I have been having problems with The Stinkies.  It first started when my friend gave me 2 diapers with The Stink.  They infected my poor stash, and I totally re-did my wash routine, and now I can’t get rid of The Stinkies.  So I need help and advice.

My issue is that I live in a city with extremely hard water.  It’s so hard to get detergent out of stuff, and I don’t think that it even really suds properly.  My solution to that was to add powdered Calgon to our laundry.  I started this before we had an issue, adding a tablespoon to each load (we have a front washer), along with the detergent.  After we had noticed a problem, I started adding about a quarter cup to the wash, thinking that maybe it will help remove any mineral build up.    This?  Did nothing, and I was going through Calgon like a mad woman.

I also thought that it could be a bacteria thing, so I tried washing my diapers with Oxyclean as well.  The first time I tried it, I added a full scoop of Oxyclean, and then rinsed eleventy million times.  Just in case.  That didn’t seem to fix the problem.

I had heard about the mysterious powers of blue Dawn, so I picked some of that up, and put it in the wash.  It made a lot (A LOT) of bubbles, but no help with The Stinkies (although I used it straight on my pockets, and they haven’t had a smell issue since, so I guess it kind of helped).  I haven’t been adding it to the wash regularily, so maybe that’s something to try.

I have even been hanging things out in the sun, even though you cannot convince me that this will help.  There’s no way that the sun can kill bacteria, otherwise we would live in a sterile world.  I do believe that it will bleach out stains, and the fresh air can’t hurt the fabric, but I didn’t have high hopes for this curing my diaper plague.

My last idea was that maybe I need to switch detergents.  There’s a lady on the Diaper Swappers board who lives in my city, and she has great results with Sunlight brand laundry detergent.  I might try this, once my Nellie’s Washing Soda is all gone (I spent money on it, I should use it!).  I’m fairly skeptical that a change in detergent will fix all my diaper woes, just because Nellie’s among the top recommended for diaper care.  Oh well.

Any advice?  Things I didn’t try?  Things I should think about?  I don’t have access to RLR (unless one of my friends in the States wants to donate to my cause - and even then I’m petrified to use it in my front loader!), so that’s the only thing I’m not willing to try (that and boiling my PUL - that also scares the poop out of me).