Crazy Stain Fighting Mom

  Yeah, that would be me. I can't STAND stains on my clothes. I have been like this my ENTIRE life. When I was 11, I was watching a friend's baby sister while they were outside doing chores. She had chocolate pudding before I got there. As soon as I could, I stripped her down to her diaper and soaked her jumper in cold water. And the pudding stains came out. Its like this anti-stainness has been bred into me or something. With having a husband that works on diry, greasy things, this has not helped my need for stain control.

I've researched how to get formula stains out, grease stains, food stains, and there has only been ONE time in my existence of being a mom that I have ever thrown a piece of clothing away because there was NO way in heck I was washing THAT out of the clothing.

Which leads me to my current stain battle. The dryer in our new rental is leaving lovely brown marks on my clothes *insert a scream here*. Maternity clothes, sheets, even my husbands underwear. These stains do not discriminate! So after a frustrating weekend of not being able to get a hold of the landlords (do they not realize that laundry is important?), of trying to figure out what is causing the staining (I wish it was as easy as a brown crayon), and of spending 15 mins researching on the internet, I have *hopefully* found the solution!

In the lower left hand corner you will see the brown streaks

They are friction burns. The clothes get caught between the seal and put a mark on them. We will be replacing this seal as soon as its NOT a holiday weekend. Until then, my clothes are soaking in the bathtub, in cold water, with a splash of oxy-clean.

I used one of these

to scrub out the stain while it was still soaking. That way if it didn't all come out, I just threw it back in the tub to soak.  Also a smaller load of laundry seemed to help, as I had an entire load NOT have a stinking stain on it!

 

Clothes scrubbed clean and waiting to be re-washed

Come to find out, the heating element is also going out (my clothes where almost dry after 10 mins on the low setting). In the mean time (until we can afford a new dryer) this is how we will be drying our clothes. 

Ghetto clothes line, but it works!

There is a bright spot! I did manage to get the stain out of all of the clothes, so long as they did NOT go back in the dryer.