Monsoon damp, mould and smell: keeping a washing machine fresh

From October to December the north-east monsoon keeps Nellore damp for weeks at a time, and a washing machine is the dampest thing in the house: a rubber seal that holds water, a drawer full of detergent paste, and an outer tub that never sees daylight. That is why the sour, musty smell on clothes shows up now, even in machines that were fine all summer. It is mould and bacteria, not a fault, and it is cleared with one thorough clean and a couple of changed habits.

The second monsoon problem is less visible and more serious: damp getting into the electrics. Keep the machine out of the rain, and treat any tingle when you touch it as a stop sign.

Where the smell actually lives

• The gasket fold. On a front loader, the grey rubber seal around the door has a deep fold at the bottom. Water, lint, hairpins and detergent collect there. Pull it back and look; the black spots are the mould.
• The detergent drawer and its cavity. Softener in particular leaves a jelly that turns black. The cavity behind the drawer, which you never see, is usually worse than the drawer.
• The outer tub. The drum you see sits inside a plastic tub you do not. Cold washes and too much detergent leave a film on it that grows in the humidity.
• The pump filter. Stale water sits in the pump housing between washes. Cleaning it out is part of the cure.
• The lint filter on top loaders and semi-automatics. A wet pouch of lint is a small compost heap.

The one-afternoon cure

1. Pump filter first. Switch off at the socket. Tray and towel down, open the flap at the bottom front, unscrew the cap slowly, drain, clear, refit tightly.
2. Gasket. Pull the fold back and wipe with a cloth dipped in diluted bleach or a washing machine cleaner. Rinse with a damp cloth. Check for hairpins that have cut the rubber.
3. Drawer. Press the release tab, pull it right out, scrub it and the cavity with an old toothbrush.
4. Hot empty cycle. Tub-clean programme if there is one; otherwise the hottest, longest wash, empty, with a tub cleaner, a descaler or two to three tablespoons of citric acid. Do not add detergent.
5. Dry. Leave the door and drawer open overnight.

On a semi-automatic, fill the wash tub with warm water and a tub cleaner or citric acid, leave for an hour, run a wash cycle empty, drain, and scrub the lint filter and the drain path.

If the smell survives this, the film on the outer tub is heavy and a technician can open the machine and clean it properly; that is a service visit at ₹399 on our rate card.

Habits for October to December

• Door or lid open after every wash. The single most effective change. If the door swings into a walkway, pull it to without latching it.
• Less detergent, not more. Residue is food for the mould. The pack dose, or slightly more on hard water, is enough; foam climbing up the door glass means too much.
• One hot wash a week. If you wash everything cold, the tub never gets a chance to clear. Towels or bedsheets on a warm programme once a week keeps the film down.
• Tub clean fortnightly, not monthly, through the monsoon.
• Do not leave a wet load in the drum. Even an hour in the monsoon starts the smell. If the power goes mid-cycle and the door locks, restart the programme when power returns rather than leaving it.
• Wipe the outside. Condensation on a steel body in a bathroom that never dries is how rust starts at the seams, especially near the coast.

Keeping the electrics dry

• The machine should be under a roof, not on an open balcony or in a wash area where rain blows in. If it must be outside, a fitted waterproof cover with the door ajar underneath it, and the socket switched off when not in use.
• The socket itself should be above splash height and have a working earth. If the machine gives a tingle, switch off at the MCB, not just the socket, and have both checked.
• A machine that was dead after a wet night, or that trips the MCB when started, books under "fully dead" at ₹350; the usual suspects are damp in the door lock, the mains filter or the board, and the technician tests rather than guesses.
• Do not run the machine standing in water. Mop first, switch on after.

Rats and insects

Damp weather brings rats into wash areas, and a washing machine's base is warm and sheltered. Chewed inlet hoses and drain hoses are a common monsoon leak, and chewed wiring is a common monsoon "dead machine". Look under and behind the machine once a fortnight and keep the area clear of food waste.

When the smell is not mould

A hot, electrical smell, or the smell of burning rubber, is a belt slipping or a motor overheating, and is a repair, not a cleaning problem. Switch off and book it. A sewage smell from the drain is the standpipe or floor trap, not the machine; a plumber's job.