Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with laundry and washing

How do I get the burning rubber smell out of my jeans and t-shirts?

Tesseractive — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 11:09:36 -0800

How do I get the burnt rubber smell out of my laundry? Something went wrong with the dryer(s) in my apartment complex and now almost all my clothes (cotton and cotton/poly blend things) smell offensively like burning rubber. I re-washed and dryed them in the other dryer, but the smell is still there. (Not sure if both dryers have a common smell problem or the smell just didn't go away.)

I will be taking them to a laundromat at the very least. Is this something a dry cleaner can help with? I have never had anything professionally cleaned.

I am very fragrance sensitive, and I use fragrance-free detergent, if that matters.

Narrow, tall or shallow washing machine to fit in a bathroom?

thewalrus — Sun, 27 May 2012 19:24:41 -0800

I am looking for a clothes washing machine to fit into a relatively small apartment's bathroom. The bathroom was not originally intended for the installation of a washing machine, though there is just barely sufficient space, so I'm looking for something that is sort of tall and narrow, or shallower than normal in dimensions, not cube shaped like the typical front loading machine. Several years ago I saw such machines in a Media Markt store in Germany. The machine I'm looking for is shaped sort of like this.. They do not appear to be common in Canada or North America, where people are accustomed to purchasing monstrously sized washing machines. Can anyone recommend a specific model which fits my needs, even if I need to order it from Amazon or another online US-based distributor?

How to restore a silk dress & a wool sweater that have been machine washed and dried?

Kololo — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:58:42 -0800

My lovely boyfriend did me the wonderful favour of doing my laundry for me while i was at work! Unfortunately, that favour included machine washing and drying a 100% silk dress, and a 100% wool sweater. Help! (he also saw the not-so-nice underwear and the spanx, but that's a whole other story.) The silk dress was a smooth, silky navy blue with coordinating fabric straps that no longer coordinate with the now slightly faded slightly pebbly-textured now sort of purplish fabric. Is there any way to fix this? (I know the fading is probably a non-starter, but i'm hoping to at least fix the texture.) This (was) one of those dresses that was flattering, comfortable, sexy, and could be both dressed up and down - a miracle dress, basically. I really hope it can be fixed!

Wool sweater is highly textured (cabled/lace/bobbles), and has slightly shrunk. Anyway to fix that?

Help me not be mad at my boyfriend for doing something that had really nice intentions behind it!

Washing Machine Making Clothes Dirty

Elminster24 — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 09:01:32 -0800

LaundryFilter: Why is there linty crap all over my clothes just from the washer (NOT the dryer)?!?! Let me preface this by saying I haven't changed my laundry habits in 5 years in terms of how I sort my laundry, wash it, etc.

I moved into a new rental apartment with my gf two years ago. Since then, we have noticed that when we wash our laundry, regardless of whether we put it in the dryer or hang it to dry (thus eliminating the dryer as the source of this problem) we get a TON of lint on our clothes. And its a weird type of lint...it is so rubbed into the clothing that it appears the clothes have black stains on them.

A thorough rubbing with a lint roller and rubbing some water in usually take care of it, but this is time consuming. We've been dealing with this silently since we moved in and just sucked it up but the thing that just pushed me over the edge was when I washed my off-white hoody and it came out an entire shade darker with patches of even darker areas that is all lint and I have no idea how to get it clean now--I'll probably have to hand wash it in the sink.

Neither of us have ever had this issue with a washing machine in places we've lived before and I'm wondering if there is some sort of lint trap equivelant in the washer that needs to be cleaned or something to prevent all this shit from ending up on our clothes.

It is frustrating as hell, especially since we both have a ton of hang dry delicates that end up looking nasty after we wash them.

FWIW we usually wash our stuff in cold water delicate cycle with Woolite.

The machines are shared by several other units if that makes any difference but in my old building that had many times more tenants using the machines, I NEVER had anything like this occur.

I would talk to our land lord about it but he is somewhat stubborn and hard to deal with and so I'd like to at least come to him with some suggestions/thoughts on the matter rather than just saying "its dirty, fix it" because he will likely tell me it is something with the way I'm doing my laundry as he assumes that whenever there is a problem its because the tenant doesn't know what they are doing.

Laundry should smell nicer after it's washed.

theora55 — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 13:23:35 -0800

My front-loading washing machine smells bad, and makes my clothes smell bad. It smells mildew-y or like a sour dishcloth, and has imparted sour dishcloth smell to my favorite black (i.e., can't be bleached) pants. To make it smell less bad, I have to run a load with bleach and hot water, then leave the door open. But the door is kind of in the way when open, and I don't always have a load that needs bleach, which is also not great for the environment. I've tried leaving dirty-but-dry towels in the washer to absorb moisture, but it's not always successful. Leaving the door unlatched, but sort of closed doesn't do it. If I leave stuff in the washer for a few hours after they're done, I have to re-wash them, which makes the water-saving feature of the high efficiency washer useless.

My clothes will thank you.

beandip — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 10:29:08 -0800

I am clueless in the laundry room. I know nothing about stain removal and very little about sorting, what settings to use on my washer, what needs to air-dry, how to prevent things from shrinking, etc. Teach me how to do laundry like a grownup! I am embarrassed to admit this, but when I was growing up, my mom did all the laundry for the household. In college, I would throw all my clothes in the wash together in one giant load once a week. Things would turn grey over time but at least it all got clean. If something got a noticeable stain on it, I would generally throw it out. When my bras got ratty and worn-out after a year or so of frequent use, I would go get new ones. I have lost a lot of cute clothes to shrinkage as well.

But now, I am an adult with an office job that requires nicer clothes. I can't afford to throw out a shirt just because I spill my lunch on it or splatter something on it while I'm cooking supper. I have a house with a laundry room in the basement, a washer and dryer all my own, and an enormous concrete laundry tub. I want to take the time to learn to wash things right.

So... I have a lot of questions. How should I sort - whites/lights and darks/jeans? Should I be throwing some bleach in with the whites? What gets washed on hot and what gets washed on cold? Should I be washing my bras all by themselves and hanging them up to dry? How do I prevent shrinking of new clothes? I know you are supposed to treat stains differently depending on what causes them, but I honestly have no idea what to do beyond rinsing, rubbing some extra soap on, and hoping for the best.

I feel like most of this is common sense stuff that I just never picked up on. Please help!

How to remove restaurant smells from clothing?

schroedinger — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:30:58 -0800

How do I remove awful, greasy restaurant smells from my clothing? I work eight hours a day at a small, enclosed cafe. I come home smelling of this particular mixture of grease and cafe food (not in a delicious way). It comes off of me in the shower--but after eight months of this the smell seems to be inexorably attached to my clothing. How do I get rid of it? Things I have tried:
- Washing with very hot water and lots of soap
- Baking soda
- Dryer sheets
- Hanging them out to dry in the sun

I pay for laundry, so I am loathe to try out multiple washings every time the clothing needs to be washed. The clothing is colored, so I can't use bleach. Also, I'm allergic to Tide laundry detergent, if that makes any difference.

communal apartment laundries...making you hate laundry even more since 2008

sararah — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:34:19 -0800

The communal washing machines in my apartment building are worthless. They don't remove any sort of stain or spill, regardless of solubility or severity. When I remove the wet clothes from the washer, nasty stripes and splotches of lint cover my clothes (especially obvious on darks). Is there a specific complaint I can make to my landlord, or should I just give up and go to a laundromat? I can't believe I have to pay $1 per wash for these totally worthless machines. I use liquid Tide Coldwater (and wash in cold, always) and currently it is the "old" Tide that is not super concentrated, so I would say I use about 1/3-1/2 cup per wash. I try not to overload the washers, and I usually fill the tub partially before loading. Based on the results below, is there a specific complaint I can make to my landlord? I don't just want to call and say "the washers suck, fix them..." I feel my unresponsive property management might be a little more on the ball if they knew what the problem was. (And no, I don't think I'll be trying to do all my laundry in the bathtub)

Some examples of the laundry awesomeness:

-Just last the other night I attempted to wash a pair of khaki pants with small splotches of whipping cream on them. I poured a little detergent on them and rubbed the pants together near the spots in an attempt to pre-treat...not only did the spots not come out completely, today in the sunshine I noticed a huge spot that was lighter in color where the detergent did not completely rinse out.

-My mom tossed a few of my clothes in the wash when I was home visiting, and had to wash them twice because they had so much soap residue left in them.

-I pretreated a stain with some Stain Stick (the deodorant-like gelly stuff) and the frickin' Stain Stick didn't even wash out. I had to rinse out the garment in the sink.

-Since I line dry ~3/4 of my clothes the white lint crap stays stuck to my shirt and is especially nasty on dark shirts.

-Stupid crazy bizatches that live downstairs complain when I remove their laundry because they left the washer unattended for an hour while they had an "important phone call" and felt the need to be all dramatic and scream and me about it and proceed to re-wash their husband's clothes. (Well, that's probably out of the scope of this question, but it just adds to my LAUNDRY ANGST)

Needless to say, I was quite depressed this weekend when visiting a married friend's new house and seeing her brand spankin' new LG front loading machines....forget the yard, I just want a washer that works!!

Get my whites back to whiter than white!

badlydubbedboy — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 07:25:20 -0800

A treasured white T-shirt (with logo) has gone from bright white to dull blue thanks to an errant blue T-shirt... We've tried using Rescue It, but that has merely mutated the dull blue into a dull grey.

Do you have any ideas how to rescue my T-shirt? :)

(PS: I'm in the UK so references to most US cleaning products are alas useless to me!)

Fading clothes mystery

traderjoefan — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:45:02 -0800

Why are my darks fading? Is it the washer, dryer, temperature, detergent??? Since we moved and got a new washer dryer, all my clothes are fading and getting beat up quickly. The darks are fading so fast, especially reds and blacks, that new clothes look old in 5 or so washings.

Any ideas?

Can I hand wash 'dry clean only' wool pants?

naomi — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 10:57:57 -0800

I've got several pairs of lightweight wool dress pants from Ann Taylor. They are marked dry clean only. Suppose I hand-wash these pants in cold water and lay them flat on a towel to air-dry. Will the laundry gods punish my impudence?