Best Tips for the Laundry

Cozi held a contest to gather the best household tips and received over a thousand ideas for keeping the house clean and organized. Not surprisingly Cozi families had lots of great laundry tips to share.  We organized some of the most popular tips for easy browsing.

Here is what some real families are doing to make the laundry simpler:

Wash Your Washer!

• You can’t get clean clothes from a dirty a washer!  Even newer washers benefit from a wash themselves.  Remember your chemistry, one cup bleach and a half a box of backing soda is the perfect wash for built up crud soaps leave behind.  But if you read the ingredients to the new cleaning products for cleaning the inside of the washer it’s bleach and backing soda.
• Give those used dryer sheets a second life. Use them wipe off the hair, dirt and fuzz that collects around the lid of your washer and top of your dryer.  It keeps the dust down and you don’t have to worry about accidentally dragging clean clothes though dirt as you transfer them!

Sock Strategies

• When I take off my socks to wash, I safety pin them together at the top. They stay together in the wash so I don’t ever lose one and don’t have to spend time matching them up. When I put them on my feet, I keep the safety pin attached. That way I don’t lose the safety pins and it’s always helpful to have an extra safety pin during the day!
• I hang small laundry safe zippered bags on my girls laundry basket. At the end of each day they put their socks in the bags. They each have their own. Then come wash time I just throw the bags in with the clothes and wash away. No sorting socks, losing socks, or trying to figure out which sock belongs to which girl. Major time saver! My 2.5 year old can do it. (If they wear white and colored socks, then give each person two bags, one for colored socks and one for white socks.)
• My husband and I threw all our old socks away.  We went bought a huge pack of all white socks for each of us. When they come out of the dryer, I just stack them in his and hers stacks (mimicking the way they come in the bag). No more matching and no more rolling!!
• For dress socks try knotting or rolling them before they go in the hamper.

Lint Trap Tips

• I keep a spray bottle of water, with a few drops of lavender oil, on top of the dryer. As soon as I pull out a dry load, I pull out the lint filter, spraying a few sprays as I do. Then I flip it and give it one more spritz on the front. Then, when I remove the lint, it’s damp and all the lint rolls right up under my fingers, and doesn’t go flying into the air, only to need dusting later. This keeps me from sneezing every time I clean the lint filter, and the lavender oil makes it a lovely experience to clean the lint trap, which saves energy.
• I use an old sock to clean my dryer vent. I dampen the sock so that I can catch the lint without all that dust. The old sock gets recycled and I don’t breath all that dust. Used dryer sheets can also be used!
• Instead of throwing the dryer lint in the garbage, we either compost it or leave it out for the birds and squirrels to make nests with. They love it and we love that we’re not adding a useful material to the landfill.
• Make sure to clean your dryer vent every few years. Dryer fires are a leading cause of house fires and it’s something that’s easy to forget!

Do A Little Each Day

• To help with laundry- we usually put a load in the washer prior to leaving the house in the morning. When the kids get home from school, they put the load in the dryer and fold and put it up- this helps to cut down on gargantuan piles of laundry for the week.
• I keep a laundry basket in our room and every night I sort one load. In the morning I grab the already sorted (no brainer before am coffee :-)) laundry and throw it in the washer. After it’s done it goes to the dryer and folded. Everyone has to put away their own laundry – this makes it much easier on busy parents. On a normal schedule I am never behind on laundry. I have also taught my children how to do laundry (ages 8-12), so if I can’t do it it still gets done.