Laundry Strategy

In my one-bedroom apartment, I do not have a washer and dryer. I do have hookups, but I don't have appliances, and now there's too much stuff in the closet with the hookups, and they wouldn't fit anyway. Going to laundromats is not fun, so over the years I have tried various tactics to reduce my out-of-home laundry time, without drastically increasing my in-home laundry time. I bought a manual counter-top washing thing that suction-cupped to my counter and looked like a plastic propane tank with a hatch and a handle to spin it around. It seemed to manage agitation pretty well; it also managed leaking on my counter pretty well, but when the time came that I wanted the water out, it wasn't so great. Sopping wet clothes are no fun, and I have limited flat or hanging space in my home for wet laundry repository. I tried the microwave, but this was a very high-maintenance deal, and certainly no miracle (by the way, singed areas frequently will come out with the next (machine) wash). I tried putting my clothes in a pillow case and swinging it around in the shower. I am not strong enough to do that effectively with anything more than a pair of socks.

This is a 5-gallon salad spinner. It will dry 6-8 heads of lettuce. It's going on E-bay for about $25 total. I first saw one of these at culinary school, and immediately thought "laundry!" but when I went looking for one to buy myself they were over $100, which is an expensive experiment. Note: you could get an electric one for $400. That's a lot of salad spinning, people.

So how much laundry do you think equates to 6 - 8 heads of lettuce? How about you spinners/dyers out there? How much wool do you think you could spin dry with one of these puppies? Why hasn't anyone tried it yet? I know people have used the little ones, but how about the big ones? What if you have a whole fleece to do? You're not going to do that in a little salad spinner, are you?