Mildew on clothing from Washing Machine

It is quite disturbing to find mildew on your clothes, especially when you expect to see them spanking clean at the end of a washing cycle. If you have clothes affected by mildew you will generally see small black spots spread over the garment, sometimes you will also see shades of red and green, all of which are very unpleasant.

Rest assured your clothes can be restored to their former glory, and also you have no need to call out an engineer as this is not a fault with your washing machine.

Cause

The reason you have mildew on your clothes is either:

You have not washed wet clothes straight away. Sports kit is a good example of wet clothes not being dealt with quickly enough. This is generally due to the sportsperson not bothering to empty out their sports bags, and then issuing a plaintiff cry half an hour before they need a clean kit!
The other main cause is not drying your clean washing immediately. Even if its raining heavily preventing you from drying your washing outside, it is not a good idea to leave damp clothes folded up in the washing basket. Try and get them dry as soon as you can as this will avoid the mildew developing.

How to get rid of mildew

Any items that have been marked in this way should be soaked in a peroxide solution for about 2 hours, but please ensure there is sufficient solution covering the garments, as you should avoid letting the bleach dry out on the clothes.

You can then rewash the affected items in the normal washing cycle, ensuring you have checked the washing labels first to make sure you are using the correct temperature programme.

If you follow the above advice, hopefully this will resolve the problem from reoccurring in the future.

Disclaimer: The information provided has been prepared as a guide only and the steps taken are likely to vary for different appliance models. We strongly recommend using a qualified engineer to undertake major repairs and fault finding.