APIQUE's on News

Helpless locals send out laundry, dine out in malls

Agnes Winarti , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sat, 10/04/2008 8:08 AM | Headlines

Those offering “laundry by the kilo” services are beaming over the plight of Jakartans inundated with dirty clothes and abandoned by their maids during Lebaran, just as mall restaurants happily draw in families bent on avoiding the kitchen stove.

“Most customers said their domestic workers had gone to their hometowns for the holidays,” Apik Primadya, owner of Apique’s House of Oembah-Oembah in Jatipadang, South Jakarta, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

The House of Oembah-Oembah gets 30 to 40 percent more laundry during the holiday period, mostly from office workers living in rented rooms, university students and housewives.

“We usually get 50 kilograms a day, but lately we’ve been taking in 80,” said 25-year-old Apik, who keeps regular business hours during Lebaran.

Such laundry services, known locally as laundry kiloan, include washing and ironing. They have been mushrooming around the capital in recent years.

“Many people are perfectly willing to get their laundry into the machine. But the next step, ironing, is too daunting a task,” Apik said...

Originally posted on The Jakarta Post (http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/10/04/helpless-locals-send-out-laundry-dine-out-malls.html)