Dwarves leaving clothes everywhere

[googs_02]

I don't know why but after the patch the other day, suddenly my dwarves are leaving clothes everywhere around the fort. Is there some way to get them to stop or to pick them up?

[HueSatLight]

If you look at the clothes' info, and it says "owned by", then marking them for dumping and having a dump pile for them is how to do it.
If they aren't claimed by anyone, then make a clothes stockpile that takes from anywhere. Check either usable or unusable or both.

Dwarves drop clothes when they upgrade them, when clothes get worn out, or when you assign them a military uniform that's set to "uniform replaces clothes". For the first two, have all your brand news clothes available in one spot for them to pick from, and they'll tend to drop their old clothes there. Always have new clothes there, so they don't wait until their clothes fall apart.
Sometimes they can be doing something that wears their clothes out fast, so you can have a used clothes collection near there. I'm thinking the mine-cart swimming pool thing, but I've never built one, I just know the instructions include used clothes collection.

[Sinclair]

Another thing that might be going on is that your dwarves are lacking chests/cabinets in their rooms. They usually put their spare/damaged clothes in them.

[Dagmar]

If you put cabinets in their rooms, they'll generally store old clothes there.

If they've got cabinets and they're just plopping old clothes down on the ground in random places, they're probably rotting off your dorfs which predictably, dorfs do not like. This is something that generally only happens when they can't find anything in better condition to wear, and means you needed to get your textiles industry up and running yesterday, or at least trade a ton of gewgaws to the humans in exchange for as much cloth and leather as they can bring you (dorfs can't wear human clothing--too big).

..and remember, a "dump zone" really needs a hole in it somewhere, so that dwarfs will walk right up to that hole and toss their dirty old sweatsocks into instead of spreading them out all over the floor just to let the local cat population make a mess of them. Perhaps that dump zone should be above a small room with a lockable door and a clothing stockpile just outside so you can occasionally unforbid the growing pile, which dwarfs will then load into bins in the nearest stockpile, and you can then sell it all off to the next human caravan that comes along (or just atom smash it, or throw it into a deep lava pit if you like angry visitors that think lava is a comfortable and relaxing place to hang out).

If you've installed DFHack, rather a lot of this can administrative work can be handled automatically with `enable tailor` so long as you have the relevant workstations and materials around, and a manager. The tailor mod will make dwarfs automatically dump old clothing and schedule the creation of replacement items (dwarves will already seek out replacement items--this just makes sure new ones are created). You just need to make sure there's a few surplus items to stay ahead of demand and no one's going to lose their minds because their pants rotted off leaving them Donald Ducking it in front of the entire fortress.

Note that "laundry wrangling" is not a dwarven skill tree, and it doesn't really matter what state some clothing is in... if it's been claimed by a dorf and the owner drops it, they're not coming back for it and no one else will touch it because it's not theirs unless you explicitly mark it for dumping. It will remain there as an eyesore forever unless you personally do something about it.

[Baronfuming]

This video is helpful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZujHpPZFwo

Basically, make a 'New Clothes' finished goods stockpile that accepts clothes, and make it so that it doesn't just take anything. Then build clothing workshops and then make them give to your 'New Clothes' stockpile, and then make another 'Used Clothes' finished goods stockpile that accepts for anywhere. This way, new clothes go into your new stockpile, and old clothes gradually get hauled to the old clothes stockpike.

[googs_02]

Thanks all!