Can anyone help! I have a pile of socks and a washing machine, but when I stand one of the family on the socks nothing happens, they just walk away. So they are just collecting the socks and adding to the pile. Help please!!

Did you place the washing machine out of the decorate tab? If so, you need a dryer or drying rack too. In real life, you don't have only a washer. You have a dryer as well.
Then see if it works.

Thanks for your replyKammi, unfortunately getting a dryer didn’t help the situation. If I can’t resolve this I will just have to delete the game, shame really!

No problem. Also, there is an issue where they do walk away just because they "think" something is blocking their paths. So maybe move both?

There's also the fact when you are lifting a person, you do get an object kind of highlighted under them, so the socks might not be highlighted under them.