Ink in the Dryer!!

As I was walking past the clothes dryer Friday evening I saw a Papermate pen sitting on the carpet. I picked it up and noticed that the business end of it was all chewed up and there was ink all over the outside. This appears to be the work on #3! I scanned the carpet in the vicinity and didn't see any ink stains on the floor or walls. I threw the pen in the garbage. No harm done, or so I thought.

Later on that night I thought I would fold the load of laundry that was sitting in the dryer. I opened the door and reached in and noticed that the clothes were still a little damp so I turned the dryer on for another half hour and left the folding until Saturday.

Saturday morning I went to pull out the clothes for folding. As soon as I opened the dryer door I noticed a bunch of dark blue smears on the dryer door. As I pulled out the clothes I saw that the dryer drum was covered in the same dark blue smears and I was seeing blue stains on the lighter clothes. Next I saw the ink cartridge from the Papermate pen I'd found the day before mixed in with the clothes.

Shit.

I took the clothes upstairs to fold and survey the damage. Luckily that load was made up of darks and jeans. The jeans were fine. They had a little bit of ink on them but it blended in nicely with the denim so was unnoticeable. Not so for 4 shirts (including 2 of my work shirts and Jules's uniform shirt) and a pair of socks. What a pain in the ass!

I chucked out the damaged clothes and was faced with the chore of cleaning the ink out of the dryer drum. I pulled out my trusty Magic Eraser and started to go to work. After about 15 minutes of serious scrubbing, I had removed 3 stains. Only 30 more to go! At that rate I would be finished in another 2.5 hours. Not acceptable! Surely, I can't be the only person who has come across this problem. So I turned to the internet for a better and easier solution.

I soaked 3 old towels that we don't use in bleach and water. I then squeezed them out so they weren't dripping and tossed them into the dryer and turned it on tumble dry. After 20 minutes I soaked the towels again and put them back into the dryer for another 20 minutes. When this was done the dryer was good as new. You could still see the ghost of some of the stains but they weren't going to transfer to anymore clothes. Just to be sure I dried a load of towels next. Sure enough they came out just fine.

Thank you internet!!