Don’t bother with feeling down sofa cushions

I am £1.75 richer today without having to feel down between sofa cushions.

Today our washing machine (a Hotpoint BWM129 for those who might come here via a Google search when they have a problem) decided to not empty and flashed the Door Locked, Rinse Hold and Super Wash lights at us.

A quick Google pointed the finger at the pump and/or filter, however, after investigating, I would hardly call it a filter, though it would stop football boots going down the drain.

Taking the plinth off revealed the filter cover and a shallow baking tray was used to catch the water that was still in the machine – about 4 litres!! Remember, the machine was not emptying? Sliding the tray out and tipping it into a washing up bowl spilt plenty of water on the floor so I got the artificial inseminator/turkey baster out and sucked the water out of the tray as fast as it was going in. Which brings me to one reason for posting this – don’t undo the filter cover too far. I found that I could open it more but not close it because of all the grit and gunk inside. Fortunately the turkey baster could keep up.

Once it had slowed to a drip I took the filter out and fished around inside. You would think that because the washing is always clean when it comes out of the machine that the drain pipe would be clean too. I should have put some gloves on and tolerated the smell of the latex on my hands for a day or so instead of the drainly smell they are going to have for a while. Fishing round into the pipe I could feel something stuck so a bit of bent garden wire was used to pull out more black discs. The culprit looked to be an elastic hair tie but no one living in the house now uses them.

Kathie has now put the black discs in some vinegar and they reveal themselves to be £1.75 worth of coins. Kathie has suggested that if the vinegar doesn’t work properly we should try Gin and then perhaps Whisky!! Ha! That’s taking things too far. Perhaps my mum did clean her engagement ring in whisky but that had both sentimental and monetary value. Sorry, but I would much rather drink the whisky. I am not sure what Sophie would say about using Gin.