Mysterious orange patches?

[LaTrucha]

Has anyone else had mysterious orange patches appearing out of nowhere, particularly on bedlinen?

I have.

They come out of nowhere, are not apparently stains of soemthing spilt. They are completely resistant to any kind of stain removal, including bleach. I do know that my MIL, who lives in Spain, gets them too and is similarly nonplussed.

My idea is that they are something to do with the chemicla processes that the cloth goes through in the factory. My MIL doesn't think so.

Does anyone have any idea what they are, where they come from or how to get rid of them?

Pic of the biggest one on profile.

Not sure what it is. Could be rust from washing machine but not sure? Was also going to say bee pollen appearing on the washing line but too big a patch for that.

Hmm. I don't think it's rust. It sort of looks like liquid has been spilt on the fabric, but it hasn't.

Thanks for trying!

Shame the stain is not in the shape of The Virgin Mary, you could make a fortune.

FWIW dh gets smaller ones, I mean pin prick sized reddy orange dots on his work shirts. We ahve no idea wheere they come from but will NOt wash out.

There was a similar thread on here a while ago and the culprit turned out to be leaking batteries.

Could a berry eating bird have made the marks when your washing was out?

Cybiliberty - that's the ones. Most of them are smaller than the one I took the picture of. What do you think of my factory theory?

GentleOtter - Don't think so. And it would be strange if my Spanish MIL had the same berry eating bird

Montifer - ditto leaking batteries. It would be odd if both me and MIL had them on our bedlinen. Though they do loook most like it might be leaking batteries.... it's that sort of thing.

We need a representative of the textile manufacturers on here..... or I do.

Maybe your theory has some value...it's only onhis work shirts that the stains appear, I wondered if he got spattered with something at work, I don't know, copier toner or something that reacted with the washing stuff. But your orange blob really looks like a spill of somekind...weird.

Bedlinen is often folded and stored in a linen cupboard for a while, have you checked out the cupboard? On one house the wooden slats of a shelf seemed to have leaked some sort of resin onto some sheets and I couldn't shift the stains.

That's a good idea. I'll have a look.

Nothing suspicious there.

I should have put up a picture of the smaller patches. i think the big one is a bit misleading.

Anything made of maple in your house? My aunt-in-law has a chair that gives a little syrup, or something like it.

We were alerted by DD smelling of maple syrup whenever we'd visited. Orange stains on DD's clothes less unusual!

• only mdf touching the sheets etc

yup we have this problem, usually quite small spots, a rusty orange, won't wash out.
None of the suggestions here apply. Only seems to happen to white sheets, don't think I've ever seen it on shirts (and we got through 15 school shirts a week at our peak)

I'm glad you said that MLE - Someone has to know what causes it.

I could handle it on my duvet covers, but now I have one on my NEW bedspread and I'm really fed up.

bumping to see if anyone had any ideas?

Hi there!! This is happening to me, please help!! Just put brand new linen doona cover on the bed unwashed now orange stains appearing out of no where. It won't come out!!!!

This has happened to me. Over time large orange stains have appeared on my eiderdown. They do not smell and washing has made it worse. Any ideas?

It’s not small traces of bleach in the washing machine, by any chance? Bleach stains can be a sort of peachy-orange colour.

It does look like that but it went to the dry cleaners for washing and gradually appeared over time☹️Very strange