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

djdymond

sorry to sound dumb ....

so your saying, put bleach in the drawer, put it on its hottest setting, and just let it do its thing... with NO CLOTHES in it! a wash of the machine only? sorry, i have this mad vision ill put bleach in it and with no clothes in it, itll blow up!

i have no back garden to dry clothes, OR a tumble dryer! i did think we were washing too many things at once. and we dont have our heaters on very often as were trying to save money that way!! so this "put on a wash with no clothes" sounds promising!!

thanks!

mouseymousey99

Do you have space for a clothes horse? maybe getting too cramped on the radiators?? I use my horse at night (as we are in tiny house) & usually dry(ish) in the morning. I have washer/dryer but think the dryer eats electricity.

janb5

Personally I wouldnt use bleach as it might rot the rubber around the seal. There is another post - sorry I`m no good at links- re How clean is your house where they suggested running a hot wash with washing soda and a separate wash cycle with vinegar.

I have definitely found that reducing the amount of heavy washing such as jeans/towels etc makes the wash better even tho` it is tempting to try and overfill the machine.

mcbiddy

the smell comes from bacteria growth. the way to stop it is to dry as quickly as possible but the problem is that heat actually speeds up the spread of bacteria, so ideally you should try and dry your clothes in cold dry air. alternatively (because it does take ages to dry clothes (especially heavy ones) in the cold, you should wring out most of the water before drying (fast spin cycle) and then put them on clothes horses rather than the radiator which will help in two ways: (i) cut down hour heating bills and (ii) slow down the spreading of bacteria

madfrenchgirl

well we do have a clothes horse but this not our place, so no spare room to put the clothes horse anywhere else than int he kitchen that is the coldest and draftiest part of the house...

hopefully.,it'll get better once we move in our house

sonastin

OK, I did some searching but most of the stuff I could find was about sweat smells and our problem is slightly different...

OH and I moved in together about a year ago. Over the winter, we struggled to get laundry dry - not enough space in the house, weather outside was rubbish, etc. We had stuff over airers and a dehumidifier going pretty much constantly but sometimes clothes developed that sort of festering-mouldy-wet-dog smell that clothes can get if they are left wet for too long. Ended up putting stuff back in the wash.

Now we've got better weather, a washing line outside to dry on and a tumble dryer for occasional use when stuff's not quite dry. And yet some of OH's t-shirts are still developing that wet-dog smell even though everything is completely dried as soon as the wash load is finished and aired on the line whenever the weather permits.

I've tried everything I can think of...
30deg and 40deg washes
no fabric softener, fabric softener, vinegar instead of fabric softener
different wash liquids, different amounts of wash liquids
running the machine empty at high temp every now and again to clear the pipes in case it comes from the machine

The only thing I haven't tried yet is powder rather than laundry liquid - I stopped using powder because it left white streaks but OH always used it before we moved in together. Could that be the problem?

Other than that, does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for a) what might be causing it and/or b) what I can do to stop it?

At the moment I'd say 50% of his t-shirts go straight back into the laundry basket without being worn. Needless to say, he's sick of it and I'm sick of being accused of doing something wrong, even though I am doing the washing exactly as I have always done it. (and he did the laundry yesterday and put 3 t-shirts back in the wash so it ain't just me!)

TIA

Pink.

Hi sonastin,

You aren't the only one to have had this problem...see here

I think the problem could be with your machine which may need cleaning. This thread should help:

Cleaning a washing machine

Pink

hannahsmamma

I've had this trouble with T-shirts too, they 'hold onto' that fusty smell. I put them all back in the wash, usual washing detergent liquid and added one capful of 'zoflora' disinfectant in the fabric softener draw ( don't add fabric softener ) and did normal 40* wash -result, no fusty smells. Hang over clothes horse to dry. Look uo zoflora on t'interweb, I found this tip there but don't know if still being published. I seem to remember something about it being flammable if not properly diluted.

Rainy-Days

To be honest if you are using anything non biological that can add to your wash problems. There is a big difference with bio and non bio (whether powder, liquid, tablets etc) as the biological has bleach added to it.

After you have finsihed using your machine leave the door to the drum wide open for at least half a day. This will dry the machine drum and parts and cut down on mould and mildew forming.

You need to be sterilising your machine at least every 2 months (every month in hard water areas such as the Home counties) using both vinegar and washing soda crystals.

You can also try adding a small amount of Milton fluid (providing your T shirts are white or colourfast) to the wash. Personally myself I would stick with something like ariel or persil biological powder. Make sure your filter is also cleaned out regularly as well to prevent build up.

Despite what they say running a wash on 20 degrees is sometimes just not good enough and to be consistent you need to do 40 and 60 degree washes to keep bacteria growth and dust mites down!

electrobix99

Do you use Tesco Non Bio gel by any chance? I had really smelly washing with that on two machines.

I just got a new washing machine but switched to Fairy powder since it was on offer so not sure which fixed it.