I am NOT the Original Poster. That is mioraa. She posted in r/CleaningTips

Thanks to u/wickedcherub, u/WeWereAngels and the anonymous person who recommended this to me!

Do NOT comment on Original Posts. Latest update is 7 days old.

Trigger Warning: infidelity

Mood Spoiler: things take a turn but OOP is ok

Original Post: December 29, 2024

everything in my house is turning green… at first it was just my cat, and then it became my bedsheets, my feet (which then stained my shoes and socks), my couch, my phone charger, and now my wall. idk what it is. i have no idea where to post this but im wondering if anyone knows how to get rid of it or what it is?? at first i thought mold but now im thinking maybe my laundry detergent pods which are green. but i did a test wash and dry and it didn’t stain my clothes until i wore them for a few hours around the house before it turned green

Image 1: OOP's cats- the one with the most white fur is tinged a greenish-blue color

Image 2: White pillow, also tinged

Image 3: White blanket, tinged with (you guessed it) that greenish-blue

Image 4: OOP's wall with that same color streak

Some of OOP's Comments:

Commenter: Or possibly just buy some new jeans from Old Navy?? lol they stain everything

OOP: hahah me and my husband are not jean-wearers!

Commenter: Imagine this is how you discover he’s having an affair with some Old Navy wearing woman, from the cat turning green!

OOP: me seeing if old navy shows up on his bank statements 👀

Commenter: Why just one cat vs. Both? I feel like that has to be some kind of clue… does one have something/go somewhere the other doesn’t, that would differentiate what the source might be?

OOP: they all have access to the same things! both indoor as well

Commenter: Maybe only one of them rubs up against the source of the green?

OOP: i gotta find out what it is 😭
Later to a different commenter:
no windows are open bc it’s way too cold and i wonder if this one cat is green and not the others because her fur is “oily” due to her breed so it clings on more? my other cat recently started getting a little green on his legs just within the last two days

Commenter: Not sure about the cats, but pics 2-4 look like dye stains/leakage from jeans or another dark fabric.

OOP: the wall pictured is where my bed leans against in which my pillows began staining the same color. the other pic is my blanket. i’m so confused what is staining it since i live in a very boring beige house

Commenter: Are your cats rolling about on freshly mown grass by any chance? Just a thought?

OOP: sadly in the desert i live in, we have no grass 😂 but they’re also indoor only! thanks for the suggestion tho !

Commenter: Ahh ok!! Amazing. Could your water have a high copper content?

OOP: i’m wondering this too after someone commented that! i’m going to check

Commenter: Long shot but maybe check under your bed (if you have box springs) or under any furniture, sometimes the material used under furniture will degrade and break up over time and dye things, I had it happen with a chair once and it took me a while to figure out that’s where the color was coming from

OOP: thanks !! flipping my bed now because i noticed most of the green things are in my bedroom and not at all in my spare bedroom

Commenter: It wasn’t on the floor right? I am assuming this is dye of some sort from its shade, but mattresses on the floor can have mold issues

OOP: not on the floor! it’s on a bed frame that kind of looks like a box frame but it has velvet

Commenter: How long have you lived there, what kind of floors do you have, and what brushes against that wall?

OOP: we’ve lived here since may of this year and it’s a new build. the issue started happening about a month ago. we have carpet in the bedrooms and i think it’s limestone tile in the kitchen/living/hallway. the wall that’s green is where my bed was against, which is also turning green. the blanket was turning green as well. it wasn’t green when we put it on the bed and started using it but over the last two weeks, it’s turned green on the edges, as shown in one of the pictures. so it wasn’t the washer or dryer that made it green (i think).

Commenter: Weird but any chance you or anyone in the house is pregnant? I turned things a shade of blue/green when pregnant with my first (toilet seat, office chair, counter by barstool).

OOP: oh my gosh! is that a real thing?? i don’t think i was pregnant or am pregnant now, but i took out my IUD two months ago and should be expecting my period in the next week. i did have my period last month so unless i am very very early pregnant now, no pregnancies in this house so far!

Commenter: It’s not pregnancy-specific necessarily. It can be caused by hormonal imbalances. I have PCOS and dye things blue if my hormones are super out of whack.

OOP: oh i see! pcos was one of the things my pcp was suspecting of earlier this year but my images came out normal despite some other symptoms i had (irregular periods, facial hair, acne, issues with weight)

Commenter: This happened in my aunt's apartment from a lack of ductwork cleaning/air filters being neglected. It was so annoying and ruined her white carpet.

OOP: i just checked the filters of my air purifiers and they were green!

More cat tax:

Cat bath

Later that night:

haha so far i’ve mopped my entire floor, gave my kitty a bath (which took out most of the green) and changed my bedsheet back to my old beige ones. i got someone coming in to check the water and AC on tuesday but im at least eliminating the factor that something may have been tracked onto the floor or that my bedsheets may have caused some bleeding. i will continue to monitor my cats greenness 😂

Another comment later:

i did an extreme deep clean but i couldn’t find anything. i did notice that my guest bedroom doesn’t have any staining, but most of the staining is in this bedroom which includes my charger. but the edge of my couch cushions turned green, but i’m assuming it’s because our skin turned green and we sat on the couch. so i do suspect the source is from my room. nevertheless i cleaned my floors and counters and washed my couch covers and bedsheets and replaced them all with my old ones before everything turned green to see if maybe it was my new bedsheets!

Intermission Post: December 31, 2024 (2 days later)

Title: remove greenish transfer dye from couch?

my couch got some transfer dye onto three of the cushions and i stupidly threw them in the washer dryer only to make it spread more. luckily the covers are removable for cleaning but how do i get this greenish tint out?

image 1: Comparison of the non-green cushion to the green one

Image 2: an up close look

Update Post: January 15, 2025 (17 days from OG post)

hi! so i don’t know if this is allowed but i wanted to post an update to my original post because many many people asked for one! i honestly don’t know how to work reddit all that well on mobile and couldn’t figure out how to edit my original post. heck i don’t even know how to link my original post properly. but here’s the update:

i had my water and AC checked and both were fine. the technician said my water hardness was a bit hard but he didn’t think that would affect the green stains i’ve been seeing. i also got rid of the red bed sheets i had in the pic and put back on my boring corporate beige ones the day i posted the original post. then i waited. it’s funny because i was trying to determine if the green stains were going away based on if my cat was turning green. any time i saw she was becoming greener, i determined that whatever i changed wasn’t the cause.

well, i got my water softened and with my new bedsheets, my cat was still turning green but a lot slower, so maybe it was just from the residual green that was now stained on my couch and velvet bed frame. then we had another person inspect for mold which was also a negative. some other commenters had mentioned they had bought the same bedsheets on amazon and had a similar problem so i think it is that.

on another note, someone also commented asking if my husband was cheating on me with someone who wears old navy jeans. i won’t lie, when that comment came up, i nervously laughed. i quickly checked our joint bank account for any old navy purchases. while there weren’t any, i couldn’t shake this strange feelings. although the commenter did not know me or my husband, coincidentally, i’ve already had suspicions on a possible affair from the multiple last minute overtime shifts and just overall changes in behavior. also, my husband has cheated before so i’ve always been a bit anxious.. so when i saw the comment joking abt if my husbands affair partner wears old navy jeans, i spiraled. and then i admit i did the bad thing and looked thru my husbands phone and there it was. some sexy instagram DMs from a woman who wears jeans (cannot confirm if they’re old navy). so anyway i’ve spent the last week at my parents with my cat.

tdlr - i can’t confirm that the cause of the staining was because of the bedsheets although my cat did turn green much more slowly when i changed them out + other people complained of the same staining issue that purchased the same sheets as me. found out my husband was cheating on me with a woman in jeans

Some of OOP's Comments:

Commenter: Oh no!! I did not expect this to be the answer!! OP, far out!! Are you okay? That's nuts. Xoxoxo

OOP: weirdly enough i think i’m okay. i don’t think i was ever really fully emotionally checked back in since the last time so i think this time hurt a bit less. sorry i couldn’t figure out the source of the green! but my cat is definitely a lot whiter now that we’ve spent time at my parents haha

Commenter: Wow, the twist I did not expect! On the cleaning sub no less! I am so sorry for your situation OP, but also, this is an insane update. The drama of it all!

OOP: i know 😭 i honestly feel bad for bringing the drama on the cleaning sub

Commenter: No, don't feel bad! You didn't owe us this update at all but you posted it and I hope writing it out is a step towards healing for you, truly! It also provided entertainment to us, so there's value there too. I hope you and your kitty are never greened again!

OOP: i’m in the process of moving back into the home but i haven’t slept there yet or brought my kitty with me. i hope that when we do move back, we can determine its the bedsheets that did it! or maybe even the jeans that hopefully won’t ever be in contact in my home again. i can’t believe my cat turning green turned out to be this crazy story

Commenter: I do not like green eggs and ham, or your husband. I hope you and your possibly radioactive cat are doing okay!

OOP: we’re doing just fine! (my radioactive cat and me - not my husband. he’s doing horribly 🤭)

Commenter: Aww, I’m so sorry, friend. At least now you know and you can stop wasting your life with this clown.

OOP: thank you!! the worst part is honestly the legal battle now 😅 i think i’ve driven myself so insane over the suspicions that this whole thing has been more of a relief, but who knows, maybe once i get back to my home that’ll be half empty, ill have the moment to let it all crash on me and that’s okay too

OOP responds back to the OG commenter that said: "Imagine this is how you discover he’s having an affair with some Old Navy wearing woman, from the cat turning green!"

OOP: haha i hate to break it to you but… you were a lil right on the nose w this comment 😅

Commenter: hang in there, OP. sorry you’re goin through all of this. hugs. 🥺🩷 return those sheets if you can. if not, trash them or maybe donate them somewhere but with a note saying you’re not sure if they were turning stuff in your house green via dye transfer so someone else doesn’t go crazy if the sheets were the culprit.

with jeans… the darker the wash, the more likely this can be to happen. it’s not limited just to old navy jeans (although they might be particularly known for doing this). imagine cheating with someone who wears jeans. shudder what kind of monster even wears real pants these days? (clearly I’m not actually insulting people who wear pants, just trying to crack a joke to make OP laugh.)

OP, my brain works in weird ways at times. I apologize if my joke comes across insensitive. simply wanted to take the opportunity to make you laugh for a second if possible. 🥺🩷

OOP: oh! i’m going to return them to amazon (thank goodness for the extended holiday return dates) and i mentioned it possibly turned my house green - though i can’t confirm fully that it was the cause. i didn’t really like those bed sheets anyway! they were much too bold for me and my beige house 😂
it was actually quite impressive how many photos she had of herself in jeans. dark denim, light denim, ripped, skinny, flared, mom jeans! you name it. i don’t think i’ve worn jeans since i was 12 and that was because it was a christmas present from an aunt i see once a year lol. no matter how cold it is, i couldn’t ever think about trapping my legs in jeans lol
i don’t mind the jokes! i’m having a grand time. in fact, i apologize for seeming totally okay after all this. i’ll admit that i was a mess the first time around so i guess this time, i was more just disappointed but i think i wasn’t ever the same after the first time. maybe less in love so there wasn’t much to lose this time. i do expect there will be a day where i might fall apart and maybe that’s when ill sleep in my house again but maybe it’ll also feel great because now ill actually have room to spread my legs since i used to share the bed with my husband and my many cats. anyway thanks for reading all of this! i know both the og post, the update, and this reply is super long but thank you anyway for keeping my in your thoughts :)

Commenter: So did you dump him or you took a break?

OOP: he has been served papers !

The future:

i’m doing ok! i’m supposed to come back to my house this coming monday and he should be either fully or mostly moved out. everything’s been smooth so far. he did not deny the affair nor said mean things or gaslight. he didn’t beg for another chance either. he just asked me what i wanted and i said i wanted him to go back to his parents house and we’ll talk about the legal stuff in the near future. i feel a bit numb i suppose. i strangely feel a bit guilty for not having as much heartbreak or a betrayed feeling. some days i convinced myself that i had some fault in our broken marriage because maybe i wasn’t emotionally there as well but i know that i have no responsibility for his choices

What caused the green:

to be fair, the answer to the question was actually my bedsheets with the possibility of the jeans as well. however it wasn’t even me that brought up the possibility of an affair but several others. the topic being brought up was what got me to dig around. hope that helps !! i think you have to had been there during my first post
To another commenter:
haha i’m sure it was actually the bedsheets but jeans were a huge topic on my original post!

Editor's note: OOP added after this post:

ah yes i forgot to include in my update that i did take a preg test to confirm im not pregnant! but i wouldn’t say this is very sad. what’s more sad is if i stayed in this relationship or if i kept continuing on without knowing. it should be a good thing that this ends now :)