Whoosh that laundry away! Or not.

First, I must begin by stating that I LOVE DOING LAUNDRY. 

I don't mind cooking. I don't mind cleaning up after. I don't mind picking up. I don't mind lick-and-a-promise wiping downing. I don't mind washing dishes. I actually kinda like ironing. I despise cleaning. But I REALLY LOVE DOING LAUNDRY. (Interestingly, both of my sisters also have laundry at the top of the list of house-y things they like to do. Maybe in a past life we were all Irish washerwomen.)

So I'm not one to feel burdened by actually having to transport clothing, bedding, towels, napkins and anything else that needs a good scrub from Point A (bedroom, bathroom, kitchen...) to Point B (laundry room). Apparently there are some folks who are so worn down - aggrieved, even - by having to lug a laundry basket a few feet, that they need to have their laundry whooshed from Point A to Point B. And for those folks, there's Laundry Jet. 

Just what is Laundry Jet? Asked and answered!

The Laundry Jet is the first vacuum powered laundry chute that transports laundry from any room with ports installed, to the laundry room. Unlike a traditional laundry chute, the Laundry Jet can be used regardless of if a home is multi-level or single story because it is not reliant solely on gravity. It can be installed

seamlessly into any custom laundry room design and existing laundry rooms. This is a must-have laundry item for any family or individual looking for a convenient and safe way to transport clothes to the laundry room from any room in the house.

This looks to me like one seriously ridiculous, tech-infused product that no one needs. And I'm guessing most don't want. Let alone could afford. 

But someone's apparently bought in, as they've been around for a few years and have actual customers raving about how it's changed their laundry-doing lives. 

Admittedly, when I was a kid, I wanted a laundry chute. But the fact was that the washing machine (and, later - much later - the dryer) were in the cellar, directly below the kitchen. So to use the laundry chute, you'd have to lug your dirty clothes, sheets, and towels to the kitchen and shove them down the laundry chute. That or shove them down the laundry chute in the bathroom and then head down to the cellar to lug them from the middle of the basement to the laundry area. 

Instead, what we did was empty the hampers and toss the dirty laundry down the cellar stairs, where they sat in a heap at the bottom until someone (my mother, me, or one of my sisters) picked them up, sorted things out, and put them in the washing machine. 

It wasn't that big a deal, and I grew up in a house with a lot of laundry doing.

There were seven people in our house, and it wasn't until I went away to college that I realized you could use a bath towel more than once. Plus seven people changed their clothing every day. (Yes, us kids wore uniforms, but that still meant fresh blouses or shirts each day. Plus play clothes. My father wore suits to work, and had his shirts "done" at a Chinese laundry, but he still changed his underwear and socks daily.) And all those towels - two per day if you were a girl with long hair! - added up. Weekly sheet changes. Cleaning rags to be laundered. So in our house, the washing machine was pretty much in a state of perpetual agitation.  

And we did it all without benefit of a laundry chute. (And, until I was away in college, without the benefit of a dryer. I still like the smell of sheets that dried outdoors.)

Our way of laundry chuting was plenty safe and convenient, other than in one instance I can remember.

One time, my then high-school aged brother Rick complained mightily that he'd thrown a wool sweater in the wash and it came back shrunken. 

I don't know which of our house-laundresses failed to notice a wool sweater in the mass of "darks" - jeans, shirts, towels - at the foot of the cellar stairs. Or whether they, in fact, did notice, but were annoyed that a) Rick had been dumb enough to throw a wool sweater in the wash and/or b) boys in our family did not have to do laundry.

Anyway, when someone pointed out to him that he shouldn't have thrown the sweater in the wash, but should have washed it in Woolite, his response was "All I know is, I throw it down the stairs and it comes back clean."

In her later years, we did worry about my mother going up and down those steep cellar stairs, even if she wasn't carrying an armful of laundry down. We kicked around the idea of moving the washer and dryer upstairs, but before that had to happen, my mother moved into congregate living. Where they washed her sheets and towels, and she just had to worry about her personal duds. 

Congregate living did not have a Laundry Jet installed.

Did I mention that I think this product is ridiculous? Let me also mention that it looks like a big fact liability machine.

For one thing, kids. With toys. And little hands. But they've got an answer for that:

Laundry Jet ports can be installed at any height to restrict access from very small children that might misuse the ports and we recommend 48 “. In addition, the system is designed so that in the case that a toy or other item is stuck into the port it must always pass through a hard 90 degree turn to enter the system. Dense items do not have enough surface area to pass through the system and will simply remain at the entrance to the port. All other items that pass through the initial port and will simply move through the system and will be delivered to the laundry room. As with any appliance, you must always follow proper instructions and procedures when operating the Laundry Jet.

Are they not aware that even a very small child determined to get at that whooshing gizmo that's four feet off the ground will figure out a way to get at it. There goes Mr. Bunny! Tickle this, Elmo! And they're doing to put their little hand and arm in there, too. Because it feels funny and tingly and good. 

I'm pretty sure a little kid's too big to get sucked in, but - and this is very grotesque to even imagine - that hole doesn't look a lot bigger than a newborn. I hope there are automatic shut offs and alarms. 

On Twitter - where I first read about the Laundry Jet - an ER physician posted that there is no doubt in his mind that, if the Laundry Jet concept take off, he'll be seeing dim bulb guys coming in who decided to see how it works when they inserted their junk into it. Wheeeeeee!

Anyway, despite my consistent grousing about technology, I'm actually a believer that it can and does make life easier. Safer and more convenient, too. But, alas, there are plenty of "just because" applications of technology that provide no true benefit, and strike me as tech looking for a problem to solve rather than the reverse. 

Maybe if Laundry Jet actually did the laundry, it'd be another story.

Not that that would make me any more interested in it. Not when I just love doing laundry.