Living in an apartment, and the laundry room

So here we are, the whole gang, outside our "new home". We live in large one bedroom at the moment, that we are renting from my brother, who moved in with his new girlfriend. In Sweden you are allowed to rent out your apartment for 6 months, when you are "trying out" living with a new girl/boyfriend. So we have a second hand contract from him right now. It's not easy living in an apartment after having a whole house, with hardly any neighbors. And it's harder still to stay in one that only has one bedroom, but at least the kitchen and living room are both pretty big, so that we don't trip on each other too much. But just being three girls, one boy and one bathroom has proved problematic more than once, to say the least! Today being the latest one, when our oldest was "pooping", and the youngest one needed to go as well, so she pooped on the mat right next to the toilet instead! Oh well...

But living in an apartment in Sweden has much more benefits, some that I had forgotten all about. Like the laundry room. As an american in an apartment you learn to live either with the laundry mat, or you are lucky enough to have it in your building. Either way, it usually costs money, from my own experience. Here almost any place have access to a laundry room either in the bottom of the house you live in, or in a separate building near by, where you can reserve a spot to use two or more front loaded laundry machines, a spinning machine, a dryer and a drying room. If it's at the bottom of the house, you usually only have access from 8am to 8pm, in shifts. But if it's in a separate building, you sometimes have access 24 hr/day. And it's free! Granted you have to clean up after yourself, and you have to provide your own detergent and such. But the cost of it is already included in the rent, so you don't have to collect change for that all week long. You have a little lock and a key to "lock in" your time slot, and if you don't show up in the first hour of your slot, anyone can take over. And you have keys to each place, and can lock your clothes in. You don't have to wait and watch over your stuff. What a treat!