DES MOINES, Iowa — Busy Bubbles Laundry in Des Moines isn’t so busy nowadays. Fewer people are using the coin-operated laundry establishment during the pandemic.
Owner Virgil Hochstetler says they're down about 30 percent in laundry business.
"It causes us a little more work," he added. "Because we are trying to clean behind every customer."
He and his wife Karen also operate Martinizing Dry Cleaning in Ankeny. There, they say business has plummeted 90-95 percent.
"So many people are not going to work, or places they need to wear pressed clothes," Virgil said.
They're taking extra precautions, equipping every staff member with masks and gloves that are worn 100 percent of the time, including when they fold customers' laundry for their contactless drop-off and fold laundry service.
"People are social distancing and we have signage all around the store," Karen said.
That doesn’t change the fact that some people might just not want their clothing in public machines.
So could COVID-19 on someone else’s laundry contaminate your clothes in a machine? We asked a microbiologist from Iowa State University.
Dr. Nancy Boury, who teaches microbiology and genetics, says it's impossible to get the virus from the laundry machine.
"A regular-run washing machine and certainly the dryer is going to kill this virus," Dr. Boury said. "If someone has dirty clothes, they run them through the washing machine, and dryer....especially in a warm and a hot setting, it’s going to heat up to a temperature that the viruses are not going to last long."
Boury says the virus is an "envelope" virus.
"That puts it in the class where it is one of the easiest ones to kill just out in the environment," said Boury.
She added that frequently touched areas at a laundromat, such as the places where you put the coins in, or the door handles, would be more concerning.
"I would not be worried about the inside of the washing machine being infected," said Dr. Boury. "I would be concerned about opening the door of the laundromat on the outside of the door and touching anything else that people have been touching."
Those are the areas Busy Bubbles are constantly sanitizing, which Boury said is an important measure to take.
Either way, Dr. Boury says the safest way to avoid the virus is to simply not touch your face.
"Viruses don’t have any independent means of locomotion," said Boury. "They are hitchhikers...They 'hitchhike' from your hands to your face, especially if you are touching your face. So don't touch your face."
They're now waiting for the moment people have more places to wear those clothes and their now nearly-empty racks will be full once more, but Virgil and Karen remain hopeful.
"We are going to survive one way or another," Virgil said. "It's going to be tough."