The Hamper Question
A few weeks ago I became fascinated with this question: when you move in with somebody, do you have one hamper or two? There are definitely some pros and cons of the situation.
The Pros of putting your laundry together
It takes less time.
It all gets done at the same time.
It takes up less space.
The Cons of putting your laundry together
You may ruin the other person’s clothes.
Somebody else may be touching your dirty clothes.
Some people are super particular about laundry and others aren’t.
–
When I started asking around I found out that there were some answers that I hadn’t even considered. I assumed that the answer was one hamper or two hampers? I quickly found out that the answer could be up to FOUR hampers depending on your level of commitment to the system. I was fascinated. So of course, in order to get to the bottom of this I emailed a bunch of my closest friends to see what decision they made when they moved in with their significant others.
“I can’t remember how we did it when we first moved in together, but now we have two hampers. Vinny takes care of most of our laundry. We have one hamper for everything that’s his responsibility. I have a separate hamper for more delicate things – nice work clothes, pantyhose, bras, etc. – that need to be sorted properly, hung dry, and the like, so that if they get messed up I only have myself to blame!
via Victoria
“Ideally, I preferred we still have our three basket laundry sorter that my aunt gave me before we got married/moved in together. Whites, darks, towels/others. All laundry combined. If items needed to be treated differently we would set aside/go in others basket. I don’t know what happened to that sorter in our move, but we currently now have one large basket with combined laundry and it doesn’t work that well… Lol.
via Claire
“My beau and I have always had one hamper and it started that way because he didn’t know that floors/kitchen chairs were not hampers. I didn’t mind having one hamper, but let. me. tell. you. that having a man (any man) empty that hamper- full of your worn unspeakables- and take it to the washer is, well, cringe-worthy.
via Jai
“We have one main one, and 2 “subhampers” for sorting, sorted by lights, darks, dry/line dry, and linens.
via Emily
“I have a 4-bin hamper, because I find that I am much better about keeping up with laundry when I pre-sort everything. This means one bin for whites, one for lights, one for darks, and one for reds/bright colors. I also have a separate hamper for sheets and towels. When I see one compartment getting full, I do a load of just that compartment. The only part of my laundry habits that changed when my husband and I moved in together was that I do loads of whites more frequently because of his undershirts.
I find it fascinating/bizarre and inefficient when people living together don’t do their laundry together, though I know multiple married couples who still do their own laundry. I also find the division of laundry labor interesting — I do all of the laundry, because I am OCD about sorting and have lots of clothes that I don’t dry, or that I hang dry for most of the time but finish in the dryer at the very end, etc.
via Catherine
“We have 1 hamper with 3 hanging baskets. When we first moved in together we just threw everything in, there was no reason or logic. My clothes, his clothes, and towels were all jumbled together. Now we separate it out: 1 hanging basket for me, 1 hanging basket for him, 1 hanging basket for towels. This makes the hamper look neater AND prioritizes what goes in the washing machine next.
via Mary
“When Steve and I moved in together, we shared one hamper, and have been using only one (always overflowing) hamper ever since. We do all of our laundry together so, for us, it only makes sense. There is my extremely short, boring, but ever-so-practical answer.
via Stephanie
“Single hamper here.
via Pam
“We currently do our own laundry separately – although we hope to transition to jointly. It would help me out a lot because he does his laundry more frequently to have it done jointly. Sometimes I put mine off way too long and then I don’t have time to do my own because of my crazy school schedule. On the side to keep laundry separate, he also sweats a lot when he workouts so it helps to keep that separate. And the smell is pretty bad. I also have not had time to instruct him on those items that need special attention when laundering (like the ones that need to be hang dried). We do help fold each other’s and start loads. Long story short: we have two hampers but hoping to transition to joint laundry.
via Anonymous
“We currently have 2 hampers…one in the laundry room (his) and one in the second bedroom (mine). I moved into his house after we got engaged, and just moved all of my stuff, including clothing and hamper, into the spare bedroom. He had a system in the master closet, and at the time I was getting up way earlier than he was for work, so it made sense for my stuff to be in a different room anyway. It worked just fine, however I believe we will eventually combine hampers when we purchase a place together (and become real married grown ups!)
Also…I’m a bit particular with my clothing, and prefer different settings for different articles of clothing, etc. My husband would be ok washing everything together, same temperature, mixed colors and fabrics etc, and that just throws my OCD for a loop! For him, as long as it’s done, that’s all that matters. I on the other hand, need mine sorted, some hung, some in the dryer, and I have too many rules to expect him to want to understand or follow. So again, separate has worked out just fine. When I do laundry, I’ll include his as he’s not particular, but it doesn’t really work in reverse.
Yes, marriage is all about sharing…but this is one area we have not combined yet! Maybe in our third year of marriage…
via Chelsea from Chelsea B Designs
“When we moved in together in Providence, we had 2 hampers. I did my laundry, Nick did his. Once we moved to LA, we had one hamper. I do all the laundry. I’ll be anonymous so that my very personal hamper habits stay private (haha).
via Anonymous
“When you’re single and childless, you have one hamper. Then you move in with someone who was also single and childless, then you have two hampers that stay independent for a while. Once you get comfy with everything, you then have one hamper for colors and one hamper for whites. Then when you have kids—well—don’t even get me started on that!
via Jenn from Hello Brio
“Pretty much as soon as [my partner] moved in, we adopted a 2 hamper system, one for colors and one for whites. Mostly because for the most part I do the laundry. I was also worried about him potentially shrinking/ruining my clothes. Fun fact, I had to teach him how to actually do his laundry – he never had to do it when he lived at home. I’m thinking it was a cultural difference, woman’s roles are more housely. We still argue about that….. but that is neither here nor there.
Having the two hampers reinforced the reminder that you actually had to seperate colors. To this day, if there is something that needs to be hang dried or washed special (cold, etc) I wont place it in the hamper because he just throws as much as he can in the washer without looking at anything. I can only imagine the lack of sorting that would occur if we only had hamper. All of his work shirts would be either pink or grey…..
via Anonymous
“My boyfriend and I have lived together for three years, and we’ve still got separate hampers. We never discussed the matter, but there are a couple of reasons I’m sure we’d both agree on as to why we didn’t combine. First, he plays soccer and his clothes are often smelly. It’s just a fact of our lives. Second, because of the above-average smelliness of his clothes, he washes his weekly. I, on the other hand, only wash clothes when I run out of undies! If you want to know my real dirty little secret, it’s that I actually have two hampers to myself, one for clean clothes and one for dirty, because I’m also terrible about hanging my clothes back up once they’ve been washed. #noshameinmylaundrygame
via Nicole
“How many hampers : 4 : 1-Regular clothes, 2-Special handling clothes, 3-dry cleaning, 4-towels; We agreed to this once we moved in and were figuring out a process to keep us organized and not ruining each other’s clothes. I do most of the laundry, but the bins are really for us to identify what we can and cannot wash when we are not there to confirm with each other.
via Lauren
“Ever since Steve and I moved in together we have had separate hampers. So, for those counting that would be two. I’m not really sure why or how this came about. We definitely never talked about it specifically, but it works for us. Plus, one of the fun parts is that it is obvious who makes the most laundry (that would be Steve in our case)!. So, if you’re doing laundry all the time you can blame it on the other person in a totally fun way…but also be thankful that they’re clean I guess. [and then after further clarification…] We keep the dirty clothes separate but do all of the laundry together. Which, now that I type that, seems kind of strange? But why mess with the system? haha
via Sara
I started to realize very quickly after hearing people’s answers that I was definitely going to be the person to ruin somebody else’s clothes in my relationship. Whites, colors, towels, sheets – they all go in the washing machine together (sorry, mom). So overall, no conclusions here. Ben [essentially] asked if I was trying to figure out what the majority of people do to follow suit, and I said no, I’m just trying to be aware of all of the options. And now I’ve got way more than I know what to do with.
So just to keep adding to the fun – do you (or do you think you would) share a hamper with your person?
