Do your clothes smell after washing them?

How long are they sitting in there between the finish of being washed and being put in the dryer?

Are you talking about a mildew type smell? Sometimes my clothes smell a little like that when I take them out of the washing machine, but the smell never comes back after drying them.

Once the smell gets into them, it almost never comes out, and it happens when the clothes sit for too long, even once.

You might be out of luck for the currently smelly clothes.

Mine sometimes get like this, i think its too do with them being damp for too long, if possible, put them in the dryer asap, hope that helps.

Weird, mold shouldn't grow that quickly. It does seem like your water supply is tainted somehow.

That only happens to me if I forget about the clothes and leave them in the washer overnight. To get rid of it we just rewash them and dry.

The problem may have to do with the HE washer. High Efficency means not so great at washing is my guess. I'd assume it's like with most low flow toilets where if you crap you have to use a plunger most of the time.

Have you read any reviews on the washer itself? Also, what brand/model do you have?

I also have the HE front-loading washer, but have never experienced what you're describing. We do, however, always leave the washer door open to prevent mold, which does indeed sound like what you're dealing with.

I'd think that if you did the hot water/bleach cycle without clothes (I believe you said you did) should clean up the problem, and I'm surprised it hasn't, especially on any new clothes you've washed since cleaning the washer.

You may need to use a color-safe bleach on some of your clothes to get the smell out of them, because as jsw mentions, once the smell is in the clothes it may be tough to get rid of it.

You may want to try washing some new clothes in the now-cleaned washer and see if they come back with the same smell. And I would suggest not letting clothes sit in the washer for 2 hours or so, as that will, eventually, contribute to the mold problem.

Big-TDI-Guy said:

No more than 2 hours, tops.

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That's too long. Immediately put them in the dryer after washing.

Frisco said:

That's too long. Immediately put them in the dryer after washing.

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2 hours isn't going to cause noticeable mildew growth.

Same thing happened to me. Turned out some neighborhood kids secretly swapped by liquid tide with urine. Bunch of pranksters. Gotta love 'em though.

When my folks go away I find my clothes smell a bit too, but once they're back and wash my clothes for me it's all business as usual. I definitely put them into the dryer as fast as possible too.

It seems like the wash may not be flushing the water out fully, or quickly enough. I use to have a front load at my old place. I dearly miss it. My cloths never had any bad smell after washing. I also go for neutralizing detergents as I do not like the smell that most of them have. Also this type of detergent may kill off that damp smell from your cloths. I don't know, just a guess.

adk said:

Are you talking about a mildew type smell? Sometimes my clothes smell a little like that when I take them out of the washing machine, but the smell never comes back after drying them.

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yeah thats what happens to me or if I leave the clothes in the waser for like 2or3 days then dry them they have that mildew smell

I don't know if this is going to help any but I used to get the exact same smell on my daughters reusable nappies (diapers). There is a method us reusable nappy users use. It's called stripping (!) but anyway I'll explain. It might be a lot of fuss for you to do it but it may work for you. Worth giving it a try just once though to see if it helps.

OK here I go. Put load in washer as normal, put a teaspoon of washing up liquid (dish soap) in the wash and do quick wash and rinse. Repeat again but with a little vinegar. Then do a final wash with calgon liquid and usual detergent. Don't use fabric softener though as it puts a like waterproof barrier on your clothes which may actually be trapping the smell in your clothes, the same is said for those dryer sheets you are using! We don't use those in cloth diapering because of the film and making the diapers non-absorbent!

I hope that helps and I know your prob thinking woah, what a fuss! But it's worth a try once eh? And if it doesn't work, then you've tried. If it does... great!

::Lisa:: said:

...nappies...

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We got a front loader HE washer just to do our son's nappies and never had to do this ceremony to clean them. Just the normal wash cycle got everything out. Didn't use softener on diapers. If your clothes still stink after washing I think you need to check the rubber seals around the door to eliminate any mold that is there and then transfer the clothes immediately to the dryer as suggested above. Also, use a small scoop of oxyclean in your wash and see if that doesn't get rid of the smell.

I doubt the smell you have is mildew, especially since it comes back as you perspire. More likely, the new washer doesn't get your smelly clothes completely clean. This is a common problem with high efficiency washers since they go overboard with water efficiency to the point that they barely get every part of the clothes wet before the rinse cycle, and then don't use enough water rinsing, either.

Best thing you can do is to either increase the water level, or the number of rinses, or both. If your washer has an "extra rinse" option, definitely use it. If your washer is a truly high end washer that offers a higher water level (sometimes called "water plus"), use that option, too.

If it doesn't offer a higher water level (most washers don't), you can do what I do with every high efficiency front load washer: Simply add about half a gallon to a gallon of water manually to the wash cycle by pouring it into the detergent chamber after the washer has finished filling with water. Again, wait until the washer has finished filling with water, and then pour a gallon of water into the detergent compartment using a pitcher, thusby increasing the water level. This will cause the detergent to be distributed more evenly, and the dirty clothes smell to be washed out completely without smelly residue staying behind that can build up after several washes.

If you want to be even more hard-core, also add water in the rinse cycle, though adding it to the wash cycle is the most important. Again, selecting the "extra rinse" option will also hugely help rinsing the dirt out of your clothes, so make sure you do the extra rinse every time -- have the option selected permanently if possible. Also, make sure to use fabric softener. I would almost bet getting your clothes more water to wash them will take care of your smelly clothes problem completely. If nothing helps, or if you don't want to bother with adding water manually, last resort would be to do a regular cycle with detergent but without fabric softener, and then immediately afterwards run an additional short cycle (on the same clothes) without detergent, but with fabric softener. You can do such a double cycle each time if nothing else helps.

true777 said:

Best thing you can do is to either increase the water level, or the number of rinses, or both.

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Could it be that the loads are just too big? i.e reduce the amount of clothes to effectively increase the water level.

B

Bleach the crap out of the washer to get the mold an mildew out.

ClassicBean said:

Same thing happened to me. Turned out some neighborhood kids secretly swapped by liquid tide with urine. Bunch of pranksters. Gotta love 'em though.

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Ewwww.....How did they have access to your bottle of Tide?

My house in RI is right on the water. It's so damp and there everything just smells. After your clean clothes are there for a day they are damp, smell bad, and just feel dirty. You can't even leave a box of cookies open for more than a day without them being soggy and gross.

Dehumidifiers and A/C helps a little. We're thinking of installing central a/c but its going to be tricky due to the design of the house.

I have a front loader myself. It smells moldy every once in awhile. I run bleach through my washer every so often to get rid of the smell. That usually clears it up for awhile.