Washing machine woes

I don't know why it seems the majority of blog posts are about laundry or the washing machine.  Post like this one where I shamelessly begged for someone to come and do my laundry, or this one where I told the tale of Barry's help with laundry or this one, where I mentioned the first time I used a washing machine here in Ireland (they're different than U.S. ones).  Well, I don't know why that is, but I'm gonna do it again.

Our washer.

Here goes.  The first time doing laundry here in our apartment, I had to ask Barry what compartment to put the laundry detergent in.  It is a front load washer so you don't really just dump the powder or liquid inside like you would for a top load (and that's what I'm used to).  There is a drawer on the top of the machine that pulls out and has three compartments.  There are no instructions on the drawers that tell you where to put the detergent.  I studied it very hard.  So, way back in March, I ask Barry, "What compartment do you put the detergent in?"  Naturally, I just figured he would be the appropriate person to ask since, well, it was his apartment and his washer and he'd been using it for years.  "In the first compartment," he says confidently.  Alrighty, first compartment it is.  I load it up with detergent, turn it on and there ya have it.

After several washes, we notice the clothes aren't really smelling fresh, or clean so we assume it's the detergent we're using.  We change detergents.  Still, even with the new detergent,  the clothes just don't smell right.  We change detergents again.  Same result.  We repeat this cycle about four times and with each new detergent, we're still getting stale smelling clothes.

We finally look deeper into the issue today(yes, it took us 3 1/2 months.  Don't judge.) and with the help of the internet, we downloaded the manual for our washing machine.  Turns out, the drawer I was so confidently told to put the detergent in was incorrect.  Instead, it should have been put in drawer 2! So, alas, the mystery behind the smelly, "clean" clothes appears to be caused by bad advice from the washing machine OWNER and because the detergent wasn't even getting to the clothes to start with.  We'll see how this goes.  We have a load going now.  Hopefully, this time the detergent is in the right drawer and they finally smell fresh!