Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Well, at least now my laundry room floor is clean . . .


Today I got some liquid OxiClean to add to my diaper laundry, to help get rid of some lingering odors. I got the washer started and blithely went on my way to do something in another part of the house. A while later I went into the kitchen (which is right beside the laundry room) and noticed a nice, rather strong clean scent. I thought, "Wow, that OxiClean sure has a strong smell!" And then I saw why . . . the OxiClean was all over the laundry room floor. Yes, the tile was completely covered with a thick, slippery mess. Some dum-dum (ME) had accidentally left the bottle on top of the washer. When the washer got to vibrating, the bottle jumped off, the cap broke, and the OxiClean went everywhere!

Five towels and a good mopping later, the floor is now very, very clean. :) And the washer is going though mega-rinses, trying to get all the suds out of the towels! Note to self: Do not set full bottles of anything on the edge of the washer top.

By the way, my diapers also smell good now. That OxiClean is great stuff! Too bad I will have to buy another whole bottle next time I want to use any! :D

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your towels are going to smell soooo clean! ;)

Sorry you had such a mess to clean up, though!

Unknown said...

Oooooooooh, yuck what a messy lesson to learn! Thanks for sharing this story - now hopefully I won't make the same mistake!

I'll have to try oxiclean for our cloth diapers. I had been using bleach but after several washes the bleach ripped a few diapers to shreds.

Anonymous said...

Ha! That's funny, Carrie, I did the same thing a few months ago with a giant Costco-sized bottle of Woolite! And yes, the floor was super clean afterward :)

I also just started using cloth diapers- two days ago, in fact, and I haven't washed a load of them yet. I do have some powdered Oxiclean but I don't know if it can be used in the new washer, which takes high-efficiency detergent- I figure that if the regular detergent doesn't get them fresh enough, I will try the baking soda presoak/vinegar rinse method. How did the Oxiclean work on the diapers?

Carrie said...

Mindee--yes, the towels smell VERY clean, LOL. :) I think they will smell like OxiClean for at least a year!

Alicia--I think OxiClean is supposed to be a good bleach alternative. I got the idea from the site where I bought my diapers. I actually bleached the inserts (but I don't plan to do that all the time--just once in a while, probably), but the pocket diapers aren't supposed to be bleached except as a drastic measure. The OxiClean seemed to work great!

Samara--what kind of diapers are you using? I don't know if you saw my post a while back about bumGenius!, but they are really nice and I love them. I'm not sure about using powdered OxiClean. I had some sample packets of it, but I too have a front-loader HE washer, and wasn't sure where to put it in. The liquid OxiClean says to just add it in the same spot with the liquid detergent, so that's what I did. It seemed to work great on the diapers. As I mentioned to Alicia, I bleached the inserts, just because they had started smelling musty/mildewed (I think I didn't get them dry enough sometime, and so they probably really WERE mildewed!). The bleach worked wonders and they smell great now, but it's so harsh that I wouldn't want to use it all the time. I've found that washing diapers takes a lot of trial and error to find a system that works for you. It seems to depend a lot on the water (hard, soft, etc.) and the washer, baby's sensitivity to different detergents, etc. There are a lot of helpful websites out there, though, so I've just been trying different suggestions. I don't know if you have ever checked out www.pinstripesandpolkadots.com, but that site has a lot of good info. on detergents, rash creams, etc. and is really helpful. I also like the forums at www.diaperpin.com, and www.cottonbabies.com (where I bought my diapers). Happy diapering, and enjoy these wonderful (and tiring) first weeks of motherhood!! :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks Carrie! Right now I am using Bambino Mio, a brand that my dad picked up in London on the way back from a mission trip. I like those so far, but I only have about 2 days' worth of them (and only 3 covers); they seem to be comparable to Dappis.

Once Dinesh is a bit bigger I have some Kushies brand diapers (also brought home by my dad) that will fit him; those are all-in-ones. I have a few random diapers from thrift stores as well, so am looking forward to trying out a few kinds.