How to Get Hay Out of Clothes and Washing Machine in 7 Steps

Horses, rabbits and guinea pigs love to munch on hay. But your washing machine doesn’t. Nor does your body, which may have to bear the prickly consequences!

So what happens when you toss your hay-covered clothes straight into your washer with your laundry detergent? 

It will wash alright. But when you open your washing machine door, you’ll find the problem is now worse. Suddenly you’ve got hay through your clothes and your washing machine. 

There are a few methods you can use for getting hay out of clothes, including shaking, a vac, tape, and a dry comb. 

💡 These methods are worth remembering before you go to your next Halloween hayride, or when you go back from camping with your clothes covered in thorns!

How to Get Hay Out of Clothes in 7 Steps

For clothes, you can follow a few easy steps: 

1. Pick the fabric up and shake it off outdoors. This should knock the larger pieces of hay off your clothing. 
2. There’s no easy way to say this, but you’ll also have to use the most precise tool that nature has given you – your nimble fingers. Hay can bury incredibly deep, and you’ll have to pick out the remaining bigger pieces. (Why has nobody thought of making a robot to automate this boring task?!)
3. Once you’ve shaken the clothing off, it’s time to take a lint roller to the clothing. Roll the lint roller over smaller pieces of hay. The sticky side of the roller should pick up fluff. 
4. If you’ve still got hay stuck to your clothes, you can use duct tape to get more of the hay off. Make sure that you use duct tape for this, as scotch tape is too thin to do the trick. 
5. Lay down the tape in strips on the clothing. Then, quickly rip it off like a bandaid. 
6. Next, use a dry brush to sweep the hay off your clothes and into the garbage can. You can also lay the clothing on a hard surface outside and brush the hay off the clothes. 
7. Pick up the pieces of hay that fall to the ground. You don’t want to have more hay lying around ready to get back on your clothes. 

At this point, you shouldn’t have any more hay stuck to your clothes. However, you might have hay on the ground, even after picking them up by hand. 

Take a vacuum cleaner and go over your floor to get rid of any loose hay that’s fallen off your clothes. Make sure to empty out your vacuum cleaner regularly so that the hay doesn’t get caught in the machinery. 

I bet you’ll wear rain clothes next time you hit the stables!

How to Get Hay Out of the Washing Machine in 4 Steps

If you already put your hay-ridden clothes through the laundry machine and now have a washer that’s full of hay, don’t panic. You can quickly get the hay out of your washing machine with a shop vac. 

1. Pick up the hay that’s stuck in the drum by hand. The tinier pieces will have trapped into the filter – take it out and clean it too.
2. Suction the smaller pieces hay out of the washer with the vac, using the hose only.
3. Empty the vacuum cleaner as many times as you need to get rid of the hay in your machine. 
4. Go slowly, as hay can easily clog your vacuum and damage the machinery. 

This process is similar when you have sand in your washing machine.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get grass out of my washing machine?

If you’ve got grass in your washing machine, just grab your shop vac or vacuum cleaner. You can use the attachment to suction the grass out of your washing machine. You may need to repeat this after you run the washing machine, as the cycle can loosen grass that’s trapped in the inner drum.

How do you get hay out of fabric?

You can get hay out of any kind of fabric by shaking it out, using a duct tape or a stiff bristled brush. Either way, you’ll also have to pick out some of it by hand! This also works great for blankets, sheets, and fleece.