I don’t think it’s just a matter of hessech hadaas from aveilus to do laundry in the 9 days. In order to appreciate and really feel the loss we’ve suffered one has to go around in not completely clean clothes, unshowered, sticky and hot in most parts of the world (yes I know it’s permissible to shower just to remove sweat). That’s just from Rosh Chodesh until 8 Av (this year until Shabbos) Then on Tisha B’Av, when we’re not supposed to be masiach daas from the aveilus until at least chatzos hayom, then we wouldn’t even dream of doing laundry, as if we were sitting shiva for a parent, lo alienu.
The other thing I always think about is the joy I feel when the laundry basket is empty (at least for the next 5 minutes) when I put the last garment into the washing machine and press the button. No it’s not complicated to do laundry anymore like in the old days, but knowing everybody’s got clean clothes to wear the next day is a certain pleasure that we could forget until we have to deal with only having the last things left on the 8th of Av and knowing we can’t start the laundry until the 10th. Depriving ourselves of pleasure in order to feel the loss is also an important aspect of the 9 days.
I was very happy last night when I finished my last load of clothes laundry. Of course more grew overnight, but I made sure in the first load to wash at least 1 complete garment for each child. Now I’ve finished all of the towels, etc.
I figure I have it easy – my downstairs neighbor had a baby yesterday morning (planned C-section), so all she really could do was separate the clothes into bags to organize for her husband. A big job with 6 kids at home, one being a 15 month old baby. I plan on dropping by to ask for a load to pop in my washing machine if their nieces haven’t had a chance to finish everything already.