Laundry Pirates Beware: When Petty Revenge Turns the Spin Cycle
Picture this: You’ve finally carved out precious time to do your laundry. You pay for a cycle, toss in your clothes, and go grab a coffee, smug in the knowledge that adulthood is tough but you’ve got this. You return five minutes early—responsible!—only to find your clothes unceremoniously dumped, half-wet and soapy, while your thieving neighbor’s undies spin luxuriously on your dime. Welcome to the wild west of communal laundry, Reddit-style.
That’s exactly the saga that unfolded for u/__mafia, who took to r/PettyRevenge to air their sudsy grievances. But unlike most tales of laundry-related woe, this one came with a twist: a blend of tech-savvy improvisation, subtle sabotage, and a Reddit comment section that churned out more creative revenge than a soap opera writers’ room.
The Dirty Deed: When Laundry Pirates Strike
For u/__mafia, the laundry room had become less a place of cleansing and more a battlefield. Their neighbor repeatedly hijacked paid cycles, dumping OP’s (original poster’s) damp clothes and running their own loads—using OP’s detergent, no less. As OP returned early to safeguard their socks, they discovered their laundry had been manhandled and left marinating in lint. The culprit’s clothes were now enjoying the paid-for wash, leaving OP with a soapy, half-done mess and a ticking clock.
But OP wasn’t about to just grumble and rewash. Armed with knowledge of the building’s aging, Bluetooth-rigged washers, they locked down the machines mid-cycle, sprinkled lint (courtesy of the communal lint trap) into the thief’s loads, and unplugged the washers, trapping the offender’s clothes inside. As OP quipped, “so uh, hey asshole, your clothes are staying in the machine until you learn to pay for your own damn laundry.” A little digital trickery, a dash of lint, and a whole lot of justified pettiness.
The Spin Cycle of Revenge: Community Creativity Unleashed
What truly elevates this saga is the Reddit community’s reaction—a masterclass in crowd-sourced, laundry-based ingenuity.
The top suggestion, courtesy of u/Necessary_Baker_7458, is pure diabolical genius: “Set up a mock load so they steal it. Knowing they will steal it. That mock load is a load for bleached whites. They won’t steal from you again.” Others chimed in with variations—using lemon-scented not-quite-bleach (for subtlety), green Rit dye (for chaos), or even “liquid ass” (yes, a real product) for maximum olfactory devastation.
Several commenters, like u/e28Sean and u/Guilty_Objective4602, advocated the nuclear option: simply dump the thief’s clothes into the dumpster or the courtyard—public shaming and inconvenience rolled into one. Others reminisced about similar battles: “Their clothes ended up in the communal dumpster, and I guarded my laundry from then on,” wrote u/e28Sean, earning a virtual fist bump from fellow laundry warriors.
Yet, some argued for a more diplomatic (if less dramatic) approach. “Bring a book and read while you wait, just like they did in the olden days,” advised u/Aragona36. Many agreed: babysitting your laundry is the only real way to ensure it stays yours. After all, as u/CoderJoe1 put it, “guarding my laundry was the only guard duty worthy of my full attention.”
Shared Laundry: The Thunderdome of Apartment Living
The sheer volume and passion of the comments reveal that communal laundry rooms are a crucible for human behavior—equal parts cooperation and cutthroat competition. While some buildings foster a “take your laundry out, leave it folded” level of neighborly respect, most Redditors agreed: the second you turn your back, the pirates move in.
Stories poured in of stolen loads, missing detergent, and undergarments vanishing into the ether. One commenter, u/HoneydewSmart3799, recounted cutting the crotches out of all the thief’s underwear after repeated offenses—“Never happened again.” Another, u/chocosaurus-rex, solved her dorm’s laundry thief by chucking their clothes out a rainy window onto the main entrance.
But not all tales were so bleak. Some nostalgia seeped in: “I read books and texted girls,” remembered u/Hevysett, while others recalled the zen of watching soap bubbles and humming dryer drums.
Lessons Learned: Petty? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely.
What did u/__mafia learn from this soapy showdown? A few key lessons:
- Never leave your laundry unsupervised (“this shit ends here,” OP declared).
- The best revenge is creative, legal, and just petty enough to make your point.
- A little community brainstorming can turn a minor inconvenience into an internet legend.
And perhaps most importantly, as the upvoted consensus goes: “The creative people and the engineers are not the people you want to piss off because we will get creative and make you think twice.”
So, next time you’re tempted to swipe that unattended washer, remember: you never know when your neighbor might be a Petty Revenge Grandmaster with a bag of lint and a wicked sense of justice.
What’s your best laundry room story? Drop it in the comments—just don’t touch anyone else’s socks while you’re here.
Original Reddit Post: shitty neighbor keeps stealing my laundry cycles and dumping my clothes