Clothes smelling of wet dog after washing and drying...

madfrenchgirl

Hi oldstylers!

We have been cleaning our clothes in our friend's WM. I need to point out there is no dog or pets in his house, and it does not happen all the time, but our clothes smell like wet dog once they are dry. Do you have any solution/explanation for us? It is not very economical nor environmentally-friendly to rewash our clothes if they smell.

Any advice is welcome and thx in advance.

Thriftylady

This might be really obvious, and apologies if you've already thought of this yourself, but is it possible that the clothes haven't been taken out of the machine as soon as the wash is done? If they have sat in the machine overnight or something, maybe thats whats causing them to smell?

The other thing that springs to mind is, have the clothes been ironed? Does the ironing board smell fresh? I had a problem a few months back where after I had ironed my clothes they didn't smell great. It turned out that the iron had leaked onto the ironing board cover and every time I used the iron the smell transferred onto my clothes. A new ironing board cover sorted it out...

Murray

We also have the same problem. I've been told that its because the clothes arent drying quick enough but I'm drying them on hot radiators - dont know how to do it any quicker without resorting to the tumble dryer! They smell fine when they come out of the machine but it gets much worse when the clothes are warm like when I'm ironing them or when they are being worn.

madfrenchgirl

yup i dot take everything out straight away and put it up within one hour.. we dont iron though and the WM compartment is nice and clean

unfortunately we do not have a tumble drier, just an airing cupboard, been using it, but cant put everything in there either.

Oh pain... nice to know I am not the only one with this embarrassing problem...

oakdale_minx

I thought I could smell the smell on a clean jumper last week. I'd washed it but it had taken days to dry and had that funny smell.

iceicebaby

Hiya all.

In my experience its normally caused by clothes taking too long to dry to be honest.

whatatwit

iceicebaby wrote:

In my experience its normally caused by clothes taking too long to dry to be honest.

Have to agree with this.
I find that if I fold the clothes on my maiden, they can smell a bit when worn.

Maybe there is too much in the machine?

apprentice_tycoon

I'd say that there are too many items in the machine, there isn't enough water to clean and rinse them thoroughly so they don't really get clean.

madfrenchgirl

thx guys! might just be that after all, dumb me! lol

the_optimist

apprentice_tycoon wrote:

I'd say that there are too many items in the machine, there isn't enough water to clean and rinse them thoroughly so they don't really get clean.

That might not neccessarily be the problem. I put the same amount of clothing in my machine in summer and in winter. My summer clothes smell nice but in winter I get smelly clothes, mainly the jumpers and jeans. As another poster said, they smell nice when they come out of the machine but when dry they stink :mad:

lofty_cherrytree

I used to get this problem, but since I've reduced the amount of washing powder I use and add soda crystals to my wash it is much better. I also found cleaning the machine with bio powder run empty on the hottest wash followed by a vinegar rinse (add to the conditioner section) really helped. Take the drawer out first and clean it - it gets black and bacteria can build up there also. regularly turn the items you are drying to speed up the process.