Making Careful Appliance Decisions

Your favorite t-shirt goes missing. You could swear someone is stealing your underwear. Your favorite pair of socks is no longer a pair because you only have one of them. Is there a thief in the house with a weird fetish for your clothing articles? Maybe, but it's more likely that your clothes dryer is eating your clothes.

People joke about washers and dryers who must be eating their articles of clothing, but there is some seriousness to the humor. A clothes dryer with issues could very well be gobbling up some of the things you find missing. Take a look at some of the reasons your clothes dryer could be stealing some of the clothing you put inside of it. 

One of the rollers under the drum is broken or askew. 

The average clothes dryer has a series of rollers inside of it just under the drum or tub of the appliance that are responsible for turning and supporting the drum as it turns to dry your clothing. You can't see this roller unless you take the dryer apart, but if the thing is broken, the drum inside will shift back and forth when it is in motion. This action can leave gaps large enough for smaller clothing articles to slip right through and fall into the abyss (the unseen, inside area of the dryer). 

The belt that supports the drum is not properly positioned. 

The drum of the fryer has a belt that wraps around it to control the turning motion and keep clothes moving inside. If that belt gets worn, and it often does after years of use, it can slip out of place on the drum and create a shift in its position. You will likely be able to visibly see a difference when this happens because the drum may look seated slightly off kilter or out of place. Once again, this awkward positioning can create small gaps big enough for clothing to fall out of the drum. 

In order to retrieve lost clothing articles and make repairs to a dryer that is eating your clothing, the front or back panel of the dryer will have to be removed. There's no telling what you will find inside of there, but this is a job usually best left to a professional appliance service technician. Reach out to a dryer repair service specialist if you believe your dryer is eating your clothing.