TD 1
L aundromats are most often idealised through the
lens of American culture, from Nick Kamen’s iconic Levis advert to a current incarnation in the Daniels movie Everything Everywhere All At Once. Here in the city, we have an ever dwindling number of them where you can go in yourself, insert the coin, laundry powder and sit it out or drop back later. We decided to drop by a few and say hello to some of the folk using them who were happy enough to have a word with us and have their photo taken. We didn’t care to impinge upon their lives too much, allowing them to share as much or as little as they chose to. There’s no real moral to this story, it’s just a slice of several lives in the city served up against the backdrop of a spin cycle and tumble dry. Barbara Thompson is on her holidays from Calgary, Canada, and dropped by Supreme Clean “We’re here because the hotel we’re staying in doesn’t have a laundry service. We’re on holidays and travelling as light as we possibly can. The humidity is so high here that you can’t just rinse something out and hang it in the bathroom. Every once in a while we just find a laundromat.” “I was a business journalist with the Western Producer. I retired a week before lockdown started and we were going to take this trip two years ago… I’m pleasantly surprised by the city, it’s cleaned up a lot since the last time I was here. It seems like prosperity has returned. I see a lot of improvements – the transportation is better.” On the laundromat: “They usually don’t have much staff and at times they feel a little bit sketchy. They’ve gone up in price.” Talita Nossol & Murilo Miranda are from Brazil and live across the road from Supreme Clean M: “We met here and are flatmates. We came as English students and then decided to stay. I came here just before the pandemic and work in a nursing home in DL. Most Brazilians spend time here. It is so hard for us back home. Here you have the power to go to the supermarket and buy what you want.” T: “I did two years of an English course and then decided to stay and do a masters in Dispute Resolution. After all of this I got a job in my area and work for logistics in a large company. I worked as an au pair, minder, cleaner, housekeeper – everything before that. You have a great quality of life here, the salary is good. The violence in Brazil is really hard. Here it is a paradise, I can go to the pub and come back at 3am and not have problems.” “I worked as an au pair, minder, cleaner, housekeeper…” 16