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How to get poop smell out of clothes

susanstevenson32

7 years ago

I didn't want a health aid throwing away clothes when an elderly patient was incontinent, so she gave me the pants to clean. I tried pre soaking in Oxyclean then washing in hot water, but though the pants are clean, they still smell. Anything I can use to remove the lingering smell?

Featured Answer

asko_buyer

7 years ago

Two washes might also help. After removing what waste you can before putting the clothes in the washer, do a first wash in cold water. Optionally, do a soak using borax and baking soda. Then do a warm or hot wash. I had to deal with washing cloth diapers and soiled clothing when my kids were smaller. I used a similar procedure (minus the optional soak), and it seemed to work quite well.

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Comments (6)

rococogurl
7 years ago
Yes, boil wash and clorox.
aamassther
7 years ago
Try borax.
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georgect
7 years ago
Borax and baking soda are good odor removers.
Joel H.
7 years ago
I would do a pre-wash or a pre-soak with warm water, and then a very hot wash with plenty of good detergent, borax if you feel like it. Rinse well. I used to work in a nursing home, and even the patient's personal clothing (colored) got 2 "flushes" in warm water, then 2 separate washes on hot, followed by 4 rinses. Like asko_buyer says, it is like washing cloth diapers. Good luck!
wekick
7 years ago
Because this person is in some sort of facility, I would definitely want to make sure the patient did not have c diff. The CDC recommends a 10% sodium hypochlorite (household bleach) to kill everything including spores. You might want to do a precautionary soak at that concentration for that if you can. The problem with this is that many fabrics do not tolerate bleach but this is what will kill the spores.

If the patient does not have this, rinse once to remove the obvious water soluble contamination.

Wash and with Persil and oxyclean and then rinse. Use hot water if fabric will tolerate that.

Wash and rinse x2 with the same. I usually let this wash soak after some agitation and then reset the agitation back to the beginning.

This should remove odiferous fat soluble compounds and the oxyclean should neutralize smells too. If not, you might have to wash again or go to a stronger solvent. The cost might be more than the cost of the garment.

We just use the Persil Pro from WalMart.

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