Laundry Troubles

Do you use hot or cold water normally?

First see if you can find a lint filter on your washing machine.

If you normally use cold water give your machine a rinse out with extra hot water. do not add detergent. Overfill the machine by allowing the machine to fill to its fullest automatic level. Then add a bucket of hot water, if its a front loader you may be able to add water through the detergent dispensor.

Take care to not add so much water that the machine overflows. It may take 2 or 3 rinses to remove built up sludge.

It may be that your detergent manufacturer has changed the formula.

Could also be that the box of detergent has been sitting opened for a long time and has lost the perfume scent, much like popouri does.


Could also be a build up of skin oils and smells on the fabric of your clothes. Try using bleach or vinegar in the wash water and an unscented detergent. Then go back to the perfumy stuff and see if it smells any nicer for you.


Vinegar will also do the job of rinsing out the sludge on the inside of your wash tub.

Thanks so much for all the suggestions! I normally wash with cold water so I'll try to rinse it out with hot water and see if that does the trick. And now that you mention it, I have heard that vinegar is a good trick to rinse with. If the hot water doesn't work then I'll try that next. But first I'm going to use the new detergent since I have it and have heard how wonderful the laundry smells from it.

Check the salt supply in your water softener.

Maybe you have no salt in there, instead only a pungent pool of stagnant black water which races through your pipes and wreaks havoc wherever it goes.

If that is the case, I will send out the H20MAN signal post haste.