From 2001 into 2010 we washed our clothes at the local laundromat. Eileen would usually take care of this on a 2 or 3 week basis. Sometimes I would be with her, but I would normally do my best to avoid the ordeal. Of course, after she returned east and I was left to my own devices and I was down to 0 underpants, 0 T-shirts and 0 socks, I would have to go on in there. If those did not happen to coincide, I might just run to JC Penny's or Wal-Mart instead to buy another package of whatever I had run out of.

However, I could not immediately wear those items. Regardless of how sanitized they may or may not be, I could easily imagine that new clothing being loaded with microscopic particles of factory chemicals or the spores of somebody's cough or even e-coli from whatever. I don't take the chance; all new clothing gets washed before I put it on. I don't need to run the machine for one small package; a good rinse in the sink with a little soap will do it.

Back in my bachelor days, I could not exactly bring along my 128k microcomputer to do something productive with the time, so I would avoid the place at all costs. I had two nice simple methods for dealing with the laundry problem. The first was to drop by and visit my folks, as any good loving son would do, and by the way wash my laundry while I was at it. I might even get a meal out of that too. I also kept a clean bucket and a clean plunger handy in the bathroom so that I could do the wash while my most recently written computer program was compiling.

The Laundromat in Joshua Tree was almost always clean. A few years ago all the machines were replaced and the interior renovated under new ownership, so you couldn't ask for a nicer place to wash, dry and fold the laundry. There were almost always a few wives from the nearby Marine base, and even the occasional Marine himself (or herself) in there to chat with. There were usually a few climbers and hikers from the National Park in there, probably camping for an extended period of time. However, on occasion you would see someone dump heavily and obviously e-coli (poop) ridden clothing into a machine, enough to make your stomach turn, and you would pray that one of them had not just used the machine that you were using. Likewise those used for grease laden rags from restaurants and auto repair shops, etc..

Every machine is going to include some of what was in it before you dumped your load in. Detergents do not kill all bacteria and the rinse cycle does not get rid of it all, so using laundromats does make me a bit nervous. BTW, I am not phobic; many forms of bacteria are good for us and even some harmful bacteria is good in that it keeps our immune systems working. On that note, people who wash excessively are asking for trouble because they wash away the good stuff that is there to protect us. Though excessive e-coli can be disgusting if not dangerous, it is the farm and factory chemicals in just about everything that appear to be responsible for the preponderance of asthma and other ailments, including cancer. That includes some of the chemicals used to manufacture many cleaning products.

Of course we rarely just hung around there waiting. After dropping a dozen or so quarters into the slots of two machines and hitting the Start buttons, Eileen would head for the post office, library or thrift shops, and/or tea. I would be more likely to head for the Home Depot or Wal-Mart or whatever other errands I had planned on. Instead of relying on the change machine to work, I would just pick up a few rolls of quarters at my bank and keep them in my glove compartment. Also, we quickly learned to set aside any quarters received in change from various cash purchases.

Going to the laundromat is not just an errand you run once in awhile; it is almost a way of life. People who go to the laundromat are a certain kind of people, almost like gypsies or nomads of a sort - different from the kind of people who have their own washing machine at home.

Well, in 2010 we became one of the latter. Since we now had electricity, which was added to our roof in 2008, and since we had an enormous water tank that was added to our hillside in 2009, and a tankless water heater that was also added in 2009, we could think about getting a machine.

I researched it online and found a portable washing machine at a reasonable price that was getting excellent reviews from apartment dwellers and the like. I found the best price for the machine, including shipping, at AJ Madison in New York, of all places, 3000 miles away. It was a Danby , DTT420, 29" Twin Tub Portable Washer with 10 lb. Capacity, 2 Wash Options, Lint Filter & Separate Spin Extractor: White, and it cost $317, inclusive. I bought it and they shipped it. The latter turned out to be a bit more involved than expected. They apparently have their own trucking subsidiary, AJM Trucking, which got it to California, where it was left with another local trucking outfit, who then stated that they do not deliver to our area. However, AJ Madison was good enough to hire UPS to pick it up and bring it to us.

So AJ Madison gets high marks for service, but the various private truckers involved do not, especially since the machine arrived damaged, but also because AJM Trucking was unable to keep their tracking website up to date; I never really knew what was going on. This was compounded by my having also ordered a compost toilet from another company, also using a private trucking company, so that when I was notified that my 'package' was ready for delivery, I thought they were referring to the washing machine when in fact they were delivering the toilet. New rule: never order two large packages from different companies at the same time.

Some dumb klutz of a trucker had dropped it onto the right rear corner, probably from the height of a truck bed. I definitely did not want to go through the hassle of shipping it back so I decided to hook it up and see if it worked. It did. At first it did make an unnerving noise, but after I readjusted the load, the noise stopped. It has since washed a number of loads, so I think it is working okay. I did make a cursory inspection of AJ Madison's website and found no provision for reporting the damage, though I may have missed it. I'm sure that by email they would have arranged to ship it back, but I did not want to go there, if it worked.

The machine, on castors, is designed to hook up directly to a kitchen sink, but I needed to connect it to a hot water hose outlet outdoors. There is no room in the trailer so it had to go outside beside the trailer, under the carport roof. It does get rained on now and then, but it does not seem to mind. For this connection I bought two compatible adapters at Home Depot, one that accepts the sink nipple on the Danby hose, and one that screws onto the standard variety outdoor hose faucet, or hose. These are NEOPERL part numbers 'Laundry Faucet Adapter 589483' (3/4" x 55/64" - 27) and '(name not legible in pic) 580504' (15/16" - 55/64").

The water starts flowing into the tub as soon as it is turned on, so the faucet needs to be within reach while watching the water level rise. One cannot walk away from this phase or it will overflow. The agitator in the main tub does not spin like in other machines I have seen; it just agitates left and right. I hope this is intentional and not a malfunction. I suspect the former, but can't say for sure since there is nothing in the manual about it. The clothes do come out clean.

I attached a number of sturdy hooks to the carport overhead simply by replaccing the sheet metal screws with hooks of the same thickness. I like to hang my pants and shirts on hangers while they are dripping wet. The weight of the water helps pull the wrinkles out. I also found a long retractable clothesline reel at Home Depot that we can run out to a hook at the far end of the deck as needed for hanging everything else. That reel is more robust and the line is longer than a similar one sold at Wal-Mart. However, a regular 1/4" cotton clothesline would probably allow the clothespins to get a better grip. After a 30 second power burst of wind, I had to retrieve a few things from the hillside downwind. The clothes hanging on hooks stayed put.

We like the machine. There is plenty of room for our laundry. Speaking for myself, I believe I washed a pair of jeans, a couple of shirts, a large towel, 4 or 5 T-shirts, underpants and socks, all in one load. Where that load washes, rinses and spins very nicely, we like having the second tub for a final high-speed spin. The clothes are almost dry when we pull them out of there. All wastewater is piped to a 5 gallon bucket under the edge of the deck. I believe it filled about 4 or 5 of those, which I interchanged quickly as they filled. I used these to flood a new tree I had just planted. When I return there in the fall, I'll double-check these numbers and get the name of that 2nd adapter; I did keep the packaging.

Too tight to fit between the post and the wall.	The trailer wall is leaning outward. Needs adjustment.	Shimming one end of the frame with a wood block to raise it. This should straighten the wall some.
Better. Gained about a half inch front & back.	This will allow the machine to slide between the post & the wall, making room for a drain stack.	In some of these photos a stepladder is seen leaning in an odd direction, especially if one clicks on a photo to get its full-screen rendition. To raise the wall, the screws holding the tankless water heater against the wall had to be removed first. The ladder keeps it from falling forward.
		The Danby DTT420 Twin Tub Portable Washer specifications.