A mum has left social media users shocked after sharing the disturbing reason why her clothes still smell after being washed.
Leah Pickard lives at home with her husband, Scott, and their three children; Caden, 10, Colette, seven, and Sebastian, four.
As a stay-at-home mum, the 42-year-old runs the household including doing a fair few loads of laundry for such a big family.
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The other week, Leah noticed that the clothes smelled rather funky – despite having been washed three times.
In a viral video that has over 4.1m views, she reveals the unlikely culprit causing havoc to her washing machine.
“It was a mouse,” Leah told What’s The Jam.
“Never in a million years did I think there would be a dead animal in my washing machine.
“We’ve never had a single mouse in our home since we moved here eight years ago.
“So I definitely wasn’t expecting that to be the cause of the smell.
“When I got to the bottom of the load and saw the poor guy, I screamed.
“My four-year-old ran out of the room gagging and I was standing there wondering… how did that even get in there?
“I debated burning the laundry room down but opted for picking up the mouse with a plastic bag.
“Then I ran the machine on to sanitize several times, with all the bleach, said a prayer, and posted the video for my friends to appreciate the randomness of my life.”
Taking to social media, Leah described that she is just “a mom who needed to do some laundry” but now her washing machine is “forever a place I fear looking down into”.
In the clip, Leah films her washing machine before focusing in on the dead mouse in the corner.
Socks, underwear, and tops can be seen freshly washed in the background.
“Hmm freshly washed mouse,” she says, before the clip ends.
Leah captioned the post: “I washed this load three times and the smell just wouldn’t come out. Please excuse me while I burn my laundry room to the ground and pray Bosch gives me a new washer.”
The post has almost 70,000 likes so far.
Hannah said: “That’s so sad… he was probably so scared.”
Samantha added: “What did you do with the clothes,” followed by a skull emoji.
Kelley said: “This happened to me, I even dried him, he was half-burnt.”
Sandy wrote: “Pov: Stuart didn’t make it in the washing machine.”
Amanda said: “Nah this would’ve made me cry for days.”
Amy added: “NOOOOOOO. I think I’d throw the entire washing machine away. And maybe all my laundry. Oh, and the house too.”
Kasmine said: “Great, now I’m scared to wash laundry.”
Teresa added: “Poor guy.”
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