Whether you run an Unattended, Partially or Fully Attended chances are you will have some clothes left behind by your customers.
You would be surprised the amount of items we have left in our Drop Off Service. We make sure that we always get the phone number of the customers, especially if they are dropping a comforter.
We will start making calls about 2 weeks after they were dropped off unless we start to run out of storage space and then it is sooner. Each call is documented on the ticket with the date, initials of who called and the results. Left Message, Will Pick Up on ____, Wrong number etc.
We keep the items for at least 30 days as that is what is printed on the tickets. After a reasonable amount of time, the items are moved to the office/ storage area in the next unit. This is a separate storefront and has limited access.
Once things start to pile up I make a donation trip. Any towels get donated to the local Animal Shelter. Other items are sometimes split between other charities or Thrift Stores. I have made many donations to the Salvation Army as well.
Recently I was talking to my accountant about it and she said I could just drop the items off at her office and she would take them to a local charity. I asked her about what they could use and it turns out it is a real, grassroots, local community charity. They have a food pantry where people can pick up limited items for free. They do have a Thrift Store where they sell some of the items to raise money for the organization but many of the items are just given to people that really need them. Also in cases where people have had fires or floods, they will provide the items for free.
This seemed like the best place to make some donations.
Today I had my Expedition loaded with a bunch of items from around the house. I have two teenage daughters and we recently had to empty their rooms to install new carpet so we told them nothing goes back until it gets sorted. This ended up with about 4 garbage bags worth of clothes that didn’t fit or they just weren’t going to wear. Tell me if you have seen this before….some still had the tags on them!!
So I showed up and told them I had some donations. They grabbed a shopping cart and I said that wouldn’t be enough so they grabbed one more. I said Still not enough. When I opened the back of the truck they were a little speechless and then I told them this was just the first load.
Here is a picture of the second load. This was all left at the laundry and it was spring cleaning time.
I told my attendants that if anyone came in that had left their items a few months ago to say sorry but the donations will be appreciated and give to people in need.
If you run an unattended laundromat you could also have a bin for “Un-Needed But Usable Clothes”. Some people may take some or all of them but
Play Safe and Be A Good Neighbor
Ken
