How do I disinfect washing machine after putting mom's soiled clothes in it? Do I pour bleach and run an empty cycle right after?

If you choose to run a cleaning cycle with bleach (and no clothes), I would run it a second time, with hot water but without bleach. My own not-so-old machine seems to capture the bleach somewhere and then if the next load is dark clothes, one or two items come out with bleached spots on them. Drives me nuts.

I would not wash clothes soiled with feces in my washing machine before soaking them in a bucket with a disinfectant such as pine soap or Lysol. You are literally contaminating your greywater and the greywater of everyone else using that water. Poop belongs in a toilet along with the wastewater, which goes to the sewage treatment plant.

Scrape as much poop off her clothes into the toilet as possible. Soak her clothes in a bucket with disinfectant for 15-20 minutes. Pour that water down the toilet. You can add a small amount of pine soap and/or a laundry booster such as Borax to wash her laundry. I would avoid using bleach, which is horrible for you (fumes) and the environment.

Hi, you have gotten good suggestions here, and I don’t actually have a new one but just wanted to offer empathy that this is not an easy thing to deal with on a frequent basis. I wanted to acknowledge that. I care for my motherinlaw (95) who struggles with constipation. Any efforts to relieve that constipation result in soiling her clothes (or more) due to not making it to the toilet in time or not being aware of the seepage. She always wears a panty-liner but it is often insufficient. My motherinlaw is mortified when she finds out about the “accident,” and is apologetic, so I try to be nonchalant about it- “it’s only poop!” “Everything is washable”- but usually I am pretty wrung out after cleaning up after an extensive accident that I need some time to rest and recover! Usually getting outside in the fresh air for a few minutes really helps me. Hang in there. Sounds like you are a dedicated and caring daughter. Take care.

My mother soils her clothes, nightgown sometimes. I wash them immediately in the washing machine on the hot water cycle with detergent. The washing machine is clean and smells good after. If the soiled clothing is from stool you will need to soak the soiled clothing in a basin in very hot water, and then drain in the toilet. Make sure the clothing is clean before putting them in the washing machine due to possible clogging the machine. This system works well for us.

Clorox makes a washing machine cleaner. I cloth diapered my son & never needed to clean the washer, but I did use the Clorox washing machine cleaner a time or two and it seemed to work well.

If your washing machine is a mess after running her clothes, then her clothes are not getting cleaned.

I would wipe the exterior down after loading the clothes and then it should all be clean when the WASH is complete.

If not, you should try the longest cycle and a double rinse or wash everything twice to ensure that her clothing is safe.

I would just use a Clorox wipe. But like said, if you rinse the clothes before the actual wash, you should be OK. I used to let Moms soak in Vinegar and water. Good that u can line dry. I find dryers sometimes bring out the smells.

Is your washer a front loader or top. My Mom always left the top up after doing a load of wash. It helped the drum to dry out. Otherwise, it would smell musty. Those front loaders have that large gasket that tends to hold moisture and gets mildew on it. Not sure if leaving the door open would help.

How expensive is the outfit and how difficult would it be to replace? I completely threw away a few of my son's soiled outfits when he was a baby and had a big blow out. It wasn't worth risking contamination of all our other clothes to get that one outfit clean. It was also a very freeing, liberal feeling; just pitch it!


I realize this is not realistic much of the time, but should be seriously considered at least once in a while. Clothing is cheap; getting the whole family sick from a contaminated load of laundry is no joke. How much are you spending on time, yuck factor, cleaning products...just to clean one pair of pants or underwear? If you can spare it and didn't really like that pair of pants anyway, use the clean part to wipe up the soiled patient before the real cleaning starts, then simply throw the soiled item away in it's own plastic bag, and then triple bag it, and throw it away. Try it at least once. It's such a great feeling to throw it away!! Wal Mart, Target, and Kohl's have very cheap clothing, and it's clean!!

I noticed a few people mentioned top loader v front loader. I do not trust front loader washing machines to get things as clean or to be clean themselves. For that reason, I have chosen to stick with a top loader machine. And yes, I remember back to the days of cloth diapers, rinsed in the toilet then soaked in a bucket with lysol until the bucket was full. It never occurred to me then that the washer might be contaminated. I guess now we are more aware of bacteria and viruses. I would probably run the load through a second time with hot water and white vinegar instead of detergent and softener (the vinegar disinfects and softens nicely).

Youi can buy Affresh which is a cleanser for washing machines and does a good job. I used it weekly when I had a top loader. Now, I usually use it monthly since my last load of the week is a "whites with bleach" and I wipe the seals good afterwards on my new front loader.