Remove the mildew smell from your washing machine for about $10

These are the steps that worked for me to remove the mildew smell from my front loading washing machine and for less than $10, you can too.

Background
Almost 5 years ago, my front loading washing machine started to generate this horrible smell. It was bad enough that we had to put towels around the door to keep the odor from coming out of the laundry room. After trial and error and trying different things found on the Internet, I was able to get the odor out of the washer in one weekend. After that, the overwhelming stench has not been back since and it's been roughly 2-3 years since the last "maintenance" cycle.

Why it smells
The short answer is that the smell from your washer is from a layer of mold inside your washer.

Long answer is that this layer of mold has been growing for some time. There's basically an inner liner around the drum where your clothes are washing in. The drum is where you put your clothes into. The mold is feeding off the soap scum and dirt that doesn't get rinsed off the other side of the drum and parts of your liner. You need to get rid of that if you want to get rid of that pernicious smelly odor.

What you need
This is where the less than $10 comes in. You'll likely have most of these items already. So once you have them then you're good to go and can skip to the next section to get started. If not, go to the store and get them or you can order them online with the links below. For everything on the list, you should be able to get them for less than $10. 

1. Bleach
2. Vinegar
3. Baking Soda
4. Washer Cleaner
5. Couple of old towels

How to get rid of it
These are the steps that I went through to remove the odor and clean out my washer.

• Step 1: Clean the rubber gasket and the detergent bin first - Around the door of your washer there's rubber gasket that seals the washer so water doesn't get out. Clean that out with soap, water, and bleach before you start. Also check the detergent bin where it feeds the detergent into the washer.
• Step 2: Bleach wash to kill off that surface mold. You'll want to start with this step so you can actually make it pleasant for subsequent cycles that we're going to do. The bleach wash will definitely reduce the odor in a significant way but you won't be close to being done. Run a wash with a couple towels on the hottest water setting you can and for the longest time you can using about a cup or two of bleach.
• Step 3: Vinegar and baking soda bath / Oxygenated soak. You'll want to try this step first to see if you don't need the washer cleaners in the next step. Start a load with towels again. Add a cup or two of vinegar to the wash. ADD another gallon or two of hot water to your load after the water has stopped filling your washing machine. Then stop the wash and let it soak for about an hour without draining the water out. If you can, rotate the drum every 10-20 minutes so you get coverage. After that, finish the wash on the hottest water setting and agitate with the towels. Try 2-3 soaks with just vinegar, vinegar and baking soda, and Oxiclean. When you're done, pull out the towels and look for black flakey specs stuck to the towel. The black specs are the crusty mold stuck inside your washer that was causing the odor. Having the towels in there will help you determine whether you're making progress. The more you have on the towel, the more progress you're making.
• Step 4: Use a commercial washer cleaner.
• When I did my cleaning, I actually started with this step first. and was alternating between this and Step 3. However, I suspect that most of my results came from this step. At the time, Affresh was one of the few cleaners out there and this was the one I used. Now there are others like Tide. Either way, same process as in Step 3. Put one or two of these cleaning pucks in with as much hot extra hot water your washer can hold without overflowing. This should be about 1 or 2 gallons.  Stop the wash and then rotate the drum every 20 minutes for about an hour or more to soak. (I didn't have that much patience beyond the hour personally.) After the soak, finish the wash with the towels so you can check your progress. I saw black flakes in my towels after this wash. Alternate between Step 3 and Step 4, until no more flakes are caught on the towels.

After care and Maintenance
Now that your washer is cleaned. You'll need to maintain it for a few months. I bring this up because you'll likely have big batches of soap on hand and well frankly, you may not want to part with them just yet. That's ok. You'll just need to do these maintenance steps until you either run out of that soap or dump it. So unless you change or do something different using your washer, you'll likely end up with a smelly washer again really soon. So maintenance is important until you make that change. Once you get past the after care stage for about 3-4 months, you can rely on just doing a hot water wash as the last wash of the day without having to do as many maintenance clean up washes.

• Keep the door open - this should help keep airflow in the washer so it doesn't become musty
Use powdered soap - In the beginning I switched to Charlie's soap and away from the liquid soap. Since then, I've used powdered soap only and primarily ones without scent. I suspect this is one if not the biggest reason why we were having the build up.

• Use less soap - apparently you don't need the cup full of soap that mfg recommends. the extra soap is to ensure that your wash is done. However, too much soap leads to the build up of soap scum and thus the mold and mildew smell. I've been using roughly a tablespoon of soap and haven't noticed a difference in quality of the wash at this point. Your mileage may vary so adjust as needed.

• Add an extra gallon or two of super hot water to your last load of wash - Cold water doesn't seem to get crap off of anything without a ton of soap, which then means you have to use more water to get the extra soap off during the final rinse. Anyways, use hot water as the last load and call it a day.
• SmellyWasher - I have tried this during a maintenance mode clean up for my washer. I will say that it does get the odor out and set to a neutral smell as well after it's wash.
• Step 3 or 4 once a month - Yes a basic clean but you need to this follow up monthly for a few month so you can be sure most of that moldy stuff is gone.

Final Thoughts

After doing this cleaning on my own washer 5 years ago, I was happy that the changes of using less soap, switching to powder, and washing a load of hot at the end has made a significant difference in not having that smelly mildew odor come back for the past few years. I have not used the cleaning process since then nor have I had to be "dependent" on the washer cleaners for monthly / quarterly / yearly cleaning maintenance since then.

If you found this helpful, order some of the products via the links above, and share with friends who need this help and eventually I'll have enough traffic to earn a cup of coffee. :)

Thanks!