Let me just start this by saying that Mr. Turtle has a habit of obliviousness when it comes to fibers.  See the acrylic hotpad and the felted hat, amongst other examples.

One of the lesser joys of owning cats is cleaning out the litter box, and most days, Michael and I compete to see who has to do the job (the tradeoff is you have to feed the cats in the morning and

One of the possible suspects. We brought them in for questioning.

forgo that extra 5 minutes of sleep).  The other day the chore fell to me, I had the unfortunate surprise of realizing the cat’s had left some… presents outside of the litter box, on the rug we have underneath the box to minimize the spread of cat litter.  I’ll spare you the details.

Anyway, after the “presents” were taken care of, I thought it was probably a good idea to give the rug a good wash.  After all, we have an ultra-powerful washing machine and a hot water heater that has more enthusiasm than sense!

The rug had been a find from my grandmother’s house, and the tag with the care instructions was long gone.  But it felt like cotton, and definitely did not feel like wool – so warm wash it was with a good dousing of soap.

In between the first wash cycle and the second (I opted for the super-wash cycle, considering I wasn’t sure if it’d EVER been clean), I took a quick glance in – and it was looking OK, so I nudged the water up to hot.  I was really feeling like this thing should be boiled within an inch of it’s life.  It was a sturdy rug, and I didn’t know when it would be cleaned again.  Off I go back to work.

That evening before dinner, I had my hands full with a particular piece of knitting, and I remembered that the rug needed to come out of the wash.  Again, thinking it was cotton, I asked Mr. Turtle, who was heading out to the washroom anyway, to throw it in the dryer.

You can see where this story is going, can’t you?

After dinner, Mr. Turtle hears the buzzer to the dryer sounding, and goes to get it out of the dryer.  Moments later, he comes back in, saying he needs my help.

My stomach sinks.  I’m thinking the same thing you are.  I’m thinking the rug was actually wool, and now it’s a felted mess.

No.

Instead, the entire dryer is blue/black.  Where there should be a white drum, there is not.

The rug, mostly in shades of yellow, black and red, REALLY did not have colorfast dye.  When I ask dear Mr. Turtle if he’d noticed as he was transferring the rug from the washer to the dryer
he said that he’d noticed some black on his hands.  He thought it was dirt. (Why a rug would be emerging from the washer dirty I have no clue… but.  I digress).

So, some helpful information for those people who have discovered their dryer has turned interesting colors, or who finds themselves with a not-so colorfast rug:

Dye can be cleaned off of a dryer with liberal application of bleach, providing you’re careful about where you’re inhaling.  Please do not take this as a recommendation to inhale bleach fumes while you’re head is stuck in a dryer drum.  But it does work.  So next time I put white things in my dryer drum, they won’t be coming away blue.  But as a note: after I finished, I wiped the drum down with a wet cloth, to make sure that I also didn’t get bleach on my clothes next time I used the dryer.

Citric Acid. One of my favorite household multipurpose things.

Liberal application of citric acid (or vinegar, though you have to use a lot more) or any other household acid, though those are the two most common can help the dye become more colorfast, though you’ll probably still get bleeding.  I noticed instant results.  Just to be sure, on the last wash I added Borax, to make the wash more basic.  Why?  Because overly acidic solutions over time will degrade fibers.  I just wanted to get the fibers to a more neutral Ph, because I’d washed the rug in several fairly acidic washes.

The results?  Well, the dryer is probably the most clean it’s been in ages.

The rug?

The colors are more muted.  You can see in places where the flowers used to be bright red.  The yellow is definitely not yellow anymore.  But it’s clean.  And really, the cat’s don’t care what color their rug is.

It’ll do.