Mold in Front-Load Washing Machines

We bought our new front loading washing machine about 2 years ago. In the past year I have begun to notice a musty odor coming from the machine. I have a strong sense of smell so I am always smelling things that nobody else is smelling so I ignored it. Eventually I begun to notice that the towels in the house also had a musty smell. I thought that maybe they were not fully dry and then when I folded them damp it was creating that smell. We would run the dryer cycle 2 sometimes 3 times and nothing seemed to make the towels smell fresh. Now you can smell the musty smell just by walking into the laundry room.

Imagine my horror when I saw on the news yesterday that these front-loaders appear to have a problem with mold. The woman doing the story was experiencing the same problems we have and she found that there is mold under the rubber around the door of the machine and behind the soap dispenser.

Sure enough, when we checked ours there was mold in all the places she had indicated. How gross is this! I am washing the mold INTO my clothes.

The woman indicated that she wipes the machine down after every wash with bleach and then leaves the door open until it is completely dry. What is the point of a washing machine that requires more cleaning maintenance than the clothes I am trying to wash?

We did all the recommendations and it still smells.

I have been reading more about it today and this is an extremely common problem.

Other suggestions to remove the smell include:

• Dismantle the entire washer and clean the drum regularly
• Cleaning the machine with special cleaners sold at home improvement stores
• Run the washer empty with bleach
• Use only HE detergents
• Use only powder detergents and no liquid fabric softeners
• Run the washer with boiling water and vinegar