A Laundry Surprise

I don't know how you do it, but Smiley and I have our dog's cage set up in our closet. We don't have a walk in closet, but we do have small dogs.

The other day, our dog Sherlock coughed up a hairball or something; he threw up in the cage overnight. It smelled icky, so I had Smiley clean it up. Later during the day, when I was hanging up a shirt, I noticed that the whole closet still seemed to smell.

"Didn't you clean the dog's cage?" I asked, and Smiley nodded. He gestured towards the roll of paper towels and the cleaning supplies that he had brought into the room. I could see the used paper towels in our trash can.

So, I started snooping around in our closet, wondering if Smiley's fear of Sherlock peeing out of the cage came true at some point. What I found was, perhaps, worse.

A box of belts that I had in the closet revealed that some of the belts were starting to grow mildew. And then I realized that was what the smell was. A quick sniff of some of the clothes folded on the shelves agreed with my realization.  Friggen everything was slowly starting to get mildew in our closet, except for the shirts that we used most often.

As I type this, I have my tenth load of laundry running. I never realized how many clothes I have stored in the closet that I never wear, but even if I wanted to donate them, I'd still need to wash them first. (Let's not discuss my problem with donating clothes; I have a hard time getting rid of clothes that I spent money on or that other people spent money on for me, even if I never, ever wear them. What happens if one day I completely change my mind and want to wear them and then I have to buy them again because I got rid of them? Nope, can't do it.) They all smell horrible. They all need to be cleaned.

I am learning that "hand wash only" is really just code for "put it in the washer anyhow on the gentle cycle because I don't have time to hand wash all of this stuff." I also need a second drying rack, because there is one rule I don't mess around with and that's "line dry only." I've seen too many shrunken or disfigured clothes in my day. My current little drying rack is doing its best, covered in old dresses, belts, handmade t-shirts and more.

Plus, I need to search the internet to figure out how to remove mildew from shoes, if that's even possible.

I guess this all started when I decided I would save money by keeping our air conditioning usage down during the summer. Florida's humidity and high temperatures have shown me that was a stupid way to save money. So yes, on the one hand, I'm glad that I have only had to run my heat a few days this year so far. On the other hand, my clothes are all mildewy and that's disgusting. All I'm saying, Florida, is can't you try to keep the humidity and heat down just a tad during the summer? Thanks.