Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Cleaning my washer

A friend on AMH posted this link with directions on cleaning your washing machine out. We have had increasingly stinky dipes since moving - like a strong ammonia smell, not just pee-stink. Thought it might be the water, so I've been experimenting with different washing routines, but nothing has helped remove it, and it's getting worse. Graeme woke up with a blister from his diaper this morning :-( So momma decided something drastic needs to happen. I broke down and got some bleach today at the grocery - after cleaning the washer, I am going to run a capful of bleach with all of our diapers - might even do 2 loads so the washer isn't too full - and see what happens. I'm glad the commissary has sposies for $5/40!!! It's funny, but I don't like using them (besides the obvious "green" reasons) b/c Graeme doesn't have hips or a bum, so when he wears sposies, all his pants fall off LOL! He doesn't get that from me, I can tell you ;-)

4 comments:

Laura said...

Poor Graeme...I hope his blister goes away soon. I haven't gotten back into cloth diapers yet since we moved. I like them, but they really are a pain and Hannah is having really awful dirty diapers right now. I think they're harder to deal with when I'm pregnant. I still have a ton of disposables that I got for free from Walgreens...I have myself convinced that that's a good excuse. :)

Katy said...

That stinks, literally! I hope you can get that smell to go away--it makes CDing very difficult to stick with. I'm experimenting with different detergents right now, as the smell has recently developed after a year of no smell. :(

Amanda said...

Well, so far so good. I actually just used bleach insead of the vinegar/baking soda combo (because AFTER I got back from the store I realized I was out of vinegar ACK!) The washer smells much better.
Then I washed all the inserts/fitteds together with about 1/2 cup of bleach, washed again on hot with a bit of detergent and two rinses. Then I washed the covers with just maybe 1/8 cup of bleach with an extra rinse - I didn't want to use as much bleach with them...
Greame's been wearing them all day and they smell back to "normal" - so we'll see over time what happens! See whether he's red at all after sleeping in one overnight.

Teaching by Mom said...

Thanks so much for the link! I am glad to get the info.