Airing dirty laundry in public due to lockdown

THE EDITOR: Not everyone has a washing machine and dryer at home, and many older apartments, both government and private, were designed to accommodate a wash sink, not washers and dryers.

Many poor people in one- or two-bedroom homes cannot even dream of owning a washer and dryer. And for those who have the luxury of owning a proper washer and dryer, not all of them have water regularly, and most do not have adequate water storage.

Many of us have upwards of three or four children and many are single parents. Many residents in HDC apartments who can afford a twin tub washing machine would have to spend their entire weekend washing clothes with no place to hang them out to dry.

This is the reality of many of our people. This is the reality of the lower income people.

Weekly, we depend on the neighbourhood laundromat and laundry service for general washing of clothes and linens. It is now a five full weeks that some of us have been unable to address the question of dirty laundry because these services are not considered “essential” and those businesses remain closed. In the meantime, clothes are beginning to pile up. Please think about it, five weeks of dirty laundry.

Any highly infectious virus lurking within an unsanitary community is a recipe for disaster. Dirty linens are a breeding ground for any infectious disease. You cannot maintain high levels of hygiene in dirty clothes or sleep on dirty linen or reuse dirty towels. You cannot wash without water and there is only so much you can efficiently wash by hand and hang out to dry in kitchens and living rooms and bedrooms.

Throughout the US and in Spain, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, and France, the countries with the highest covid19 infection rates, and Canada and New Zealand, among so very many others with the lowest rates of infection, have all included laundromats, laundrettes, laundries, dry cleaners etc as essential business services.

Consequently, including laundry services in the essential businesses list could only be considered as following international best practice.

So far the Government has done the right thing and must be complemented, but I am asking for a further step to be taken and appealing to the powers that be, to those competent professionals within the Ministry of Health, to do the research and strongly recommend the reopening of laundry services immediately.

I am sure systems or guidelines can be put in place with laundry owners to limit the number of people within their premises at the same time. In any event most laundry services are drop-off only.

Historically our major household chores are cooking, cleaning and washing. This is what we do as human beings. Simply put, we clean, we cook, and we wash. Please help us with the washing and allow us to have access to do our laundry.

No one likes to air dirty laundry in public, not even me; but give poor people an equal opportunity to be sanitary. Follow best practice and reopen those laundries.

CHRISTIAN CHIN

via e-mail