Re: Apartment buildings with shared or nonexistent laundry facilities:
There's also the issue of laundry machines requiring special high-voltage power connections, and water feed and drain lines. Not all apartment buildings, particularly older or converted ones, have those, or are owned by landlords able or willing to make the building changes necessary to accommodate them.
I lived in four different apartments in one small town. The first two were converted single-family residences and the rent was cheap; the price for that was no laundry room in the building, let alone my unit. The third building had a room with one shared washer and one shared dryer for five units. Depending on the mix of tenants (which changed a lot) it was easier/less risky to just go a few blocks to a coin laundry. Then I moved to an apartment which had hookups for my own laundry machines. Damn, that was nice.