Rethinking Fleece Liner?

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KaylaD

Active member
Joined
Nov 1, 2012
Messages
25
Location
Ohio
We have fleece liners, with uhaul pads under, for our guinea pigs. Which is great! So easy to clean up, rarely any smell! But with our new chin, the fleece seems to smell BAD!? What am I doing wrong?
 
How often are you changing and washing them? If they still continue to smell after washing, start using white vinegar. It will help remove the smell.
 
Depending on how much your chinchilla pees and if they have and use a litter pan, it could start smelling after only a couple of days.
 
I'm with javachin...when I first started using liners I made a mistake that was twofold. Washing them in laundry detergent. First, most laundry detergents have fabric softeners which make fleece water resistant (not entirely but it CAN create puddles instead of absorbing) and secondly it causes odors faster in my experience. Try the white vinegar, if that doesn't help I'd suggest switching back to something you KNOW didn't cause odors and see if the odors persist. Probably the fleece...but it could be the actual urine or feces and you'd want to rule that out!
 
Vyxxin said:
I'm with javachin...when I first started using liners I made a mistake that was twofold. Washing them in laundry detergent. First, most laundry detergents have fabric softeners which make fleece water resistant (not entirely but it CAN create puddles instead of absorbing) and secondly it causes odors faster in my experience. Try the white vinegar, if that doesn't help I'd suggest switching back to something you KNOW didn't cause odors and see if the odors persist. Probably the fleece...but it could be the actual urine or feces and you'd want to rule that out!
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I have the same problem where I wash their fleece liners and they still smell like urine afterwards. So I should ONLY use white vinegar to wash them?
 
I do. With chins and a few dogs who use fleece liners in their crates...always pet bedding to be washed and always full gallons of white vinegar around the house :) Pour in a little, pour in a lot...I pour in a good bit...comes out smelling like fabric LOL! not like a tropical beach, but not like urine either and it's good for sanitizing as well.
 
Vyxxin said:
I do. With chins and a few dogs who use fleece liners in their crates...always pet bedding to be washed and always full gallons of white vinegar around the house :) Pour in a little, pour in a lot...I pour in a good bit...comes out smelling like fabric LOL! not like a tropical beach, but not like urine either and it's good for sanitizing as well.
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Silly question but will it make my clothes smell if I were to do a load of laundry afterwards?
 
After using vinegar, nothing smells like anything ;) it removes odors mostly. I know in concentration, vinegar smells to high heavens. When used as a cleaning agent and properly rinsed it simply removes old oders. Hope that makes sense. I use white vinegar in addition to laundry detergent on human clothes. Takes out the yuck (odors and bacteria) without staining like bleach...doesn't whiten like bleach either but it's good for odor removal and killing "stuff".
 
Vyxxin said:
After using vinegar, nothing smells like anything ;) it removes odors mostly. I know in concentration, vinegar smells to high heavens. When used as a cleaning agent and properly rinsed it simply removes old oders. Hope that makes sense. I use white vinegar in addition to laundry detergent on human clothes. Takes out the yuck (odors and bacteria) without staining like bleach...doesn't whiten like bleach either but it's good for odor removal and killing "stuff".
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Awesome, thanks for all the info! :thumbsup:
 
No problem ;) I get hardcore about clean sometimes! As a forwarning...never and I mean NEVER mix bleach and vinegar. It IS one of those deadly combinations that produces a gas which can kill if inhaled ;)
 
Vyxxin said:
No problem ;) I get hardcore about clean sometimes! As a forwarning...never and I mean NEVER mix bleach and vinegar. It IS one of those deadly combinations that produces a gas which can kill if inhaled ;)
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I never knew that! Thank you for sharing, good bit of information to know!
 
Neither did I honestly. I knew amonia and bleach were a no no...but figured if vinegar killed stuff...and bleach cleaned stuff...good combination :( boy was I wrong. Glad I didn't breath much in but it lead me to search (afterwards) the net to find it could've killed me. Don't want anyone making that mistake!
 
I don't do it for the chins cause I use shavings but for the ferret's bedding and some of my other critters I have this weird ritual...I have to wash the same load of laundry 3 times...quite frankly their stuff can smell and in all honesty it isn't any trouble to just cycle it 3 times but 1st time I use ammonia to really clean away the gunk, 2nd washing I add vinegar to wash away the stink and 3rd is just a regular washing to wash away any residuals from the first 2 cycles. I never buy laundry soap that has bleach and by doing only 1 additive at a time you are safe.
 
This is good to know. I noticed a lot of people use fleece liners for their cages too. I had them for my 2 guinea pigs but the urine odor was building up. I never knew to try white vinegar. I will have to try that out! Thanks so much for the info.
 
I have kind of a silly question. I'm moving into an apartment next year, so if I washed with vinegar in those washing machines, would there be a problem with bleach residue already in the machine that could accidentally kill us all or something?
 
I honestly don't think so but if you want to be really safe you can run a small water load through it :) I never do but that's me.
 
I doub it

Bovril said:
I have kind of a silly question. I'm moving into an apartment next year, so if I washed with vinegar in those washing machines, would there be a problem with bleach residue already in the machine that could accidentally kill us all or something?
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I highly doubt it. Bleach tends to evaporate and the residues in the washer machine (especially considering there is a rinse cycle) would not be enough for produce chlorine gas in toxic doses. Bleach always evaporated in a mix of gases that includes a low quantity of chlorine gas. The problem is when you mix them like when doing the laundry o cleaning the bathroom because the vinegar lowers the bleach pH and makes more chlorine gas that usual.
 
Another train of thought for this.

I find when my towels or chin cage stuff starts to get a little extra gunky or funny colored, I do a load with a large splash of bleach in it, then run that load again with a good batch of baking powder. Gets everything nice and fresh smelling, and seems to help with the absorption issues you can get from washing them in regular laundry soap.

Also, it makes my towels whiter. LOL
 
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