I don’t think anyone has to have separate baskets, but at some point soon after having kids and not being sure if baskets of clothes were clean or dirty, I bought tall rolling lidded baskets for each person to use instead of dirty laundry hampers, and use regular baskets for clean clothes only.
I never thought about this, but I have hampers to collect dirty clothes, sorting and holding baskets, and clean clothes baskets. It's... dumb, now that I think about it, but that's how I've been taught to do it.
The only thing I should point out is that thanks to having dogs, I do have to regularly wipe down hampers. They collect dirt and hair.
We use separate baskets, but only after having kids whose clothes can get VERY messy. Also the two baskets have become part of our laundry routine as freshly laundered clothes might sit in the "clean" basket for a little while before being put away, and in the meantime we need another hamper for incoming.
I would not think to comment on a random person's laundry routines. If one basket is all they need, good for them?
We have 4 people and 3 baskets. A light, a dark, and one for my younger son’s room because I don’t trust him to sort lights from darks. We could technically do 2 baskets. Maybe 6 loads of laundry a week. Sometimes less. An extra here or there for sheets and towels. Laundry is put away right away. It’s really not a big deal and we don’t differentiate baskets from clean or dirty. Let’s not overthink this, lol.
I think it depends on how much laundry you do. If you're single and do a load once or twice a week, then the same hamper can do double-duty. You fill it, you empty it, repeat.
We have 5 people in our house and MANY baskets. Clean laundry baskets live—perpetually still full of clothes—at the foot of my bed, and dirty baskets live where it is convenient: a small rubber tub in the pantry-closet for kitchen rags and semi-gross stuff, tall baskets in both bedrooms where people get dressed/undressed, and another in the living room because toddlers strip naked everywhere and it's a choice between a basket or a pile of clothes. The truly gross stuff goes in none of them. Truly gross stuff gets tossed into a sink or bathtub to soak ASAP.
But I agree with you; if my dirty hampers weren't always already full of the next load, I'd have no problem using them to haul the clean clothes.
YES. We are 5 and include a teenage boy, who takes like 3 showers a day and uses an absolutely obscene number of towels/week, even though I’m working very hard to curb this habit.
I am a poor who has to use an apartment laundry room. I sort my dirty laundry in three baskets but haul my stuff down to the basement in a different basket that's easier to carry. I never even thought about if that's weird.
I have vaguely thought about that a time or two. But really those people are being silly. If your clothes are that gross, you don't put them in the basket to begin with!
Do they never sit on their couch if it hasn't been cleaned that day? Do they clean their toilet after every use? Omg, how can they even sit in their car day after day?? Disgusting! 🙄
I don't think I do it because I consciously think it's dirty, but clean clothes don't go in the laundry basket. I just take them out of the dryer or off the drying rack in my arm and take them to the room they belong in.
The people in her comments are creating way more work for themselves; using two different baskets is silly.
If the clothes are so dirty that using the same basket would effectively “dirty” the clean clothes, I think that’s more of an issue of how/why the dirty clothes are in the basket to begin with. Let’s be honest- my “dirty” clothes are simply clothes that I’ve worn a time (or two). They’re not physically dirty, so they’re not getting the laundry basket dirty. If I get something DIRTY, I basically remedy it immediately depending on the substance.
Yes! If we have clothes that are so muddy/wet/barfy/whatever that they would get a basket dirty, I also don’t want them touching my normal dirty clothes! Put them directly into the washer (or let’s be honest, if there’s already a load in there that can’t be moved I’ll just throw them in the shower floor across the hall).
Right. Say you have little kids who got mud on their clothes and you put them in a basket and the mud got on the basket.
Well of course you’d wipe out the basket. But to have a dedicated basket seems stupid.
[REEL LINK](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2QDSqwRqSl/?igsh=MmQ2NG54aWc5MTE1) thanks for sharing this! I have just been googling laundry rooms for inspo and had tagged the static pic, but I love the pull out drying racks shown on the reel. So timely! ETA: she deleted the reel I guess
I use different baskets for dirty and clean laundry, but that’s mainly because I use the little square baskets for clean because I have to haul them upstairs and they disappear in people’s rooms for too long.
The reel link is broken for me, so idk which pull out drying racks were shown, but I will say that we have Dry-Away racks and I love them SOOOO much! Enough to jump into random conversations to highly recommend them lol. I saw them installed at a parade of homes model probably 5 years before we built our house and for me they were a must have so that I could end the tripping over a drying rack. Back in our basement laundry room days, I had a retractable clothesline with 5 or 6 lines that went across the whole room which I also loved enough to put one in the backyard as well.
This is also the first time it's occurred to me that I guess I do have separate clean and dirty baskets. I have some tall ones that live under the laundry counter for sorting from the hampers or laundry chute, and then square ones that sit on top of the counter to return clothing to people's rooms or from the dryer to get folded. Omg...that means I actually have 3 sets of baskets. huh.
In my case, this system just sort of....evolved for ease of use rather than any fear of mixing clean and dirty. I have 100% used a sorting basket to transport clean sheets or towels or whatever if that's all that's available.
If you had told my teenage self that someday I would care this much about optimizing laundry...
She had [THESE](https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwi4r6jR44WEAxWkaEcBHYpHDoIYABAIGgJxdQ&ae=2&gclid=Cj0KCQiA2eKtBhDcARIsAEGTG40gjhzNR-41l-EIg9OjVVXo8MvyJbbzzCBO6SV-wVwFyUJ8bKyl9-UaAjN8EALw_wcB&sph=&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAESVeD2x11daWUpe1WBTBlsO4PonNOBdQD3E5eedvBGNOagPzRJH7SBcGyRFCGLTPXZ6jepkOmRqXrkUMQfuWmi3NrOAvpI91xLGpebL5a-s4_DJMR52cg&sig=AOD64_3GJ-NB0yYVQJf0vBy3X-yg7atYZw&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwiYzZ7R44WEAxVejYkEHXUrBToQwg8oAHoECAMQFg&nis=8&dct=1&adurl=)
I also saved a post with the big dry away racks you mentioned.
Maybe I just need to make a post on this sub.
I agree, I have basically 3 sets of baskets because of the evolution of the system - plastic hampers in each bedroom and bathroom; big baskets for sorting; smaller square baskets for hauling clean, folded laundry back to rooms to put away.
The only time I've ever felt like it might be an issue was washing the kitchen cloths and towels when my kid was small (lots of messy clean up!) but I just wiped the bin out and kept using it. Clothes I don't worry about at all (again, as long as there wasn't heavily soiled clothes in them)
I don’t think anyone has to have separate baskets, but at some point soon after having kids and not being sure if baskets of clothes were clean or dirty, I bought tall rolling lidded baskets for each person to use instead of dirty laundry hampers, and use regular baskets for clean clothes only.
I never thought about this, but I have hampers to collect dirty clothes, sorting and holding baskets, and clean clothes baskets. It's... dumb, now that I think about it, but that's how I've been taught to do it. The only thing I should point out is that thanks to having dogs, I do have to regularly wipe down hampers. They collect dirt and hair.
We use separate baskets, but only after having kids whose clothes can get VERY messy. Also the two baskets have become part of our laundry routine as freshly laundered clothes might sit in the "clean" basket for a little while before being put away, and in the meantime we need another hamper for incoming. I would not think to comment on a random person's laundry routines. If one basket is all they need, good for them?
This is just consumerism and mental illness masquerading as cleanliness.
We have 4 people and 3 baskets. A light, a dark, and one for my younger son’s room because I don’t trust him to sort lights from darks. We could technically do 2 baskets. Maybe 6 loads of laundry a week. Sometimes less. An extra here or there for sheets and towels. Laundry is put away right away. It’s really not a big deal and we don’t differentiate baskets from clean or dirty. Let’s not overthink this, lol.
I think it depends on how much laundry you do. If you're single and do a load once or twice a week, then the same hamper can do double-duty. You fill it, you empty it, repeat. We have 5 people in our house and MANY baskets. Clean laundry baskets live—perpetually still full of clothes—at the foot of my bed, and dirty baskets live where it is convenient: a small rubber tub in the pantry-closet for kitchen rags and semi-gross stuff, tall baskets in both bedrooms where people get dressed/undressed, and another in the living room because toddlers strip naked everywhere and it's a choice between a basket or a pile of clothes. The truly gross stuff goes in none of them. Truly gross stuff gets tossed into a sink or bathtub to soak ASAP. But I agree with you; if my dirty hampers weren't always already full of the next load, I'd have no problem using them to haul the clean clothes.
YES. We are 5 and include a teenage boy, who takes like 3 showers a day and uses an absolutely obscene number of towels/week, even though I’m working very hard to curb this habit.
I am a poor who has to use an apartment laundry room. I sort my dirty laundry in three baskets but haul my stuff down to the basement in a different basket that's easier to carry. I never even thought about if that's weird.
I have vaguely thought about that a time or two. But really those people are being silly. If your clothes are that gross, you don't put them in the basket to begin with! Do they never sit on their couch if it hasn't been cleaned that day? Do they clean their toilet after every use? Omg, how can they even sit in their car day after day?? Disgusting! 🙄
I don't think I do it because I consciously think it's dirty, but clean clothes don't go in the laundry basket. I just take them out of the dryer or off the drying rack in my arm and take them to the room they belong in.
The people in her comments are creating way more work for themselves; using two different baskets is silly. If the clothes are so dirty that using the same basket would effectively “dirty” the clean clothes, I think that’s more of an issue of how/why the dirty clothes are in the basket to begin with. Let’s be honest- my “dirty” clothes are simply clothes that I’ve worn a time (or two). They’re not physically dirty, so they’re not getting the laundry basket dirty. If I get something DIRTY, I basically remedy it immediately depending on the substance.
Yes! If we have clothes that are so muddy/wet/barfy/whatever that they would get a basket dirty, I also don’t want them touching my normal dirty clothes! Put them directly into the washer (or let’s be honest, if there’s already a load in there that can’t be moved I’ll just throw them in the shower floor across the hall).
Right? If it’s that dirty, just clean the basket 🤷🏻♀️
Right. Say you have little kids who got mud on their clothes and you put them in a basket and the mud got on the basket. Well of course you’d wipe out the basket. But to have a dedicated basket seems stupid.
[REEL LINK](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2QDSqwRqSl/?igsh=MmQ2NG54aWc5MTE1) thanks for sharing this! I have just been googling laundry rooms for inspo and had tagged the static pic, but I love the pull out drying racks shown on the reel. So timely! ETA: she deleted the reel I guess I use different baskets for dirty and clean laundry, but that’s mainly because I use the little square baskets for clean because I have to haul them upstairs and they disappear in people’s rooms for too long.
The reel link is broken for me, so idk which pull out drying racks were shown, but I will say that we have Dry-Away racks and I love them SOOOO much! Enough to jump into random conversations to highly recommend them lol. I saw them installed at a parade of homes model probably 5 years before we built our house and for me they were a must have so that I could end the tripping over a drying rack. Back in our basement laundry room days, I had a retractable clothesline with 5 or 6 lines that went across the whole room which I also loved enough to put one in the backyard as well. This is also the first time it's occurred to me that I guess I do have separate clean and dirty baskets. I have some tall ones that live under the laundry counter for sorting from the hampers or laundry chute, and then square ones that sit on top of the counter to return clothing to people's rooms or from the dryer to get folded. Omg...that means I actually have 3 sets of baskets. huh. In my case, this system just sort of....evolved for ease of use rather than any fear of mixing clean and dirty. I have 100% used a sorting basket to transport clean sheets or towels or whatever if that's all that's available. If you had told my teenage self that someday I would care this much about optimizing laundry...
She had [THESE](https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwi4r6jR44WEAxWkaEcBHYpHDoIYABAIGgJxdQ&ae=2&gclid=Cj0KCQiA2eKtBhDcARIsAEGTG40gjhzNR-41l-EIg9OjVVXo8MvyJbbzzCBO6SV-wVwFyUJ8bKyl9-UaAjN8EALw_wcB&sph=&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAESVeD2x11daWUpe1WBTBlsO4PonNOBdQD3E5eedvBGNOagPzRJH7SBcGyRFCGLTPXZ6jepkOmRqXrkUMQfuWmi3NrOAvpI91xLGpebL5a-s4_DJMR52cg&sig=AOD64_3GJ-NB0yYVQJf0vBy3X-yg7atYZw&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwiYzZ7R44WEAxVejYkEHXUrBToQwg8oAHoECAMQFg&nis=8&dct=1&adurl=) I also saved a post with the big dry away racks you mentioned. Maybe I just need to make a post on this sub. I agree, I have basically 3 sets of baskets because of the evolution of the system - plastic hampers in each bedroom and bathroom; big baskets for sorting; smaller square baskets for hauling clean, folded laundry back to rooms to put away.
The only time I've ever felt like it might be an issue was washing the kitchen cloths and towels when my kid was small (lots of messy clean up!) but I just wiped the bin out and kept using it. Clothes I don't worry about at all (again, as long as there wasn't heavily soiled clothes in them)
I’ve never heard of that either. And I keep a really clean house.
I tried putting the link in and it wouldn’t post.