Disinfecting clothes

I often buy used clothes. I wash them in hot water with 1/2 cup of bleach. In case these clothes were owned by people with pets, is this the best way to disinfect them? I just want to keep my clothes pet-safe, as well. Thank you.

If bleach doesn't do it, the next step would be a product like Quatracide or Roccal D.

I use Top Performance Lemon-256 Disinfectant on my floors as I see a wide parade of animals- it is effective against staph, salmonella, bordetella brochiseptica, adenovirus, canine distemper, feline picornavirus, HIV-1, infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, rabies, avian polyomavirus, herpes, pseudorabies, respiratory syncytial and streptococcus.

But unless you are buying clothes out of a hazardous materials dump site, or an animal shelter wastebasket I think bleach is plenty sufficient.

Thanks about the tip regarding disinfectant. I have learned so much from this site. Last night I read about phenols and I have both a bottle of Pine Sol and a bottle of Lysol disinfectant liquid which will be gone by today. Thank goodness for forums like this!

Personally, I am not a big fan of disinfectants in general living. Not living in a calcutta hospital I believe that ordinary washing removes the overwhelming number of illness bearing particles. Ordinary handwashing and normal cleaning with an earth friendly and animal friendly cleaner is generally sufficient. I think our exposure to toxic chemicals is growing at an alarming rate and we are simply breeding more disinfectant resistant bacterias. Plus my mother told me that exposure to some basic bacteria helped build resistance. Was she wise or lazy? hahahaha.

Oh I agree on the germs thing. I think it is quite necessary that children eat bugs and mud pies.

I disinfect my floors periodically as I work in an animal intensive environment, regularly have foster and rescue dogs with uncertain histories going through, babysit another subset of dogs, and feed raw foods which as careful as I am, occasionally get drug into inappropriate places for gnawing.

But if I were a "normal" house I would probably not bother.

Yea, there are many who theorize that the surge in cases of immune disorders (asthma, IBD, etc) are caused by the sterile environments we live in.

If you've bought your clothes from salvation army, goodwill, etc, they've already been disinfected. If they're from a garage sale or something, I can't imagine what would be on them that a good wash in hot water wouldn't get rid of.