A red lipstick in with my underwear. A few months later, I was injured and had a dislocated shoulder - had to go to ER and almost right away, I thought how I was wearing a lipstick stained bra. Not that the RNs cared but I did (I'm also an RN).

thedarlingsbecca -- I use Color Catchers too, and grab a box whenever I see it since you're right, it is hard to find. I'm always amazed at how much color they actually "catch!"

Washing AND drying my cell phone. That really isn't good for it. The lipstick. The pens. The chapstick. The red item that bleeds into EVERYTHING...
I have used the color catchers with great success, but that doesn't help with the phone and various "Sticks." Checking pockets is key... I've washed those, too. :(

I was taking out the laundry and felt something I didn't recognize. It was long and slinky. It was a dead snake--a very clean one. I had to do the laundry all over again.

How in the world did that happen?

Must have thought the laundry basket was a nice place to nap?

I once washed all my husband's chiropractic white coats... to find them pink 35 minutes later because of an unwanted red towel :(

Friend used laundry detergent in my dishwasher by accident. Talk about a Brady Bunch episode. He was miserably inconsolable but I never laughed so hard in my life! The dishwasher at that time was in the laundry due to kitchen remodel.

@snappyvulture, I found a mouse caught up in the agitator of my machine. I could smell something rrrrrrreally awful for days. All my clothes were rewashed 5 times over! Maybe your snake could have eaten my mouse instead? Hee hee

Washed a Squoosh pillow in the washer....the stitching was too flimsy and buerst open. I got tens of thousands of microbeads all over everything. Let me tell you, they are not easy to clean up.

Snappyvulture, you're not the only one to find snakes in the washer. My Aunt June found them in there several times, usually still alive and very aggressive when she would open the lid to add the bleach or whatever after the load started. According to her they would be agitated in more than one way and would spring out of the washer the moment the top was opened sort of like those spring snakes in the peanut cans. She would scream, my Uncle would come running to see what was the matter, then he'd run the other way because he was scared of snakes. She would use a broom and direct the snake out the sliding glass doors if possible, and eventually the excitement would die down until the next time. They suspect the snakes may have been coming up the drain...but never were able to confirm it.

I accidentally shrank a wool sweater. Fit my daughter afterwards, so at least not a complete waste. I also ran quite a few Chapsticks through a wash and dry cycle. Thankfully, the caps stayed on.

A friend house sat for me while I was on vacation. After I returned, I started to get this mysterious rash, itchy red bumps over my face and body. It got worse and worse until I looked like a sunburned lizard. I figured it out by noticing that the worst of it was where I had the most contact with sheets when sleeping: she had washed bath towels and sheets in a new detergent I was allergic to. Imagine sleeping on a poison ivy bed, then taking a shower and toweling off with more poison ivy.

Drying my cat when I did not notice he had crawled into the dryer to sleep on warm, half dried towels. Restarted dryer and hurried off to work. The neighbors had to take me to the hospital for a sedative when I realized what I had done. After 25 years the story is still occasionally comes up at family gatherings.

My husband had just moved the washer and dryer to the main floor when I decided to do a load of laundry. Unfortunately I forgot to put the hose in the drain and the water drained onto the floor, prompting a waterfall through the ceiling of my finished basement! The minute I heard the washer emptying I went tearing into the laundry room. My son was downstairs and boy was he surprised to see water pouring through the ceiling!

We were relatively new newlyweds when Everlovin' Left Brain helped me with laundry. A lovely Cashmere sweater set was washed and put through the dryer, never to fit a human again. Have had to train him that his outside work clothes covered in grass and smelling of fuel just do not belong with my finer undies or his nicer clothes. He can't quite comprehend you really do have to take each item out of the washer to sort what goes in the dryer and what gets line dried. He is beginning to catch on, however...sometimes.

My toddler put a wet diaper in her basket with her dirty pajamas, and I put the whole load in without noticing. It exploded, and that gel diaper stuff got on EVERYTHING. I had to run the washing machine four times (take everything out, shake it, clean filters, etc. ) to get rid of it.

We had the same thing happen with my son, with a piece of laffy taffy in his pockets. We had to write off a good pair of jeans.

and crayons.

...Don't do laundry while distracted.

Malyelhi, the laffy taffy jogged an old memory of the time my mother did a load and forgot to check my pockets which happened to contain my plastic egg of Silly Putty. What a mess!

Timely subject. Just washed my husbands passport in the machine, he is going to the states in days, I went miles up motorway at great time and cost for a replacement and got a parking ticket because the parking ticket fell off the windscreen (landed butter side down) due to heat….then ran to cashpoint and left the money in it which of course had gone when I ran back..yeah, you could say I got the wash day blues…..

When I first met my husband 35 years ago I was sooooooo in love and moved in with him in the east Everglades in Florida where he was building an "environmental" house. Not common back in the day. I would open the laundry room door to do laundry and many times found the basket full of baby slithering snakes crawling all over the laundry. I would shut the door and drive the 20 miles to his mom's house to spend the night. It's amazing what you can tolerate with "new (sigh!) love". I got so used to the snakes (even the BIG ones) that I would just sweep them out the door with a broom. Oh, and the owls and a hawk and slimy tree frogs (that once jumped on my lips while I was sleeping) and a baby vulture and.....

Oh my goodness jo! You too abcd...!

Solution - Net Laundry Bags - I use small (three bra) size and large (three sweater) sized bet bags for protecting items that are going in the washer, but not in dryer. They receive less "tumble" and are good for glitter tops, etc. Bras - close hooks so they don't hook on net. Sometimes, I put socks in them and then put whole bag in dryer. Fewer missing socks and don't have to hunt for them when they cone out of dryer. Buy net laundry bags at grocery stores, Wal-Mart, bed and bath stores and Target. Catalogs that might have them are Vermont Country Store or Lillian Vernon.

Not a disaster, just a bad parenting moment......my son's team basketball jersey went missing......my husband and I ran the very ambitious program at our church, and for our son to be out of uniform was a bit of an embarrassment, as well as a problem to fix, mid-season. For the next several weeks we questioned him about the jersey, and used it as a "teaching" moment......it was not a fun time. We later discovered that the jersey had been caught on a seam in the middle of our laundry chute ( where our son said he deposited the jersey, as usual). I can't remember what jogged it and made it fall into the hamper below, but until it did it was out of sight so naturally we assumed it was lost. Unfortunately this was not my worst parenting moment -- I would have to think long and hard to decide which one that was -- but a memorable one. Also humbling......it's not really a bad thing to apologize to your child once in awhile.

One more! Ever wonder where those items missing in the laundry go? My husband had all of the "tech" guys laughing one morning. Looking down, there creeping out of his pants leg was a pair of MY undies! And, I worked at the same company.... Net laundry bags for my undies, for sure !

Instead of the usual rectangle laundry tub, the previous owners of our current home decided to instead put in a round laundry tub. The centrifugal force from the water coming out of the washing machine makes it overflow every time. To make matters worse, the laundry floor drain sits proud of the tiles, so the overflowing water goes around it rather than into it. Our solution for the time being is to have a house brick sitting in the tub to break up the water flow. Such a nice look.

I hid a box of eggs in the washing machine only because my son was due in for lunch and I knew if he saw eggs in the kitchen he'd fry the lot and make a huge mess.
Only remembered the eggs when bath towels taken out of the machine had tiny pieces of eggshells and cardboard allover and were so slimy!

This is a stinky story! We lived in an old house that had no hookups for a laundry when our daughter was born. We were able to use the washer by hooking the intakes to the sink and the drain hose by hanging it over the claw foot tub and down the drain. Had to scrub that tub often! Once while I was away my husband put off straightening and cleaning up until just before I was to come home. He began washing the diapers and late at night started the washer, FORGETTING TO PUT THE DRAIN HOSE OVER THE SIDE OF THE TUB. Our apartment neighbors came running. We still laugh about it, some 46 years later. What a mess. I'm embarrassed to tell it, but we survived! And are still married, 51 years!

IF you use the net bags--and we DO!!!---try and trim the string closure so they don't get themselves tangled IN the agitator! I trim them so they just open wide enough to get my hand in and then add one of the spring close slide restrainers on the string part--the kind on a ski jacket waist adjuster string---find these at WM in the camping section or sewing places. This stops the stuff INSIDE the mesh bags from LEAVING while you are washing and drying!

When we moved into our house we hooked up the washer and dryer and they worked fine. We knew the washer drained into a "dry well" (55 gallon drum filled with gravel UNDERGROUND ) this by-passes the septic so you don't have to worry about too much water etc in there. Well one fine day I go to move the wash and discover the floor in the basement--where ALL of our PACKED MOVING BOXES are--is flooded. The water appeared to be coming UP thru our floor drain which was hooked to our foundation and over flow drains---Hmmm---

Went outside and looked at the over flow drain pipe and discovered that the NEIGHBOR had decided he didn't LIKE us having moved in and had shoved cloth; branches; and trash INTO this large PVC pipe. Cracked the pipe so we had to dig it and replace a length. When the cops--yes we called the cops!---asked him WHY he told them he thought we were trying to kill his cows with our laundry drainage. Which BTW went no where NEAR his cows and was not in fact on the surface at all-==-the water he was seeing was from a STREAM. On HIS property. Yeah--he was a little cracked himself. We were never so happy to see anyone MOVE than when they left.

During a wash load, the hot water hose ,which was a fabric, ripped apart and the water that was supposed to be pumped into the machine went onto the floor instead. I had many inches of water in my laundry room and basement. I wet vacced, put in fans and turned the heat up high to dry up the basement carpet. It became hot and humid and was like the jungle down there for at least a week.

I went to put laundry in my top load washer, a mouse had fallen inside the drum. My son and I couldn't catch him. So, we had to start filling up washer with water until the little mouse came floating up. With rubber gloves on, my grown son caught it. I was laughing so hard I cried!

My husband did the laundry years ago and took every load out of the dryer while it was still damp since "they would dry anyway." I came home to a huge pile of unfolded clothes that dried together in one big mass on a table. I had to rewash everything, but there was no lasting damage. My son painted a shirt at school but they used poster paint, not acrylic. I opened the washer late at night in a poorly lit laundry room and couldn't believe my eyes. The whole load was pink--everyone had pink underwear at our house for a while.

Just a few weeks ago, the hose from the washing machine got loose and water started pouring ALL over the hardwood floors. Luckily I stopped the machine and got the water up before any damage was done! Whew..

I once washed a beautiful woolen shawl in a hot cycle. Now I have a beautiful woolen very skinny scarf!!!

The door latch on on new front load washer failed. I didn't find out till the next morning. The wet mess caused wood parquet tiles to wrap & pop up. I don't what previous homeowners were thinking by installing them in wet areas anyway.

my favorite black v neck cashmere sweater got mixed up in the dark cotton wash .... came out as a shrunk felt rag .... almost cried

About three years ago I had similar shaped bleach and detergent bottles, absentmindedly picked up the bleach bottle and filled the soap dispenser........lots of spots.
Not anyone's fault, but our old washer overflowed one day and oh so quietly ran into the heat vent, filled the ductwork and plenum, and cost us $1000 in repairs. I watch the new one like a hawk.

Went through a t-shirt reconstruction/sewing phase when I was a teenager and found one of my dad's vintage t-shirts under a bunch of old dusty boxes. I thought it would be a great shirt to recon but had to wash it first. Ran a load with some dark laundry and when I went to put the load in the dryer, I noticed that the entire load was entangled in miles of thread and then realized that the shirt had literally DISINTEGRATED in the wash except for its thread. Guess it was too vintage.

i accidentally got a red washrag in my husband's whites and i washed it on hot. needless to say, i had to buy him new whites

Ask for help to my husband, now he does laundry and is a maniac about not mixing color or putting socks one inside the other. or doing certain days.

I,too, learned about my contact dermatitis allergy from laundry. Fabric softener is the devil at my house.

Our front loading washing machine was acting up. When I opened the door, a cascade of water poured onto the kitchen floor. Thankfully the floor was tile. The same year I washed a new navy blue napkin with my good white table cloth, which turned the tablecloth blue-grey.

I keep my ancient Nokia phone in the back pocket of my jeans. Yes, you guessed it, washed and tumble dried. The amazing thing is that it still worked, even after I did it a second time. Other than that, putting a cashmere jumper in my normal darks wash was also not clever.

I put an alpaca sweater in the wash. It came out like a toddler could wear it. I have the sweater still because the colors are so beautiful I always wanted to match them in my home somewhere.

jn3344 -- Make a pillow?

Happened tonight. The floor in my laundry room was wet after running a load. Not flooded, just wet. I get to find out tomorrow whether it's the machine, my plumbing or maybe my neighbor's as we share a wall in that location.

A few years ago, our washing machine needed a service call. When the repairman was done, he left a couple dozen nails and drywall screws on the top of the machine. My bad. as DW will periodically remind me.

I've washed my expensive Laura Ashley curtains! ( I know I should have had them dry cleaned!)
The colours have run into the lining and in patches, they are a pale grey, not sure what to do to salvage? Any ideas?

Five red crayons in the dryer...a brand new dryer!

Our house has a round laundry trough and the hose that empties the washing machine water feeds directly into the trough (not into the under sink plumbing). The first time we did a load the laundry, hallway and entrance into the guest bedrooms ended up flooded - the centrifugal force created by the spinning water in the round trough sent the wash water right over the top. We now keep a half brick in the bottom of the trough - not pretty but no more floods, either

I work at night and I really have a crazy schedule. Never mind that, recently, I threw my clothes in the washer, neglecting to check the pockets for pens. Well later that made a mess in the dryer, staining the drum with ink.

I've tried my best to clean the stains out and it's but is totally clean. There e is a bit of residual left overs of ink in there. I'm testing a couple of pieces of clothes in the dryer right now.