Laundry Pickup for Nurses and Shift Workers in the San Gabriel Valley

The problem with laundry on a 12-hour shift

If you work three or four twelves a week at City of Hope in Duarte, Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, Kaiser Baldwin Park, Methodist in Arcadia or Queen of the Valley in West Covina, you already know the shape of the problem. You get home, you have scrubs that need washing before your next shift, a hamper of everything else, and about enough energy to sit down. Laundry gets done at midnight or it gets done on your one day off, which is also the day for groceries, sleep and everyone else in your life.

A laundry service with time windows does not solve this. "Be home between 2 and 4" is not something a nurse on days can promise. That is why we built the service around the door, not around you.

How it works around a shift schedule

1. Book the day before. Any day of the week, no cutoff. Book today, we pick up tomorrow.
2. Bags outside the door before you leave for work. Tied 13-gallon kitchen bags. Nobody needs to be home.
3. We text when we are on the way, then again with a photo at pickup. You can see it from the break room.
4. Back within 24 hours, folded, with a photo at drop-off. Usually there when you get home, always by the same time the next day.

Weekly service fits shifts especially well. Pick the day your rotation makes easiest, and we hold it every week. The day before, you get an email asking how many bags. Reply SKIP if it is a light week. There is no contract and no card on file, so a schedule change costs nothing.

Scrubs, and keeping them separate

Hospital guidance generally says to wash scrubs separately from household laundry, in warm water, and dry them fully. Our machines run medium heat and a full dry cycle. If you want scrubs washed apart from your home laundry, tie them in their own bag: each bag is its own load, washed and dried by itself, so a "scrubs bag" and a "home bag" never meet. Five or six sets of scrubs fill a bag comfortably.

A few practical notes for anyone bagging scrubs:

• Turn scrubs inside out before bagging. Badge holders, pens and alcohol wipes live in pockets and none of them belong in a washer.
• Compression socks and undershirts go in the scrubs bag if you want them on the same cycle.
• Fragrance-free detergent is the default, which matters if you work with patients who react to scent. Scent booster is optional and $1 per bag.
• If your building has a secure lobby or you live in a complex near the hospital, tell us the drop spot or gate code in the notes and we use it every time.

Nights, and the days that blur together

Night shift adds a wrinkle: the day you sleep is the day everything else happens. Laundry pickup handles this better than any other service you deal with, because nothing needs you awake. Put the bags out when you leave for your shift. We pick up while you are at work and send the photo. You sleep through the delivery text and find the folded bags when you get up. The only part that needs any planning is the booking, and that can be done from the unit at 3 AM on your phone.

If your rotation changes every schedule period, do not set up weekly. Book single orders on the days you know you have, and use the "Book again" link in the email you get once your laundry is delivered, which fills in everything from last time so a repeat order takes about thirty seconds.

What it costs a nurse per month

A typical pattern is one two-bag order a week: one bag of scrubs and work layers, one bag of everything else. That is $84.97 a week, or $69.98 the first time when delivery is free, which comes to roughly $340 a month for laundry you never touch. Put that against the hours: two to three hours a week of washing, waiting, drying and folding, on days when you have already given twelve hours to other people. We started this service because that trade seemed obvious to us, and we think it will to you.

Another pattern that works: one bag of scrubs every week and everything else every other week. The delivery fee is per order, not per bag, so combining bags into one order is always cheaper than splitting them. You can change it any week by replying to the email.

Where we go

We cover the neighborhoods around every major hospital in the San Gabriel Valley: Duarte and Monrovia for City of Hope, Pasadena and Altadena for Huntington, Arcadia for Methodist, Baldwin Park for Kaiser, and West Covina for Queen of the Valley, plus 20 more cities. Type your zip on the home page to confirm, then book the day that fits your rotation.