Our house has a laundry chute. The chute is located off the floor in the back bedroom. The bedroom room is located above the laundry room. It seems that would be the only appropriate place to put it. It was not the most convenient location, but we used it when the kids were at home. Their dirty wash went down a short chute and into an upper cabinet above the washer in the laundry room. The kids were relentless. They would jam the items into this 8” x 8” opening. The clothes would get stuck and even with some prodding with a broom stick, the wad of laundry would not budge. Occasionally, (well most of the time with 4 kids), the cabinet was overfilled. The doors were ready to bust open and spill dirty clothes and towels onto the washer and floor.
I thought about installing a hinged flap the height of the cabinet opening. The laundry could not push the doors open and the flap could be unlatched to control the spilling of dirty laundry onto the washer and floor.
I am not sure when we quit using it, but eventually everyone just brought their dirty items and put them in the laundry cabinet above the washer. Eventually, with just my wife, Efiwym and I, we put the laundry in a basket that sat on the utility sink in the room.
There is a row of upper cabinets in our laundry room. One cabinet is for cat stuff, like food and grooming supplies. The other cabinet on the other end is storage for junk that cannot fit in the junk drawer in the kitchen. Light bulbs, glue bottles, markers and a pool testing kit are some of the “junk” in this cabinet. The once laundry cabinet in the middle is used to store washing supplies.
I notice one day after grocery shopping, Efiwym was struggling to jam the bags of detergent pods she snatched up from a sale at the store. Beside pods, there was bleach, large bottles of liquid detergent, “free and gentle” detergent pods, fabric softener, stain removers, empty buckets, and empty spray bottles. Some items were stacked on top of each other, but everything was contained. When you opened the cabinet doors, nothing spilled out on the washer or floor.
Since we were not using this cabinet any more for laundry, I suggested to Efiwym that I install a shelf. It would be high enough to fit the large bottles of liquid detergent to fit under it and room for those items she needed occasionally. I got the usual oblivious no-response to another one of “my” projects. Uninterested or not, I would put in a shelf!