What is your worst laundry disaster?

I bought a chenille (velvet texture) blanket to take out of town for a romantic weekend, wanted to wash any store smell out of it but it turned into disaster of fuzz and fluff shedding everywhere. The poor man probably cursed my name for months trying to clean all the crap up.

Where to begin? the constant redying of my and my roommate’s clothes with a red blouse that kept creeping in the bag? (although she did the same with something blue of hers.) The shrinking of my daughter’s favorite dress that couldn’t be laundered (they seem to have really meant it!).

I have always been terrible at laundry.

I got a fuzzy, soft red robe for Xmas, and wore it all over the apartment and all over my grandma’s house. I was sitting next to my aunt, and when she stood up the side touching me was covered in red lint. COVERED. Then I realized I was shedding HUGE amounts of linty fuzz everywhere.

I washed it to get rid of the lint, and the buildup of lint nearly ruined our washing machine.

Softest, warmest, most comfortable robe I’ve ever had, but was practically a biohazard. It never stopped shedding!!

My first domestic trial run with an (ex) boyfriend- I shrank his wool sweater. It was his cool emo lead singer of a local band sweater with a hole in the elbow. The relationship did not end well.

The fact that I let it pile up until I have so much laundry that I need to do multiple loads is disastrous enough.

black clothing and residual bleach.

I ruined an entire load of clothes when I left a pen in a pair of pants. The worst part is that there was ink on the ass of a pair of pants I wore to a job interview that day. I only realized it after the fact but I ended up getting the job which enabled me to buy new clothes.

My husband ruined a quilt made by my great-great grandmother. He washed it, with two red shirts. He didn’t know they were mixed in, not really sure how they got in there – but needless to say it was a hideous color (pinkish) by the time it was finished.

@Allie You stole my answer! :P It’s absolutely incredible how much laundry a family of five generates. And, I think dirty laundry breeds at the bottom of the hamper.

The biggest laundry disaster I ever had was the first time I did a load of laundry in our first home. We hadn’t even moved in yet, but while unpacking kitchen things I decided to run the dishwasher to get some packing dust off the dishes. The dishwaser flooded the kitchen floor. Luckily, I had some towels handy to sop up the mess. I went down to the basement to wash the towels. When I went downstairs again to put the towels in the dryer, I saw that the washing mashine had flooded the basement. This is how we learned that home inspectors don’t inspect appliances.

I have two and I can’t decide which is worse.

1. First week away from home at college. I went down to the laundry room and did a load of clothes. I hadn’t dirtied a lot, so I did it all in one load except some red things. So I thought. A red shirt got tossed in by mistake and my ENTIRE wardrobe was very, very pink. I was so upset. Thankfully, my mom (who was 2000 miles away) said she thought there was something I could get at the store. I walked all the way over there and got some tube of stuff – IT WORKED. I was so relieved.

2. After I had dropped out of school, I was engaged to this guy who still lived at home with his parents. We were the only two there and I had brought the laundry from my apartment to do there (his mom was very nice). He had to go to his grandma’s to look at her refrigerator while I tossed the bath mat in the washer. First time it was washed. The washer overflowed because the bright green fuzz/fur from the mat had clogged all of the holes in the tub of the machine. I was so embarrassed. Didn’t know how to fix it, he couldn’t come home, and I was terrified his parents were going to get home first.

@3or4monsters I must have that robe in blanket form! It was sooo sort, but got red fuzzies all.over.everything. I think it took months to get rid of the fuzzies. So awful for the washer and dryer.

My husband has shrunk almost all of my clothes. Ruins them completely. My clothes just can’t go in the dryer and if they do it has to be on the lowest heat.

One time, I had relations with a man at my friends house, I wanted to be nice and wash the sheets for her…it was in a dark basement, so I wasn’t paying much attention. I get them out of the wash to put in the dryer…I apparently used bleach on her lovely purple sheets :( I felt awful.

When I first started dating the boy, I decided to be nice and wash his clothes for him. What I didn’t know was that his washer was weird and this bleach stuff has to be added to the whites load.

He now has a lovely collection of pink underwear.

I washed a really nice pair of white slacks with bleach in the water to get out a stain….so I thought. When I took them out of the washer, the bleach had eaten up the thread they were sewn together with and the slacks were in pieces…just like they were before they were sewn together!

@Supacase : What’s the stuff you got at the store?!?!? I need to know!

When I was in college, I had a small, dark, dark red scarf. More like a kerchief really. Anyway, you know this story. Thought I got it out, accidentally put it in, bam! unevenly dyed pink clothing.

@ubersiren I can’t remember! It came in a white tube about the size of a tube of toothpaste and you had to use the whole tube for one load. I found it in the laundry section of the drugstore. Packaging has probably changed, though – that was 1992! You might try Rit Color Remover and I’ve also heard white vinegar can help. Good luck! If I see the product next time I go to the store, I will let you know.

one of my kids left a crayon in their pants pocket and it turned all the whites and the inside of the dryer green. i was p.o.

I guess my worst was when I turned all of my husband’s underwear pink. However, the good side was that I knew he really loved me by his reaction.

And somehow, even though I check and check again, my son always seems to leave something in his pocket that melts or dissolves and colors the inside of the drier and my daughter’s only strapless bra some odd color.

I mistook the incinerator for the washer. All my clothes came out the same color and texture.

this isn’t my story, but i must tell it. not to be braggy, but it totally outdoes any other laundry story i’ve ever heard (and it’s so tragic!).

my friend was sorting through the laundry, which she was doing for the entire family – her mom, her dad, herself, her brother, and her sister; so it’s quite a load – and she makes piles on the floor. she has 2 ferrets in the room in which the laundry machine and dryer are located (it’s not a laundry room, really, just a bedroom they use for random things like that). anyway, when they’re home they often let the ferrets run around, and one of the ferrets must have burrowed into one of the piles she’d already sorted through. she just scooped up the mountain of clothes and put them in the wash, and when she returned to take them out, she realized that her ferret was in there too. needless to say, it died.

isn’t that horrible? like to realize that you killed your ferret. in the washer. oh god. i think it’s so sad, she cried for like a week every time she saw her other (living) ferret. i have to admit i laughed when she first told me, because she told me via a text (“i killed my ferret.” how? “i put it in the washing machine! )))):”) but then i was pretty devastated…

I washed my sons school uniforms without checking the pockets. When I took the stuff out of the dryer there was melted green crayon all over his uniforms. It kinda made me sick to my stomach. Those uniforms aren’t cheap!

Also, I washed my sons Christmas mp3 player in his pants once. It dried out and would play music but the display never worked again. So I got him a new mp3 player for Valentine’s Day and washed that sumbitch too… notice a pattern of not checking pockets?

@tiffyandthewall I have a friend that accidentally killed her cat via dryer death. So sad. :(

My ex-husband once washed 2 brand new bright green towels with a pair of light tan dress pants. He is colorblind, so didn’t even notice that his pants had turned a sickly shade of green. Lucky for him, I noticed before he went to work!

These are all great responses, guys! I think I went through every emotion reading them: from laughing at most (because what else can you do after your whole wardrobe is pink) to almost crying (I will be making sure to keep all of my animals in a different room when I wash…) to empathy (for the people who were trying to do something nice for someone else and failed miserably). Thanks all!

@tiffyandthewall and @augustlan I also have a friend who’s cat died in the dryer…
She dried a load, opened the dryer door, and got distracted. A while later she turned the dryer back on to get wrinkles out… her cat had jumped in to rest on the warm clothes.

I wonder how often this happens!

@Likeradar This happened to me…my beloved kitty Duncan did just what your friends did…I was like totally traumatized for weeks. I still have to check the dryer about three times before I turn it on to make sure my guys aren’t in there. I didn’t want to classify it under a laundry disaster-cuz it was more like a family member dying…poor kitty.

oh my god these dryer + animal stories are so so horrible ))): aw i’m really sorry @knitfroggy ! ):

Yeah, I’m a bit upset that my fairly lighthearted question has evolved into a thread about animal death. Not where I was going with this!

@ubersiren There is a product called Iron Out that will take color out. I’ve purchased it at Lowe’s and it is usually on the isle with household cleaners. It is a powder that you put in the wash. I’ve used it to make the boys white baseball pants white again. But be warned….only use it on clothing that is solid white as it will take out all color. It works very well.