Customers

Why laundry smells musty (“kulob”) and how your shop can prevent it

By the Labahan team · October 18, 2026 · 4 min read

Few complaints hurt a laundry shop more than “My laundry smells musty.” (Many customers call it “kulob”.) The clothes look clean and the fabcon smells nice at the counter, but by the time the customer opens the bag at home, there is that damp, musty smell. The good news: it almost always comes from a handful of habits you can control.

What causes the smell

The short answer is moisture plus time. Mould and bacteria need moisture to grow. The US Environmental Protection Agency says “the key to mold control is moisture control” and advises drying damp materials quickly to stop mould growth. Researchers have also traced one of the main bad-smell compounds in laundry to bacteria that live in fabric and washing machines (a study on Moraxella osloensis, a producer of a major laundry malodour compound). Fabcon can cover the smell for a few hours, but it doesn’t remove the cause.

For a shop, that means one rule: laundry should never sit damp, not in the washer, not in the dryer, not in the bag.

The five usual suspects

1. Packed before it was fully dry

Thick items like towels, jeans, hoodies and comforter edges can feel dry outside and still be damp inside, especially at the seams and waistbands. Sealed in plastic, that moisture has nowhere to go.

2. Wet laundry left sitting in the washer

A load that finishes washing at 2 PM and only reaches the dryer at 4 PM has spent two hours wet and bunched up in a closed drum. On a busy day it is easy to miss a finished washer.

3. Overloaded dryers

A packed dryer drum can’t tumble properly, so the middle of the load stays damp while the outside feels hot and dry. Lint filters that aren’t cleaned make it worse because air can’t flow. Overloading the washer also matters: Ariel’s loading guide warns that overloaded washes can leave detergent residue and make laundry smell worse. See why you should weigh every load.

4. Packing warm laundry straight from the dryer

Hot laundry still gives off moisture as it cools. Folded and sealed in plastic right away, that moisture settles back into the clothes inside the bag.

5. A dirty machine

Detergent and fabcon residue, lint and hair build up in the rubber door gasket, the detergent drawer and around the drum. They stay damp between loads and can pass the smell to every load that follows. If your machines smell when you open the door, the clothes will too.

Cause and fix at a glance

Most musty-smell complaints come from one or two of these. Fix those first.

The no-musty-smell routine

Keep the machines clean

• After the last load: leave washer doors and detergent drawers open so they can dry overnight.
• Daily: wipe the rubber gasket, including the fold where water and lint collect. Clean dryer lint filters after every load.
• Weekly or as your manual says: clean the detergent drawer and run the machine’s drum-cleaning cycle or a hot empty wash with a washer cleaner.
• Write it down. A simple log of when each machine was cleaned stops “akala ko ikaw na”.

If a customer complains

1. Say sorry and offer to re-wash and re-dry the load for free. Don’t argue about the smell.
2. Find out which washer and dryer the load used, and how long it waited between steps.
3. Smell those machines. If one is the problem, clean it before the next load.
4. If it keeps happening on one shift, retrain on the routine above.

A prevention checklist

How Labahan helps

In Labahan Manager, staff pick the washer or dryer when a load starts, the Board shows each machine as free, running or done, and the phone beeps when a cycle ends, so wet loads don’t sit forgotten in the washer. The machine log keeps notes and a next service date for each machine, and shows a “service due” badge so cleaning and maintenance aren’t forgotten.