clothes and nice smell?

oceansize

dont know if this is the right place for this but here goes. I live in an apartment building and i have no balcony.. The drier on the washing machine is crap. Anytime i wash my clothes in the machine i dry them on the clothes horse by the window. Once theyre dry however there always seems to be a kind of horrible musty smell from them when i put them on. I use those scented liquid capsule things that you put in with the wash. And idea what i can do to improve this. Sounds stupid right? Lol

cee_jay

There is a scented ironing water you can get - think its made by Comfort. Use it in your iron instead of normal water, it leaves your clothes smelling lovely.

The Agogo

that wet towel smell?

It's because you've given time for bacteria to produce them (mostly because of the moisture). It's too cold in Ireland to keep wet clothes indoors, even beside a window.

Afraid you'll have to buy a new drier. Otherwise, dry them in your current drier to get most of the water content out

Novella

Are you leaving the clothes in the machine for a few hours after the cycle finishes by any chance? 'Cause that generally happens when the clothes are left sitting in a damp pile in a confined space for an amount of time.

Other than that, I dunno. I live in an apartment without a balcony too and I dry my clothes on a clothes horse but they always smell fine. I do take 'em outta the washing machine as soon as it finishes though.

tfak85

try giving them a couple of extra spins in the machine before taking them out...

also, i've heard that if you use liquid in your machine for too long it can make it smell strange, perhaps try changing to powder detergent for a while...

Cadiz

Ocean as other posters said it's caused by clothes not getting a chance to try fast enough.

There's a type of clothes horse that heats up like a radiator to try clothes, but it is supposed to use the same electricity of as a lightbulb ie cheap to use. Maybe that would work for you?

Even if you got a separate dryer (why are those washer dryer ones in appartments always sooo crap?) a lot of clothes, especially women's clothes (don't know your gender) aren't suitable for a dryer anyway.

I've seen this clothes horse thing on the Irish Times and Irish Independent offers webpages and on Ebay, price approx €70, so steep enough. I don't know if it is any good or not - haven't used or heard of anyone else with one.

Happy Monday

Why not use radiators?

ha-ya-said-what

It may not be that your drying them on the clothes horse, I dry all the delicate things on a clothes horse here, due to the weather and they could be on it for days.

I used to have the same problem as you. What was causing it was that the washing machine was dirty from washing workwear all the time and wasn't allowing the dirty water and dirt to get fully washed out/ drained out of the machine. Plus you could have a limescale build up aswell.

Anytime that funky smell comes back I pop in to lidl get a bottle of W5 limescale remover, inside the washing machine door on the rubber there is holes, get a knitting needle and poke it into them to clear them, then squeeze some of the limescale remover into them, clean all around the rubber with some of the limescale remover on a j-cloth and also clean the filter in the machine. Leave the limescale to soak in for a bit (even if your stuck you can use the harpic in the black bottle). You can fire in an old towel then later with bleach to make sure you get all the dirt out of the machine & set it on extra rinses at a 90 degree. Should clear anything that's in the machine out. If it works after that just use come calgon ever so often then.

Even if the machine appears noiser like the bearings are going it could just be that it needs a good clean like that.

Wantobe

Agree with other posters- common causes of nasty smelling, just washed clothes-

- Wrong temp cycle. Towels should be washed at a min of 60 degrees, preferably boil wash, same for bed linen, tea towels etc. Whites and other non-run light colours that are not delicate on 60, darks if non-run and heavy staining I would put on 60 but if normal staining 40. Delicates on 30.

- Overloading the machine- you don't need to pack it in!

- Leaving the items in the machine for too long after washing.

- Wrong detergent- I was using liquid capsules from Aldi for a while but they were rubbish- didn't clean the clothes properly and the smell wasnt great. Now I'm back to persil/fairy- more expensive, but worth it.

-Make sure you empty the filters and clean around the rubber seal of the machine often.

God I hate that wet towel smell.

ha-ya-said-what

Wantobe wrote: »

- Wrong detergent- I was using liquid capsules from Aldi for a while but they were rubbish- didn't clean the clothes properly and the smell wasnt great. Now I'm back to persil/fairy- more expensive, but worth it.

Persil or Fairy isn't expensive you can pick the 90 wash boxes of Persil or Bold up in Supervalu or Dunnes ever so often for €16-€19 a box, sometimes you can even get the 50 was boxes for €8, Fairy the same they come in on special all the time.

By the way OP the Bold Lavendar 2in1 leaves a lovely smell on the clothes and holds out well when your drying them on a clothes horse, by the time they are dries it has died down on them so you don't smell like a walking launderette

Tawny

Couple of suggestions. Make sure the window is open as much as possible when clothes are drying, keep the room warm, use fabric softener in the wash and do hang up clothes as soon as wash finished.

Another good idea is getting a dehumidifer and putting the washing in the smallest room you have. Put the dehumidifer near the washing and it really reduces drying time. (Don't keep the window open if you have dehumidifer on.)

I don't think you need a new drier, and doubt that you need to wash things at a particularly high temperature. 40 should do for most things, unless seriously stained. It should only be for the coldest couple of months too, the rest of the year it should be okay if you keep the place well ventilated.

Pythia

I find you need to put things at or by the radiator to 'air dry'.