Some years ago, we lived in the country and had a house with two wood-burning fire places; I always saved dryer lint. About once a month or so, my girls (who were young enough at the time to be amused by this) and I would do the following project: take all the cardboard egg cartons that I also saved, put a length of wick (available at any craft store) into each individual section, stuff the section full of dryer lint, pour melted parrafin into each section; let harden, cut into individual sections. When we wanted to start a fire in the fireplace, we’d put a couple of these “fire starters” under the kindling. Cheaper than the ones you bought in the stores, and gave the kids something useful to do!
Same here. 'Course, I have to use communal laundry facilities.
I’ve been looking for a reason to tell this story, and I think I just found it.
Last year, I’d gone down to the laundry room in the basement of my dorm to put my wet clothes in the dryer. All the dryers were taken except for a couple that had been taken for the past couple of days. Some schlub had just abandoned his clothes for the weekend, apparently. So I decided to evict his clothes. Upon opening the lint trap, I discovered that TMI
it was absolutely filled with pubic hair. Wads and wads of pubic hair. The size of a couple of big mice or a small rat. How the hell does that much pubic hair go through a load of socks and blue jeans? I could understand towels, but not blue jeans.
Then I wondered for a good half hour if antibacterial handsoap was enough or if I should scrub my hands with bleach as well.
I know it’s still early folks but Miss Purl McKnittington has taken a commanding lead in this week’s race for most TMI post. :eek:
I clean it out before. And I’m not going to change my habits, noway, nohow.
Before (always) and after (upon occasion, depending on what has been dried).
I do it to save money–didn’t think of fires at all. I just want an efficent dryer!
we also clean out the vent bit irreguarly.
That was indeed nasty.
I don’t know what’s going through some people’s heads when they put certain things in the dryer. Someone in my building once put a pair of something in the dryer that was absolutely full of sand. I went to dry my clothes one day and they came out with sand all over - I had to shake everything out. Sand imbedded in the lint trap, at least a cup’s worth of sand in the bottom of the dryer. That dryer sounded like a giant maraca every time it started up for about a month. I was not happy.
When my brother and I lived together, I used to nag him all the time to clean the lint trap, and he would never do it. Finally one day he turned to me with great exasperation and said, “Julie, I don’t care if I have lint on my clothes!”
:eek:
Idiot!
[Hijack]My god, Lint is Clothes.[/Hijack] 
Silly girl. No one put the sand in the dryer. But right now, someone’s missing sock is laying on a beach somewhere. Conservation of mass, dontcha know? 
I was going over to a coworker’s house one evening to play poker with the guys. I had an idea just before leaving, went over to the dryer and cleaned out the lint drawer. Then I stuffed it all inside my shirt right about my bellybutton.
About halfway through the game, I subtly made mention of the fact I’d been having trouble with belly button lint and pulled just a little bit out and placed it on the table. That raised an eyebrow or two. Then I started digging in my belleybutton in earnest and started pulling clumps out from between my shirt buttons.
Much beer enspewed.
I clean the trap and the door vent before I haul out the clean, dry clothes each time. And check before stuffing the wet clothes in. Apparently living in a cat-infested household leads to much more lint production.
This is absolute truth. In my house, we’re getting to the point where the lint trap has about 45% clothes lint, 45% cat hair, and 10% wad of long red hairs (mine) clumped up together like a miniature auburn dreadlock. That’s how I know when it’s time to get a haircut - when my hair contributes more than a quarter of any load’s lint.
I should save them for a rasta wig. Recycle, you know?
You use dryer sheets? What for exactly? I’ve always thought they were just a useless product.
They really do reduce static significantly. I don’t know how much they soften.
I’m a before person. I developed that habit when I shared a house with someone who never cleaned the lint filter. I had to clean it before to make sure my clothes dried properly.
Before. I live alone and so there is no one to be annoyed with me if I don’t do it after.
Even better than dryer sheets is liquid fabric softener, which really does soften clothing significantly as well as reduce static, and I find my clothing ends up less wrinkled as well. And you don’t even have to pay attention to the rinse cycle to run in and put it in your machine, either; you can buy this $1.50 object called a “Downy ball” in the laundry aisle of your supermarket that you just put the fabric softener into, and it somehow magically knows to release it into the rinse cycle.
So I don’t end up with the residue on my lint trap that others have mentioned coming from dryer sheets – the liquid softener doesn’t seem to leave that residue.
We had to stop using liquid softener, because it clogs the drains. Badly. And it’s a real pain to clear the clogs. But I agree that it works much better than dryer sheets. (And you can tell whether the dryer load had the sheets or not, because of the amount of static in the laundry.)
Wow, I’ve been using the liquid for over ten years now with nary a drain plug. I’ve never heard of that one before. Maybe it’s just a peculiarity of your drainage system?