According to a survey by Beko, children in the north west don’t stop asking mum and dad for help with their washing until they’re 22-and-a-half. It is worth noting, however, that this is just under the national average – so parents everywhere are struggling to free themselves of the family wash.

Plus, with 56% of people aged between 20-29 likely to ask mum for advice, it’s clear that doing the laundry is one life skills that young people are struggling with.

Three common rookie errors are:

●      Leaving wet clothes in the drum until they smell damp

●      Overloading the machine

●      Shrinking clothes by putting them on the wrong wash cycle

Yet we all have our laundry pet peeves. In the north west alone:

·       21% of people say they get frustrated that their machine doesn’t wash their clothes properly

·       A quarter say they are frustrated by forever having to separate lights and darks

·       About a third of people (32%) say their biggest peeve is leaving wet clothes in the drum of their washing machine.

Are there any of these that you find particularly annoying?

Many people also get annoyed with having sole responsibility for this task. So, why not introduce a few rules to share things out?

●      Get everyone involved. If you bring your washing, you put it in and hang it out. Fair, right?

●      Don’t over or under load. Too much? Split it into two. Too little? Ask others in the family and wait. There will be someone with some washing ready to go soon enough.

●      Find it? Hang it! If anyone discovers a finished load in the washing machine, it’s their job to hang it out or put it in the tumble dryer before they get to wash their load.

With a few fair rules – and a bit of ‘laundry education’ – perhaps our children will come to appreciate that the ‘launderette of mum and dad’ isn’t going to be open forever.

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