Evening star., 1943-06-27
L.uundries
Continued From First Page.)


their workers before the withhold
Ing tax takes effect, they fear, many
Of the workers will quit, knowing
only that there Is less in their pay
envelope.
What that will mean in terms of
the housewife who has only so much
linen or the man who has to have
clean shirts to go to work, or the
hospitals, and restaurants was indi-
Gated by the Star survey.
Won't Take New Customers.
Most laundries will take no new
customers. One plant hasn't taken
a new customer in 10 months. An
other turns down 500 new customers
q week, 30 customers a day who
actually come to the laundry with
their bundles of dirty clothes under
their arms and all customers who
have used the laundry only once
every month or six weeks-on the
theory that these customers have
facilities to do their own washing.
That laundry will take servicemen's
personal laundry but not that OF
their families.
Another laundry allows its drivers
10 accept four new customers week,
but only If four old customers quit
the service. II 10 quit, they can still
take only four, and the new Gus
toners can get only thrifty wash
unfinished garments.
A number of the laundries have
stopped dry cleaning entirely or
accept only two garments a week
per customer. Others stop the ser
vice for three or six weeks at
time, refuse to take all but current
wearing apparel or refuse to take
rugs, curtains, drapes and slip
covers, hats. gloves, suede and
leather Jackets or winter clothing
Most on Long Schedule.
One or two laundries still return
the wash a week after it's picked
I'D. but most of them are on a
Today to two-week schedule which
sometimes stretches into three
weeks or a month. A number Of
them have stopped picking up the
laundry for two or three days a
week, which makes the unlucky
housewives wait two weeks even to
have their dirty laundry taken out
of the house. Two weeks laundry
usually isn't twice the size OF one
weeks. The housewives in deSpera-
ton dig some things they must have
out OF the dirty wash and do the
best they can with it at home.
It's a toss-up between taking the
garments and household goods that
must be washed or cleaned and
letting it pile up in the plants or
refusing to take it at all. Laun-
dries have tried both methods, US
ually choosing the latter after lofts
and borrowed space are filled and
bundles of clothes and rugs spill
onto the floors around the ma
chimes. The work has piled up so
that a number of plants are limit
ing the amount they will store.
If you can persuade a laundry to
accept the work, you may have to
wait a month for blanket, five
weeks for curtains, months for rugs
and slip covers Half your work
may come back n-ironed. Some of
it is bound to go sstray. One laun-
dry reported 200 per cent in
crease in the errors made by its
inexperienced workers. Several
laundries said that per cent of
the linens and garments in the
family bundles go to the wrong peo-
pie or are lost One laundry said
that last week alone, in the fiatwork
department, $500 pieces in family
bundles were separated from the
bundles and had to be traced and
sent out later.
Production Drops Sharply.
Workers who quit, workers who
don't show up two or three times a
week. a general shortage of workers
explains the story.
One plant has % wearing apparel
presses. 1t is using four. In the