Too Much Soap – Too Much Trouble

The effect of using too much laundry detergent makes for a funny, suds-filled scene in the movies.  But the real problem occurs the next time someone does laundry.  All those suds fill the drain line causing turbulence during the rinse cycle, which leads to an overflowing filler tube and a flooded laundry room.

I’d been trying to get my wife to measure the detergent with the cap according to the label.  But she always felt the need to do it her way.  And her way has been to pour the detergent directly into the washer tub, as if adding creamer into coffee.  We’d usually get some overflow in the drain line, and suds would emerge in the adjacent shower.

It’s for this reason I would always buy the cheapest (most watered-down) detergent.  Unfortunately, one day she decided to buy some ultra-concentrated product.  The flood from repeated washings was significant.

I cleaned it up and then set up an electric heater to dry out what I couldn’t remove.  In order to plug in the heater, I unplugged the washer.  So my wife was prevented from running the washer for a few weeks.  That gave me time to snake the drain line (just in case) and run several wash loads with the correct amount of soap.  After a couple of loads, the machine drained better than it ever had before.  I left it this way for a couple of weeks.  In fact, she got mad about that – she wanted to do laundry herself.  Imagine, someone offers to do the laundry for you and you get mad because you can’t do it yourself!

Eventually she settled down enough that she was willing to show her the proper way to:
1. Read the label.
2. Pour the correct amount into the measuring cup.
3. Pour the measured amount from the cup into the tub.
4. Not rinse the cap under the running water.
5. Load the tub right away with clothes.

The last two points are also important.  If you place the cap under the gushing water, suds will form.  Also, if you don’t put the clothes in right away suds will form.  I actually add the detergent after loading all the clothes, making sure to pour it into the water farthest from the water source.

It was amazing that my wife watched and listened to me patiently while I demonstrated the correct way to do laundry.  I didn’t think it was possible.  But it happened, and it felt like my birthday, Christmas and Father’s Day all lumped into one!  Even more amazing is that she’s been doing a lot of laundry over the past couple of weeks, and we’ve had no overflowing water or subs in the shower.  Still, I’m keeping the ultra-concentrated detergent out of sight indefinitely.

Trump vs. Amazon

“I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!”

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2018

Look who’s complaining about Amazon not paying taxes! It’s He-Who-Will-Not-Release-His-Tax-Returns!