SWMBO just came into the room "Agitatato" because her white sheets had
become marked in the washing machine with what looks like black mould.

She says It can take over 5 wash cycles to get the marks out. :-(

The marking extended over several square feet. On one previous
instance Ca. 3 months ago, we came to the conclusion that mould must
be growing in the detergent compartment/filler pipe, so cleaned it
out.

However todays repeat event was worse. So bad in fact that I couldn't
quite see how the black mould could get at the clothes through the
little holes in the drum in the quantity that must have been needed.

I'm looking for alternative ideas, first thing I thought of was that
it had been growing trapped in a fold on the rubber door seal and gobs
of it had got on the clothes when the machine was loaded. Inspecting
it reveals some black in there. Could this indicate a fault, pooling
of water in the seal for instance?

Any body seen the like of this before. SWMBO uses Ariel liguid
detergent if that is significant.

TNX.

DG