There’s nothing like the smell of fresh washing. But one woman’s cleaning escapades recently left people feeling sick.
A mum left social media users shocked after sharing the disturbing reason why her clothes still smelled after being washed. Leah Pickard lives at home with her husband, Scott, and their three children – Caden, 10, Colette, seven and Sebastian, four.
As a stay-at-home mum, the 42-year-old runs the household, and does a few loads of washing daily to keep the house in check. But, a few weeks ago, Leah noticed the clothes smelled rather funky, even though they’d been washed three times.
She later shared a viral video detailing the ordeal on social media, and it garnered over 4.1m views. It turns out, there was an unlikely culprit causing havoc in her washing machine.
“It was a mouse,” Leah told What’s The Jam. “Never in a million years did I think there would be a dead animal in my washing machine. We’ve never had a single mouse in our home since we moved here eight years ago.
“So I definitely wasn’t expecting that to be the cause of the smell. When I got to the bottom of the load and saw the poor guy, I screamed.
“My four-year-old ran out of the room gagging and I was standing there wondering… how did that even get in there? I debated burning the laundry room down but opted for picking up the mouse with a plastic bag.
“Then I ran the machine on to sanitize several times, with all the bleach, said a prayer, and posted the video for my friends to appreciate the randomness of my life.”
She admitted she now “fears” looking at her washing machine as a result of what happened. In the clip, you can even see the dead mouse in the corner. Socks, underwear and tops can be seen freshly washed in the background, and she ends the clip by declaring: “Hmm freshly washed mouse.”
Leah captioned the post: “I washed this load three times and the smell just wouldn’t come out. Please excuse me while I burn my laundry room to the ground and pray Bosch gives me a new washer.”
The clip has been liked over 70,000 times so far, and people were quick to comment too. One person wrote: “This happened to me, I even dried him, he was half-burnt.” Another added: “Pov: Stuart didn’t make it in the washing machine.”
A third replied: “Nah this would’ve made me cry for days..” Meanwhile, a fourth added: “NOOOOOOO. I think I’d throw the entire washing machine away. And maybe all my laundry. Oh, and the house too.”
