Calling all you laundry Gurus - I have a mystery than needs solving

I FIGURED IT OUT!!!... I think

In the washer was a staple gun staple that was lodged in between 2 holes in the revolving drum. I dislodged it with a pliers and it was old and rusty. I think I found my culprit....but the thing that still bugs me is .... if it was rust, why didn't the iron out remove it???

 I have had a problem with colored towels (shades of brown/tan) getting bleach spots. (While cleaning, I even discolored a pair of my grey sweats, unsure how THAT happened!) I have been using a 1:14 bleach solution to clean lately, and even test sprayed some on those same pants, but that didn't bleach them. I don't use bleach in my laundry. I have had some red/brick towels that I have washed/used hundreds of times, but they don't have one bleach spot on them!

We had a similar problem in the past.  Our spots were small, almost perfectly round and about the size of the holes in the washer drum.  In fact, if I slowly pulled the towels out of the drum, I could see that the spots matched with the holes.

To remove the spots, we use two products; "White Brite" or "Yellow Out", both can be purchased on-line if your local store does not carry them.  Spots are easy to remover if you catch them prior to drying, the heat will help set the stains so they are more difficult to remove.  Use about one cup of the product (no detergent, no bleach) and let the towels sit in this until the spots are gone. For towels that have dried, I have sometimes needed to soak overnight but I have rarely found a spot that these products could not remove.  After the spots hve been removed, add a little detergent, wash, rinse and soften as usual.

As a note, chlorine bleach will not work and in fact, makes the situation worse.  Also, remove the towels immediately after the final spin, the longer the length of time that the towels remained in contact with the holes in the drum, the sorse the spots were.

Good luck, I know how frustrating this can be!

Cape Cod Curmudgeon

I bought a product called Iron Out that is supposed to remove rust stains from laundy....and it didn't, so I suppose its not a metal based stain.

Its driving me batty. I just can't figure out what it is or where its coming from.

I have resorted to this method:

There was a thread on this forum back in Feb. called "rust spot on towels" - check it out - maybe your question is answered there....

I was having the same problem before I bought new laundry equipment.

We had something similar and it ended up being a belt not working properly in the dryer, things were sitting too long and pushing against a screw head and because they were wet the rust-like stain was showing up.  The best results for removing them were to wash in warm water, than put white vinegar on the spots and blot with a paper towel.  Some of the spots took repeated treating to remove, just don't put them in the dryer between washes until you get all the spots out.

How about sheets? More than one washer/dryer? Does it happen in all of them?

We had long streaks of 'rust' on the sheets (narrowing it down to one washer/dryer combo) and found that the screws in the washer were rusty. Anything that rubbed up against them ended up with that streak.