After my apartment became an OSHA violation – as in, that same day, about eight hours later – the dryer tried to set my clothes on fire. This wasn’t surprising in general, because the washer and dryer have been in the apartment far longer than I have and, to my knowledge, no one has ever serviced them (yes, this is a failure on my part. I know. I understand that avoiding eye contact with people is one thing and avoiding considering the amount of lint that has built up in your laundry machine – or where exactly it vents, because it doesn’t seem to be outside – is another, stupider thing). At this point they’re probably 15 years old. That said, the attempted self-arson of my dryer was surprising in its specifics because I was drying a small load of clothing on the lowest temperature setting.
We have exactly one modern appliance in our apartment: the stove the landlord purchased after he sent someone to “fix” our old stove and that resulted in, um, a gas leak. Everything else is some double digit number of years old. As a result, none of our appliances sing to us the way other people’s dishwashers or combo washer/dryers do (really, why do they do that? If there’s a jingle, something should pop out at the end of the song. I would have no objection to my boyfriend’s machine doodly-doodly-dooing if it subsequently shot all of his clean clothes out into the apartment afterward). We can’t read the dial on the toaster oven, my air conditioner is a bit lacking, et cetera. None of this is particularly problematic, but burning clothes require a different level of concern. That is, they require something other than “Well, our rent is pretty low, and it’s still functional, so…”
I was confused when I heard the smoke alarm go off because…going back to what I said about owning no appliances that serenade you, I suppose we do have three: the carbon monoxide detector and two smoke alarms. But usually the smoke detector in the kitchen is the one going off, and although it’s identical to the one closer to the dryer, apparently they sing completely different warning songs. So I thought it was the carbon monoxide detector. I did figure the dryer was the issue, though, since it was the only thing running, and opening it confirmed that it was the source of everything smelling like ashes. No actual fire, and nothing was actually burnt, but it did require another cycle through the washer – followed by being hung to dry, obviously – to get rid of the smokiness.
My main point is that I need to take better care of the devices I’ve inherited, but my secondary point is thus: On multiple occasions in the past, I’ve had people use “she wouldn’t let us leave the dryer running when we left the house/apartment/airbnb” as ammunition for an argument on the order of “Claire is an enemy of fun.” Not to say that I’m not sometimes an enemy of fun! I have occasionally had that thought about my own self while at parties. But no one is allowed to use this particular thing as “evidence” for it ever again. Turn off your dryer when you leave the house, people.
