My rule is five minutes. The washers and dryers in my building have timers. The washer is a 31 minute cycle and the dryer is 42 minutes. If the previous user isn't back and I need the dryer, I pull their stuff out and pile it on the dryer. There are 4 washers and 4 dryers for 48 apartments.

My pet peeve is people who arbitrarily take over the laundry room by putting their hamper in front of the washing machine and their detergent, bleach and quarters on top of it, doing load after load. I've ticked some people off by taking their clean wet clothes out of the washing machine, putting them on top of the dryer and starting my wash. Sorry... it's a common laundry room. You left your wet load in there after it finished and I need to get in there, so I moved yours. There's a clock over the dryer so I keep track of my times and I expect my neighbors to do the same. But I've had the same thing happen as Nomilynn- I've taken another person's stuff out and found it still in the laundry room hours later.

Edited to add: This thread made me think of this post about Freedom's laundry room supervisors:
Quote Originally Posted by Freedom View Post
Since the cat litter boxes are down cellar, I go down each night to scoop. Tasha comes down with me, to "supervise." This is the scene at the top of the stairs:


That's Darlin' Marlin on the left, and foster Willy on the right.


Marlin is whining the whole time I am down there.


This also happens when I am doing laundry, as the washing machine and dryer are down there too. Marlin HAS been down there, he KNOWS there is no way for me to get out! Doesn't matter. I had to stop him coming down, though. He has such bad hips, and the stairs are open back. Last time he was going up, his hips gave out and he was slipping through the stair; lucky for him I was right behind him and was able to grab him.