Ironing

I do the snap/shake thing too, and sometimes smooth things with my hand while they are drying.  We don't have an iron.  I've offered to get one, but Mr A says that if there are wrinkles in his shirts, they work themselves out by the time he gets to work.

i can't remember the last time i ironed something.  I think it may have been when I went for my last job interview so 2 ish years ago?

I find that if things are put on the airer straight i might get a sort of crease in the middle where it was folded but if I rotate it half way through (or just don't care lol) it's not as big an issue.

I agree your lease agreement seems a bit draconian.  Are you in a flat or terraced? I bet your neighbours use their washers past 9...

The eye roll is for your MiL KellyLLV and for your boyfriend's SiL.  My MiL irons everything, too.  T-shirts and jeans--silly isn't it?

I think they like having "too much to do"....

Mmmhm.  Martyrs. 

Not at all! I iron everything because everything smells, feels and looks SO MUCH nicer when it's ironed! 

Even your underwear?!? 

Not at all! I iron everything because everything smells, feels and looks SO MUCH nicer when it's ironed! 

You are a different breed, H. I get where you are coming from. I know people who do all that ironing because they just think they *have* to. They take no pleasure in it. But there are a few folks like you who just find it very zen (?) and are in love with the final result so much. My mother used to be a bit like that. She even wrote a poem once about the pleasure of it!

I agree your lease agreement seems a bit draconian.  Are you in a flat or terraced? I bet your neighbours use their washers past 9...

Definitely.  I would not accept that agreement (no airing clothes outside, constant inspection, estate agent schedule for cleaning windows, no hoovering after a certain time), nor would I move to another place with such agreements.  Sure, it's more polite not to hoover late at night, and I personally don't run my washing machine after a certain time, but it's not the estate agents' right to dictate that.  It doesn't seem like it's your home, especially when they forbid you to hang clothes out if you have sole garden or balcony access.

Even your underwear?!? 

Not mine, no. But mine is lacy, nylon-y, etc. You can't iron that stuff. But I do iron my husband's cotton boxers. How uncomfortable would it be to wear wrinkly undies?!?!

She even wrote a poem once about the pleasure of it!

I'd like to read that!  

Definitely.  I would not accept that agreement (no airing clothes outside, constant inspection, estate agent schedule for cleaning windows, no hoovering after a certain time), nor would I move to another place with such agreements.  Sure, it's more polite not to hoover late at night, and I personally don't run my washing machine after a certain time, but it's not the estate agents' right to dictate that.  It doesn't seem like it's your home, especially when they forbid you to hang clothes out if you have sole garden or balcony access.

Sounds like the rules in Switzerland! Only there, it is also no showers after 10 and no work/noise on a Sunday. I wonder if that flat/house is in a small slice of Switzerland here in the UK

However, keeping on topic, I've found if I put wet clothes on the rack to dry and then set a fan on the floor and turn it on high, it blows the clothes dry and there are very few wrinkles that way. When I moved here, I bought a £2.99 iron, it is still sitting in the bag I brought it home in.

How uncomfortable would it be to wear wrinkly undies?!?!

Not at all according to my hubby.

Not at all! I iron everything because everything smells, feels and looks SO MUCH nicer when it's ironed!  

No, you're not a martyr chary!  It's different in your case because you enjoy doing it (I can see it may have therapeutic value!) and you've got the time.  But people like my MiL who have complained about it (and I suspect KellyLLV's relatives, too) and are always on the go with "so much to do" and stressing out about the "so much to do" are a different case--that's martyr behaviour!

Just read balmerhon's post--I agree with that!

Like the idea of setting the fan on the wet clothes!

I've found if I put wet clothes on the rack to dry and then set a fan on the floor and turn it on high, it blows the clothes dry and there are very few wrinkles that way.

Sounds like the rules in Switzerland! Only there, it is also no showers after 10 and no work/noise on a Sunday. I wonder if that flat/house is in a small slice of Switzerland here in the UK

You know what, I after I logged off last night, I was thinking that.  I was wondering if the landlords and estate agents were Swiss, and they included having to wear slippers after 10, sweeping the side of the road weekly, and that there's a bomb shelter somewhere on the property.

Those rules do sound way over the top. But I've never rented through an agency, so I wondered if that was standard. I'm glad to hear it's not!

That's funny, my tenancy agreement says I am not allowed to hang things inside to dry- I must either use the whirly-gig or use the crappy washer-dryer that actually doesn't dry (and I follow instructions/1/2 load, etc).  I am a rule breaker by nature, I hang up my clothes anywhere and everywhere in order to dry, which of course, doesn't help the mould, but it rains a lot in Scotland, so after 4 days of sitting in the rain on the whirly gig, I take 'em inside to dry  

As for the ironing thing - I never do it- I'm lazy ,a slob, don't have time, can't be bothered. I always shake my clothes and flatten them out as best I can before putting on the airer.  If I have any wrinkles, well I am constantly wearing a cardigan - so I just zip it up.  

We lease our flat from a letting agent who acts on behalf of the owner/landlord, but the actual building, that our flat is in, is owned by a separate company alltogether. Our lease agreement is with the letting agent and no where in the agreement does it say we cannot have pets, or can't dry our laundry outside on the balcony or run our washer after a certain time...BUT, the company that owns the building has a no pets rule, no items on the balconies at any time, no bbq's on the balconies, no welcome mats in the halls outside the doors and no use of washer/dryers between the hours of 9pm and 8am.

Thanfully the caretaker of the building allows us to dry our laundry outside but we do have to make sure that the balcony is completely cleared as soon as the clothes are dry.

Since there are 97 flats in the building and the walls are VERY thin here I am thankful for the no washer/dryers rule because when someone uses one within a 8 flat radius of us you can hear it and feel it as well...and the times that it has happened that someone has been using one at 1, 2, 3 am (or in the case of yesterday morning 4 am!) it has woken our entire family.

I agree your lease agreement seems a bit draconian.  Are you in a flat or terraced? I bet your neighbours use their washers past 9...

I live in a terraced house smack in the middle of York city centre.

We love it - both the house and the location - and all the crazy stuff on the lease is worth it.


Our tenancy agreement seems to be a generic lease that everyone who rents from the letting agent gets - for example it says we can't make noise in the entranceway and we live in a house, not a flat - there is no entranceway.


Our inspections are every 6 months. I posted about them once before and I was told that these types of inspections are common with letting agencies.

 I can kind of understand why they wouldn't want clothing hung out on a washing line though since they might think it looks tacky - our garden faces a holiday home that gets rented out to tourists.

Although we could just not have the washing out when they came to check the house. It's more that it rains so much we would still have to keep it inside the house a lot anyway.

Plus, we feed birds and they poo on things.


My neighbours on both sides are old people, one of whom knocks on our door to complain about the slightest noise - I posted about him when I moved in here last year - so he would definitely be bothered by a washing machine late at night.

He is in bed by 9 - he has complained about the TV being on too late in the evening.

The not Hoovering and not using a washing machine in the evening has more to do with his complaining than with the tenancy agreement.

The neighbours are lovely people but they have nothing to do all day.

Once, when I was home from work, I discovered that the old woman on the other side waits until the bin man comes on rubbish day and hands him her bags of rubbish. (This is not someone who is stressed about not having enough time to get her washing and her ironing done.)

She also knocked on our door twice (we didn't answer it the first time because we thought it might be the old man on the other side complaining about noise) to let us know that she thought we should water our tree - which we had just bought earlier that day.

FYI, we finally ordered a new washing machine to replace the old one that came with the house. (We were given permission to do so.) The old one is tiny, it takes forever to do a load, and it seems to be ruining some of our clothes, so that will help a lot.

I think I am just going to try to hang up my clothes more carefully and only iron on occasions where we need to see an important client or something like that.