Gunk In Washing Machine Drawer: Results

[[news]]

sample taken, grown up in the lab, inspected by 2 mocrobiologists

it's called Cladosporium (genus) herberum (species)(possibly)

fabric softener was free from infection, the fungus probably got in there from the air, blown in the window/door and found a nice place to live.

harmless unless breathed in.

more worrying was the discovery of gram negative rods, a bacteria which is probably pseudomonas species, a common water bourne organism, which could possibly cause eye irritations.

upshot: wash yer drawers !

hth

RT

[r.p.mcmurphy]

I shall continue to wash my drawers when its to dirty to function correctly. Thanks for the info though.

Steve

[brugnospamsia]

Mine got too clogged with user-unfriendly Ecover powder to use so I started chucking the powder in the drum. I've just noticed the drawer has now cleared itself and is available for use again :-)

I was blaming the occaisional reek of ammonia when I arrived at work after my 30 minute cycle ride (even after a bath, wearing a clean tee shirt) ... on the after effects of a kidney infection I had a couple of years ago- but research told me that it had to be bacterial byproducts left in my clothes. Since this problem coincidentally appears now to have stopped, maybe it was partly due to my soap drawer ..... mind you I've also switched to cheap generic Tesco biological powder.

I wear only black / grey cotton and wash everything at 40 degrees.

I have always attributed my good health to my lack of hygiene - if I hadn't been a vegan for 20 years I'd probably have poisoned myself by now - though I've been eating fish too for the past couple of years and ignored Quentin Crisp's principle of culinary hygiene (washing the plates when they've had fish on them) ... and in any case cooked rice is generally regarded as the real hazard and I never throw it away until it's actually moving by itself ;-)

Jeremy

just woken up and feeling queazy after dreaming about eating live conch (shellfish) - that Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has a lot to answer for ....

[Jethro]

I read a quote from a Microbiologist once that said all you get if you wash things at 40C is cleaner bugs ...

[manatbandq]

Clean enough to be healthy, dirty enough to be happy.

MBQ

[brugnospamsia]

It has to be an improvement over my old method of stewing my clothes in used bath water and letting self-same bacteria munch away ;-)

[Nick Atty]

Pseudomonas lives in, or on, *everything*.

[Sue]

In message , [e-mail] writes

You haven't got a lack of hygeine unless you've bought a house with Flotex on the kitchen floor. I'd replace it with vinyl but I don't want to touch it!...