A Dunedin trio want to "end dampness” in the city's student quarter and have opened their own laundromat to do it.
Adam Beck said he and his best mate, Tom Offen, had floated a lot of small business ideas together over the years.
The pair had lived in the North Dunedin area back when they were students.
"We can still remember how incredibly difficult it was to dry stuff in your flat, especially in winter,” Mr Beck said.
They opened Lightning Laundromats, in St David St, about a week and a-half ago, and have already had students ferrying up to 10 rubbish bag-sized loads of washing in and out.
"We want to end dampness in Studentville.
"Being able to dry people's clothes, we can do our small part in that.”
The prospect of opening their own laundromat came up about two years ago, Mr Beck said.
Mr Offen often needed to use a laundromat while he was having renovations done and was astounded at how quick the process was.
It also felt like Dunedin could do with more laundromats. The city had far fewer compared to places such as Auckland.
Mr Offen’s wife, Anna Robinson, was also supportive of their business idea and joined them — she was the one who came up with the name.
It was initially tricky to find a building suited for a laundromat.
Once they found the one in St David St, they realised it would be great for students, Mr Beck said.
"We had a number of girls on the second day — they came in on the Friday night with a tonne of trash bags full of washing.
"They were there initially with about six, but then in and out over the entire weekend, they'd have done at least 10 bags worth.”
The laundromat had 10 washing machines and 14 dryers.
They were anticipating some people would choose to wash everything all at once, or bring their already wet washing in to dry.
Mr Beck said while there was one other laundry service in North Dunedin, he believed there was room for both of them.
‘‘We have found students will walk here from wherever they are, so that’s been interesting."
It was not just students using the laundromat — a pensioner had saved up all of his washing and did $50 worth at once.
Students were known to be frugal and a laundromat had initially seemed like a bit of a luxury for them, Mr Beck said.
"It's really depressing trying to dry your duvets and clothes on a clothes horse in your bedroom.
"We just figured, well, it’s Dunedin, we reckon we’ll get a big uptick from people just wanting to get their drying done and out of the way.”
