Cleaning The Washing Machine

As you already know, we're first time home owners. Even though we've lived in the house a little over a year, I still consider ourselves very new at this whole owning thing. Not only does that include mowing the lawn and taking care of the entire exterior, it also means tending to our appliances. When we first moved in we thought there was something wrong with our dishwasher, it wouldn't turn on. Then we realized there was a light switch that controlled it, who knew. It's little things like that we're still learning as we go.

Our washing machine was one of those learning experiences. After using it regularly for about a year it got a mildewy smell that I couldn't shake. Granted, I consider my nose pretty good at smelling. Soemtimes this becomes almost a bad thing. The laundry room is right off our kitchen near the entrance through the garage. We use that entrance every day so the smell wore on me. I made sure to always leave the door to the machine open after each use and I even left the compartment where I put the soap open hoping the water would dry out nicely. Unfortunately that still didn't do the trick. The tray just inside the door would still sit with water and icky stuff started appearing.

What did I do? Well I searched Pinterest of course. I came up with this website on how to give the washing machine a good cleaning. Then one weekend when I had a little extra time I gave it a try.

In my own words, here is what the directions said:

1. Pour 4 cups of bleach down into the soap compartment and run the washer (empty) on the hottest possible cycle. I warn you this might make the area around the laundry room smell like bleach. We started the washer and took off on some errands and returned to the smell. Not too bad, I could handle it.

2. Pour 4 cups distilled vinegar into the soap compartment and run the washer (again empty) on the hottest possible cycle. This cycle will take care of the bleach smell and your washer is good as new!



I wish I had a good after picture for you. I snapped a few, but the lighting by that time of day was not ideal and it didn't show the huge improvement. You can probably tell that we frequently shop at Wal-Mart by these Great Value brand products. Tip: this is a cheap remedy. Give it a try!