Shortly after we moved in, I ordered some bathroom rugs. After looking at the dull, gray colors available in a couple stores, apparently the pride of the season (finger down the throat, gagging), I went online to find more choices. And boy, did I ever find them! I googled teal, without specifying in my search whether I meant teal blue or teal green. I found both, and in varieties from plain, to old country homey, to swirley/fanciful, to totally spectacular and metallic. I fell in love, and out came the plastic.
Card, that is.
Once they arrived, I found I needed more since the floor was so large. Ones matching what I already liked were soon on their way as well. Every thing was beautiful, for a while.
You have to know already what happened, right? Being a bathroom, dirt of various sorts accumulated. Company will be here soon with the holiday coming. There was no choice. Washing commenced, the biggest rug solo.
It quickly stopped as well. With the first opening of the washer lid when the cycle ended, handfuls of bits of paper were all over the place. Where did they come from? The first rug looked exactly like the next one waiting, except for the dirt being gone and seemingly replaced by paper.
Seriously: paper?
Where did the paper come from? It isn't on any of the other rugs, those in the bathroom, or those brand new and still in storage. From the amount coating everything, ("everything" being defined as both sides of the washed rug, the bottom and sides of the basket in the washing machine, and the utility room floor because hunks dropped off the rug as it was pulled out) there could have been a solid layer attached to the bottom of the rug. How had nobody noticed? More to the point, why would anybody line a throw rug with slippery paper? Most of he paper was white, but a lot had black flecks on them as well. It looked like they could have been the bottom of the rug, white with tiny black rubber bits in starburst patterns great for gripping the floor, except flipping it over it looked exactly like it had (except for dirt) and the matching but dirty one's bottom as well.
First thing to be done, i.e. not done, was putting the second dirty rug in the machine. Second was spreading the clean one out to air dry. I never put throw rugs in the dryer, since any rubber backing decomposes quickly in the heat, making walking on them precarious. Not a good thing for seniors, much less anybody else. Then a lot of paper pieces were picked off the first rug and tossed in the trash. It was noted that a lot coated the bottom and sides of the washer basket. Big project for later, and mental note made not to wash anything until it was cleaned.
As in 4 days later. Much other work remained to do in the next few days first.
The wait created new "fun". I started with broom and dustpan to clean the floor... the first time. By the fifth time, all in the tiny utility area, it became painfully obvious how much static was generated in the paper. It clung to broom bristles, then dropped off. It clung to shoe soles... and tracked through the house. It clung to the now dry, clean rug... and refused to drop off! I quickly learned to brush wet fingers across the surfaces to kill the charge so pieces would fall to the floor. Of course in two minutes they dried again and clung to the floor and broom and....
I gave up on perfection after half an hour, declaring things outside the machine "good enough". Much of what landed in the waste basket liner bag actually stayed there. My progress was apparent, until I turned around and looked at my footprints in white flecks, mocking me.
It was time for the machine basket. I hadn't actually looked inside it since the rug first came out. It was much worse than I remembered. There was a thick layer of overlapping pieces on the basket floor, pryable up with fingernails in clumps. A full circuit yielded a couple handfuls. However, more small pieces remained on the basket floor, mostly jammed vertically in any crack available. Even more coated the side of the basket, in bands about a foot long and 2 inches wide. I fetched a brush from the kitchen, hoping it would loosen the clumps. My optimism proved overly ambitious. Again, fingernails were able to pry much of it loose. As before, many small pieces remained nicely stuck to the basket walls.
I made a decision I hope not to regret. I set the controls to the smallest load possible and started the machine. As soon as the water quit running I stopped it, and took a look. There was apparently a thin coat of water across bottom and sides, supporting about half an inch of bubbles.
Bubbles? I hadn't added soap. Where did those come from? Regardless, I grabbed a paper towel roll and wiped up what I could from all the surfaces. I knew I wasn't finished, and started the machine again before going shopping. Steve had put in a grocery order, now due to be picked up.
Once we were back, I checked the washing machine again. There were small clumps of the paper scattered in all the places there had been big deposits. Of course, they were all dried already and stuck to all the places they could possibly be stuck to, given the small amount of water used. More scraping, more damp paper towels, and I finally pronounced the washer good enough. This is the part where I really hope I am right. I hope no bits oozed through cracks and jammed up small moveable (at least formerly) parts of the machine. What stuck in big globs instead of clogging tiny ones the first time around, might not have been restricted the second time.
That's only one of the remaining questions however. Not finding any source of the paper by comparing the washed rug with the unwashed one, but knowing it came from somewhere and one rug was the only thing in that cycle, I need to decide whether to wash the second rug. Or do I give up on a beautiful matching piece, both in original design and ability to collect dirt, and toss it away?
I have two loads of clothing in my hamper. I think I'll decide after I wash those. Tomorrow.
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