How to stop pet hair clogging your washing machine
Last updated 2026-09-26
Short answer
Shake each item out before it goes in, and put a floating catcher in the drum. Most pet hair leaves the fabric during the wash cycle and then drains away with the water, which is how it reaches the pump filter and eventually blocks it. A catcher intercepts that hair inside the drum, where emptying it takes seconds.
How to do it
- 1
Shake each item out before loading
A hard shake over a bin outside the machine removes a surprising share of the loose hair, and it is hair the machine never has to deal with. This one step does more than any accessory.
- 2
Do not overload the drum
An overfilled drum does not agitate the laundry properly, so hair stays on the fabric instead of being rinsed free. It also pushes more hair into the filter in a single cycle. Leave the drum visibly loose.
- 3
Add the catcher before the laundry, not after
Floating models gather hair on the water surface during the cycle, so they need to be in place from the start. Dropping one in after the drum is full leaves it trapped against the clothes.
- 4
Check the pump filter once a month
This is the part that clogs. On most front loaders it is a small hatch at the bottom front, and it collects hair, coins and lint. Clearing it takes a few minutes and prevents the slow draining and smell that people mistake for a failing machine.
- 5
Let the catcher dry between washes
A catcher left damp in the drum grows musty. Tip the collected hair into a bin, rinse the catcher, and leave it out to dry so the next wash starts clean.
Where the hair actually goes during a wash
Pet hair behaves differently from lint. Lint is fine and stays suspended in the water, which is why it ends up on the filter and in the door seal. Pet hair is coarser and heavier, so a good part of it sinks and settles in the drum, the seal and the low points of the pipework.
The pump filter is where this accumulates. When it is partially blocked, the machine drains slowly, the spin cycle struggles, and the trapped hair starts to harbour bacteria. That is the source of the smell people often assume is in the drum itself.
Why overloading makes everything worse
Washing machines clean by moving fabric against fabric and against the drum wall. Hair is released by that mechanical action, and it needs water to carry it away. In an overloaded drum neither happens properly: the laundry stays compressed and the hair stays on it.
If you regularly wash pet bedding, wash it in smaller loads than your normal laundry, even if that means an extra cycle. The cleaning result is better and the machine takes less punishment.
What a catcher will not do
A catcher will not remove hair that is already woven into a blanket, and it will not fix a filter that is already blocked. It is a second line of defence, not a substitute for shaking items out beforehand.
It also will not do anything about the door seal, which is a common place for hair and lint to collect on front loaders. Wiping the inside of the seal with a damp cloth every few weeks is the only thing that addresses that.
Common questions
- Can a hair catcher damage my washing machine?
- No. These are floating or drum-mounted traps with no moving parts and no connection to the machine's mechanism. They sit in the drum and come out with the laundry.
- Does washing at a higher temperature remove more hair?
- No. Temperature affects oils, stains and bacteria, not how much hair the mechanical action of the wash releases. Hotter water will not compensate for an overloaded drum.
- Why is there still hair on my clothes after washing?
- Because it was never removed from the fabric, only redistributed. Hair that stays on the item through the wash usually ends up transferred to something else or left on the surface. Pre-removing it outside the machine is what actually solves this.
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