Laundry...Let me tell you about laundry!

The United States is finally letting Iraqi refugees into our country. Chicago has about 600 family members living in our city with a large number living in our neighborhood. St Gertrude's has adopted a family of dad and 3 children ages about 7, 5, and 3. Now you may not know it but our government brings refugees to the US: provides 3 months of medicaid, food stamps, rental assistance THEN the person/family is on its own.

The only people being allowed in are those who played an active role in supporting US troops/interests in Iraq. I believe the father was a translator for US troops. They were placed in an apartment with used furniture, donated clothing etc. Well...bedbugs came along for the ride.

To eradicate bedbugs everything in the house must be laundered. If you can throw out bedding etc, that is done. If you can throw out the carpets that is done. A new mattress was purchased for each family member and sealed with plastic-recommended. All items must be washed in hot water and dried with "hot/high" heat.

So...laundresses were needed. No problem, I knew the task would be arduous and my back and arms are saying, "Oh Yah!" I have a Prius and it was loaded with bags of household items and all the clothes-many obviously gifts for the holidays and never worn-tags still on them. Ann and her mini van brought the rest. Some favorite stuffed toys including Spongepants Bob-I think that is his correct title. All the linens from beds, bath and kitchen. Oh my gosh, I knew we would need a lot of quarters. We used about 8 large loads at $4.50, 20+ loads at $3.00, and over 4 hours of drying at $1.00 a load. I had to leave for a meeting at 2 and the dryers were down to about 5-filled with hard to dry items. One not working -stayed cool.

I cannot even estimate how many pounds of clothing/linens I put into then pulled out wet from washers! My back says, "A whole lot!" I figure we put in about 12 hours total-most of that folding clothes. As I was leaving another volunteer was coming to take over the task. She had a mini van and as we folded we re-bagged the clothes: adult male, boys (couldn't separate the boy's clothing-too much) kitchen linens, bath linens, bed linens, coats, hats-mittens-scarfs. It was just like the women beating clothing against the rocks-just with a flat screen TV on one wall.

Then it was off to a meeting which is another entry!