A tenenat in my house is complaining that her washing machine is smelly. I asked "What kind of smell, and where is the smell coming from?". She says it's coming from inside the drum; she smells it when she opens the machine's door after doing a wash. It's a kind of moldy smell. Anyone suggest what might be causing it? The washing machine is several years old. I think the make is Indesit.
Thank you..
Jake
Perhaps she doesn't take her washing out of the drum as soon as it's been washed. If it's left to fester even just overnight it can leave a nasty smell.
Mary
Put some bicarbonate of soda in the machine, about two or three table spoons full, and put the machine on a cool wash. Hopefully the smell is only from the machine lying around doing nothing for a while before your tenant moved in. The bicarb' will clear any mould from inside the machine.
A good appliance shop, will be able to sell you some washing machine descaler / cleaner. Read the packet, most say put into dispenser and run on the boil wash
What everyone else said but make sure the filter is clean too. Possibly a go on the rinse cycle with a spot of disinfectant?
-- Malc
Bet she doesn't use hot washes. One of those every now and then tends to help. The other suggestions are good, too, but in the longer term..
Try running the machine through its hottest wash setting empty with only a drip or two of powder.
When ours begins to smell from too many low temp washes this always fixes it.
Tim..
Yes. Google the group. You should find references to the fact that smelly bacteria can accumulate in washing machines after repeated low temperature washes, and that these can be killed off with the occasional wash cycle at the highest temperature setting with the usual amount of detergent but no clothes. Fixed ours.
There could be a build-up of detergnt 'gloop' in the pipe from the soap dispenser to the drum
Also worth checking that the discharge pipe from the machinr is installed so that waste from the sink can not back flow into the machine, this is quite common if poorly installed.They should always loop up above the level of the bottom of the sink waste.
Ours is a Bosch and does produces a horrible eggy smell every now & then. It usually means that the filter needs cleaning out and all the stale water draining out. I leave that job to hubby & have to leave the room when he does it. Boy! Does it stink!
Jo
With continuous low temperature washes and liquid detergent, a tick film of deterergent scum can build up around the inside of the drum, and in the drains.
Last week I opened a drain inspection chamber and found the pipes with a heavy lining of white sticky sludge. I used a pressure washer to get it out of the chamber. I then put in some citric acid into the machine and ran the machine on a hot wash, with no pre-wash and no clothes. Doing this once a year should keep it down. Or use the expensive washing machine cleaners around.
The odd dose of caustic soda directly down the drains every year should sort out much of the white sludge build up. If you rent properties then do this every time a tenant leaves. This keeps the machine clean and the drains clear, no hassle from the tenant, no visits to rectify the problem and then all are happy.
It could be from the machine and/or drain from the machine.
I think it is probably because most people never wash at above 40/60 degrees temperature, so micro-organisms are not killed off. Somewhat like the balck slime from sinks and drain smells.
I told my friend to do an empty wash cycle at maximum temperature(95 degrees?) without detergent or only a little detergent. It worked for her. It killed and washed out the bugs/slime etc, which are unlikely to survive above 60 degrees.
Keith G. Powell
That suggests decomposition of organic material - surely rather unusual in the average wash? They normally smell musty rather than eggy. Sure it's not coming from the house drains? No trap on the machine outlet?
Out Bosch machine used to stink, it used to have a grey-skum around the drum, leave the door shut for a few days and boy I am sure it could move on it's own after that! ;-) We cured it by doing regular hot washes with Bi-carb or Washing machine descaler or bleach, whatever we had handy. We also do the occasional wash with bio-washing powder on a very hot wash, instead of the normal non-bio. The Bio-washing powder really did shift the grey-stinky-stuff!
cheers
Festering swamp inside the folds of the door seal. Scrub it clean, then scrub it again with some hydrogen peroxide (chemists might have it, but I get mine from the farmer's vet shop).
If it's really nasty, replace the door seal. It's not a hard job to do and it's one of the first things to fail on an older machine anyway.
Check the pump grot-trap while you're about it, and stick some caustic down the outlet trap into the drains (flush it away with a few changes of water before you put the machine hose back in).
I once found a mouse in the pump filter....
Laundry bleach is (usually) dilute peroxide. Should be strong enough though.
Two things to do:
1:) Empty the sump by pulling out the drain plug and tilt the machine forward when the sump starts to drip only. Clean the filter thoroughly.2:) Disconnect the drain pipe and either replace it or clean it out. It will be black with mold and this is what pongs! The sump is probably stagnet too and that won't help.
Mark
**REMOVE** 'myhat' from my return email address before sending!!had the same problem years ago, turned out to be a dead mouse which had climbed in the back and got electrocuted! Terrible pong!
That happened in our spare bedroom once. Grandgirls had been staying and I thought they'd left something nasty. The smell went eventually but one day in a fit of housepride I moved the bed and found a dessicated mouse stuck in a small hole next to some live wires feeding a power point. The sheathing must have been chewed through.
Mary
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