Laundry Anyone?

The rehab facility where my mother is has a free laundry service. The only catch is, if you want them to do your laundry they recommend you permanently mark all the clothes with your name. If you don't, there is a high probability you might lose some things in the laundry room.

Mom was pretty distraught on her first night at the rehab place and she really didn't like it when we had to mark some of her clothes. I gave it some thought and figured that I would be in town at least a couple days a week so there was no reason I couldn't do her laundry for her at her house. My mother even has a brand new dryer and I had done some laundry for her just a couple weeks before so I knew how everything works. Also I didn't want Mom to have all her clothes permanently marked with a reminder of her stay there.

I spent the night in Lacey on Wednesday and Thursday nights. When I got up on Friday I decided to run a load of laundry for Mom. I put some clothes and towels into her washer and started up the cycle. A few minutes afterwards I heard a high pitched whine noise. I thought "that's strange, I didn't hear that noise last time I did laundry here." The noise went away quickly but a few minutes later I smelled something that smelled like burning.

I looked at the washer and everything seemed fine. But the burning smell was getting worse. I touched the hoses and all over the machine and nothing felt hot. But next the smoke alarm went off! I stopped the alarm and returned to the machine. This smell was only getting worse and I didn't want to burn down Mom's house. So I pulled the knob to stop the load.

I ended up calling her neighborhood Maytag repair place. After listening to my description they decided the problem is probably a worn belt. I used a mirror to get the model number off the back of the machine and scheduled the repairman to visit.

Hmm, and I thought it would be such a simple matter to take care of Mom's laundry! Fortunately when I told her about it she wasn't upset at all and made a comment that "yes, those belts wear out." Yes, I guess they do. :)