Compost in the Tumble Dryer

Honestly, when I write about another housekeeping disaster or oddity of life, it's true.  Seriously, I tell it very much how it is.  I fudge some details, especially if it involves other people, to protect privacy, and I omit a lot.  I try to avoid anything that will cause too much trouble for bear when he is a teenager, though just being a teenager can be bad enough.  But on the whole, yes, my life is really like this.  I don't want to protest too much, and I am sure that other people have just as interesting lives.  It's just I don't see the same mistakes.

I have a condenser tumble dryer, bought after a great deal of thought and an absolute lifeline. I use it rather than hanging stuff out as there is a smell in the garden that I can't cope with.  I am sorting things out so I use drying racks more, but onward and upward.

Today I emptied the water out of the sort of box thing that collects it.  As it has been a while since it rained here I thought I would empty it on to the apple tree in a tub just outside the door.  Except it's not exactly outside the door.  It's next to the door but around five foot above it.  The kitchen is in the cellar, below ground level.  I could have, and should have, walked up the steps and then the few feet back to the tub and poured the water on the tree.  Instead I reached up and tried to pour.  The box tilted awkwardly as the water moved, the whole thing dug into the tub and somehow a load of the compost ended up in box.

I can't get it out.  I have rinsed and rinsed and rinsed.  There is a small hole and a tiny hole to get the water out.  I can't reach in and rummage.  I can't not use the dryer.  I have already started washing DH's bedding and he likes it tumble dried.  I am aiming to do most of this stuff on the racks with ten minutes of dryer at the end, but at the moment I need the dryer.  I have got the worst of it out after several long and trying minutes in the bath, but the last few fragments are just not going anywhere.  I have compost stuck in my tumble dryer.

I have been repeatedly telling myself that something in a place that collects water is not likely to be a fire hazard, and nothing is likely to grow there because it is always being emptied, but darn!

I'm not going to even try and google this one.