From time to time I have removed my soap drawer and cleaned both it and the compartment, (a particularly unpleasant job as it seems to fill with black gunk and mould in no time at all), but this time I followed Dave's advice and paid more attention to the top of the compartment. Previously I'd only wiped it over - I hadn't realised it had all the little water inlet holes that Dave mentioned. It took ages to clean, and I mean hours, leaving me with pretty sore fingers. However I used household cleaner, an old toothbrush and just kept prodding away at the holes unblocking them as much as possible.
Every now and then I'd run the machine on a rinse cycle with no spin and when I looked in through the glass, sure enough, in addition to the black stuff that I was cleaning off, even more lumps were being washed through. I also checked the improvement of water inlet by opening the drawer slightly a couple of times as the machine filled to make sure water was running into all compartments through all the holes.
I can't see any way of removing the soap drawer casing to give the whole thing a thorough clean without involving the whole front of the machine, so it looks as if I'll just have to re-run this toothbrush cleaning procedure on a regular basis.
I normally leave the washing machine door open for a while after washes, so that the drum / rubber dry out and don't go black and mouldy. Maybe I'll remove the drawer and put it in the drum too, which should allow the compartment to dry out, rather than getting furred up.
I'm currently doing a wash load in the machine for the first time since the 'big clean' and I'll post here to let you know if it works and the softener gets taken through.
Thanks Dave.
Linda B, January 2009
