a difference either way - what 20/30 seconds max! Far less time than what it takes to write a note!

The unloaded wash was 10/15mins after completion. I know this as I had called down earlier to see the machine in use, and noted the timer as to when the current wash ends.

The laundry room is 5 floors down from me, and is through 2 locked doors. It's not as if I can just pop my head around the corner to-recheck matters a little later! And I was genuinely in a rush, as 3 people were waiting on me to return (albeit at the other end of an internet connection) as I had excused myself in the middle of something to quickly put the wash on in the basement.


No idea who wrote it. The apartment complex has about 40-50 apartments, but only a fraction of those use the laundry room as I think many people have installed their own personal machines. So I guess I probably know whoever it was to see, but don't know who.

I doubt that the person in question knows who I am or not. The only way they could have known was if they recognised my laundry basket. They did make reference to possibly being an "eine Auslender". But other terms used included "eine Deutsche" and "eine volle idiot" both of which would imply an impression of me being female, and I am male.

My German is pretty basic, but for a note seemingly implying anti-foreigner sentiment, some of that grammar and spelling seems a little irregular for a native, is it not? Rather than "eine Auslender", wouldn't ein Ausländer or eine Ausländerin be more normal? But I only have very basic German, can anyone clarify?

Eof I have worn the same T-shirt all week. In fact I even slept wearing it for one of the nights. I suggest you do the same then you can cut the laundry room visits to say once a month.

It's probably best you don't know who wrote it. If it was me, I wouldn't want to know.

Hopefully they didn't recognize your basket. If you happen to see someone in your building looking at you with contempt then maybe it was their clothes.

I´d have done the same as you eof...
in my old flat we had a communal washing machine, but no time-table, and I´d been down to check every ten minutes for the last half hour if the machine was free. there was a finished load that had been in there half an hour so I took the washing out and placed it on top of the washing machine (they´d left no basket) and put my stuff in. 20 minutes later I got an angry knock on the door and was shouted at by a nasty neighbour who said I´d been ´impatient´ removing his washing from the machine! I just shouted back at him.

I think it´s a good idea to have a timetable then no one can bicker.

That note sounds like the writer is either a complete nutter...or knows you very well. In any case it's completely over the top.

I lived in an apartment building with shared laundry room for a couple of years and I used to hate it when people touched my laundry. It's personal stuff after all. Putting it on the floor wouldn't have helped either - it's normal to put it on the washing machine if there's no basket or big plastic bag to put it into. I'd never have thought of writing a bitchy note though* - after all it's your responsibility to take your laundry out in time and not block the washing machine for other people. Actually it would have been up to your weirdo neighbour to apologize for causing you extra trouble.

*^{Knifing somebody's tires though - now that's a different matter altogether}.

I would tell them to fuck off. Absolute fucking cheek.

Nice things those gasoline cans...keep them around...next time dump 'em clothes and burn 'em too...some say gas makes clothes cleaner...

Well burning the clothes would definitely make them sterile.

I think this is a case of people with their heads up their arses. I lived in a building for a while with 2 communal wash machines and one dryer in a four story building with a large number of people on every floor. I used to come down to find both machines full, but finished. I would wait for someone to claim the laundry and remove it from the machine. Which involved popping up and down the stairs every so often. I would usually loose the washing machine because someone would come down and remove the the laundry and put their own in or the person that had the laundry in the machine would come down an hour later with more laundry remove the old laundry and start a new load. Needless to say I got over whatever stopped me from removing peoples clothing from the wash machine pretty quick. I think that a lot of people only really think about themselves and how everything effects them and not how everything effects the people around them. They get offended because someone removed their laundry from the machine due to the fact that they are anally retentive. They can't however make the mental leap that 'oh if I come down and take my laundry out when it's done nobody will take it out of the machine'. I find this similar to the sidewalk experiment that happens here in Munich. People walking as fast as they can in their direction and not paying any attention to where they are going and then when they bump into people getting mad at them.

While you have good reason to be angry, think about the person you are dealing with. A person who would write such an offensive note to a stranger and take no responsibility for their forgetfulness is someone I would not seek additional conflict contact with. The advice of others to ignore rather than escalate is sage. Hopefully your neighbor is not as angry or vindictive as these people: Police hunt girl gang who poured liquid through letterbox of London blast house

No one, but who guaranteed it would be more? No one either! The least you could do is have the decency to wait a little. Unless of course you yourself always wait for your laundry in the washing machine taking it out the second it stops.


I would not like it because the floor is probably not that clean and the fact that there is a plastic bag between the clothes and floor does not matter. It has nothing to do with the possibility of someone stepping on it (though I am sure bugs could crawl into it). In my apartment in Heidelberg we also share a washing machine between two people and a family and we would take each other's clothes outside when we had to, but always put them in a basket, and if the person did not leave one, we use our own.

But the grammar / spelling of your note actually makes me think the person cannot be a native speaker of German (read, it makes me think the person is a foreigner). "eine volle idiot" is not the feminine form ("eine volle Idiotin" would be). I cannot think of any case (grammatical case) in which this form would be correct.

I think I would have done the same thing you did, use the plastic bag and put it on the floor, laundry on top. I wouldnt mind anybody doing that with my laundry, unless the floor was filthy and/or there were roaches etc...

Can also understand that this note totally pisses you off and my first reaction would probably have been to write something really nasty back.

But as the others said, it's probably wiser not to react at all.
It just doesn't seem right to me to let someone behave so badly (and with the note the bad behavior is clearly on their side, not on yours, imo) and get away with it...

You are assuming that the floor is not clean. After reading the OP my first assumption was that the floor is clean, and in that case I would have done the exact same thing.

Decency to wait? He explained why he didn't wait, I find that quite understandable, I wouldn't want to run up and down five storeys for a few times just to find the laundry still in the machine.
No harm was done to the laundry, right?

Wtf is wrong with taking other people's laundy out of the machine? If you and the people you share a machine with don't do it, fine, but to me that sounds rather uptight than "decent" - after all, we are talking about taking CLEAN clothes out of the machine - not sneaking around in someones dirty undies...

I would also not want someone sneaking around in my clean clothes that I am going to put on later. If it's a friend or family that's one thing, but a stranger who just happens to live in the same building? No thank you.

I am assuming that this room is in the basement, and is used by many people. So unless everyone mops the floor after they use the room, it is not clean. It may not be super filthy, but it is not clean. And every basement has spiders and sometimes other bugs.

Just for the record Mariposa, the floor is quite clean, and there are no creepy crawlies that I could see. And if there were, they could just as easily crawl into a typical laundry basket, which is wide open.

I have, on occasion, have had others take my load out of the machine. I don't see the big deal. I always leave a basket in front of the machine, so it's obvious. I forgot once, and someone put them into their own basket instead (which was appreciated).

I would obviously have done similarly if I thought it mattered a damn to anybody. My hands were a bit full when leaving as I was also carrying back some of my own clothes which didn't fit inside the machine.

It's a small locked room with just a single washer and a single dryer. There is no fear whatsoever of someone accidentally stepping on anything, as only one person would ever be in there at a single time.

The plastic bag in question wasn't even on or left near the washing machine, it was on the top of the dryer, which made me not even sure that it belonged to the person in question.

Many people have advised to not react at all, and I think this is good advice, and this is what I'll do [apart from bitching on Toytown that is!]. I agree with Hammonia, it doesn't feel right to let someone away with behaving like that, but there's nothing really that can be done, which won't ultimately cause a high risk of more harm than good.

And I would feel terribly embarassed if anybody ever waited for me, just because I didn't get down to the washing machine in time. I'd want them to get on with the job!

I must say I would have put the clothes on the machine (as opposed to plastic bag+floor) but otherwise I don't see anything wrong with unloading someone's washing, especially if a bit of time has elapsed, say a quarter of an hour or so.

you might leave a polite note asking them to leave a laundry basket next time, so that if the laundry is removed from the machine it could be put in their. It is obvious that you won't be the only person who would react the same way in the situation so this would be constructive. You would have to make sure the note is worded in a very friendly fashion though. If I reacted in a nasty way to something (overreacted) and left a nasty note and came back to find a very polite and constructive answer I think I would be mortified.

What I would have done in the situation:
-waited another 30 min with the hope that clothes will be unloaded by their owner (I don't like going trough other people's underwear, socks, etc... even if they are freshly washed)
-if clothes where still there after 30 min the I would have put them in the bag (if the bag was clean)
-if the bag wouldn't have been clean I would swear a few times, drink a beer and probably do the laundry the next day...

not read all of the replies but my idea would be, buy a cheap laundry basket to Keep in the laundry room, next to the washing machine or something with a note above it sayinf "ANY COMPLETED LAUNDRY FOUND IN THE MACHINE WILL BE PLACED IN THIS BASKET FOR COLLECTION"
Sets out the rules a bit but might not be the best tact.
Just a suggestion

Hang the original note in the washing room with your polite answer à la:




(I wasn't pleased having to remove the washing from the machine after it was done but I would have used a clothes basket if there had been one)

I think that might stop whoever did this from writing offensive notes and prompt other users to take better care of their clothes.

Work like made so you can have a place to live were you dont have to share anything with anyone if you dont want to.

Being totaly independant is the only way.

Apparently there is a basement in Austria just become free, single feamle occupant. Worth a look.

Hmm, guess it all depends on how touchy you are. My wife, who is german, would be bothered by her clothes being on the floor, clean or not. But she thinks the person shoulda left a basket, or waited down there with the clothes. I wouldn't be bothered by leaving them piled there, as long as the bag was halfway clean. The note would severely piss me off, however. I have been living here for over 8 years, and the lil' bullshit rules that many germans take oooh so serious still irritate the hell outta me. I find that there is much too much appeasement going on in the world today, and respect is a two-way street. The prudent course of action would be to turn the other cheek and forget the whole thing. But I'm an Ami, spoon-fed violence from the minute I was yanked from the womb, and ya know how much we love war!

Why assume the laundry leaver would be back in ten minutes or less, why not assume the person has already missed the finish by a half hour? Just as logical.

If I put stuff on top of our machine, it gets shaken off in the spin cycle. I like the communal basket idea like sarabyrd suggested, but I bet someone'd nick it.

@ Gen- 'tweren't me, I only made a suggestion on how to reply.

Why not put the laundry in the dryer? That seems like a perfectly safe place to deposit it. Putting it on the floor (however carefully) would have not been my choice at all. Floors are dirty. Especially communal ones. Putting it there implies some passive aggression that that person that wrote the nasty note obviously reacted to. To me it says: "I don't care about your things. You fucked up by obviously deliberately ignoring that your laundry was done, so I will throw it on the floor." Putting it on top of the machine or in the dryer implies to me: "No worries. We all get caught up in things sometimes and forget about the laundry, so I took the time and care to put it somewhere safe." Not that I'm defending the note at all. It's totally out of line in its tone and xenophobic content.

I think there is a distinct behaviour pattern noticeable here. Its the German beach towel thing once again. The person with the finished washing /beach towel comes back to find his washing /beach towel moved: "Who moved my washing / beach towel? Can only be an Ausländer!". Germans do not like their objects of possession - be they washing, beach towels, parked bicycles or cars to be touched or moved by others. And you as a non-German, violated this convention.

why should that person who was late getting to the machine get a free drying session?

You can put the laundry in the dryer and not turn the dryer on. Though in that case the wacky neighbour would probably have gone ballistic because they couldn't find their laundry anymore..

I don't think you have to wait a certain time for your neighbour to fetch their laundry either - they ought to know when it's finished and if they can't be bothered it's not up to them to complain.


Exactly - except that's not how it usually works, not where I lived, not where any of my friends live/lived. Thanks for all that psychological insight though.

Ignore it. Writing a snotty laundry based note is almost as sad and futile as posting on TT. Pity the tw*t that they have nothing better to do with their time.

Oh dear...

Maybe the person who left the note was English, cos they`re prone to being pretty sensitive too about these sort of things,
but then again they probably wouldn't leave a note they'd just punch you in the teeth.