The Washing Machine; Keep it Clean! (General Comments / Advice)

Member Name: DarkLady

Product:	General Comments / Advice
Date:	27/09/01 (1631 review reads)
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Lovely clean clothes fresh from the machine! Having washed your dark coloured socks and undies at forty degrees you would be forgiven for thinking that they are as clean as they smell.

Well probably not. Forty degrees is only slightly warmer than blood 36-38 degrees and is a good temperature at which to grow germs.

I recently pinched a pair of my Mum's socks from the drawer (sorry Mum!). My Mum suffers rather badly from foot rot (athlete's foot). She is very careful about sharing towels when she has this itchy condition and would never dream of putting on another person's sock for fear of them catching it and having to spend a fortune on antifungal treatments.

A few days later I was washing my feet and noticed the tell tale scaly red patches appearing between my toes. Fortunately a chiropodist friend of mine immediately gave me some cream which nipped the problem in the bud. Nasty shock though to get something like that from a pair of clean socks.

Tests done on people's washing machines have indeed revealed that, probably due to all the low temperature washing that goes on nowadays, they contain a lot of potentially harmful bacteria. Washing powder is not renowned for its bacteria killing ability. It's not just socks and undies is it? How many people do you know who wash and reuse their floor cloths, possibly in the same load as the dishcloth and the dusters, together with the half a pair of knickers that they wipe the loo with? Imagine all the germs from all those places ending up on your skirts and intimate garments on the next wash.

Many of us have infectious skin diseases like my Mum's foot rot at some time or other. Impetigo is quite common and highly contagious as is ringworm (always popular with cats and children alike). Wouldn't it be awful if your trusted washer became a source of disease?

So if, like me you use a washing machine make sure that you put a hot wash on now an
d then to keep the germs at bay. Don't wash linen which might be infected (eg, clothing and towels if you have a skin comlaint, dirty nappies or soiled dog blankets) along with with the undies of healthy members of the family. Rinsing your machine through with half a cup of bleach and an empty drum will also kill any germs that might be lying around. Don't wash loo cloths, floor cloths and dishrags. Throw them and their germs away and use a fresh one on a weekly basis for dishes and on a single use basis for loos and floors.

Remember, everything is out to get you.

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