Also, you SHOULD NOT rinse dishes first! Dish detergent is designed to attach to food particles, so you’re supposed to leave that shit on there so the enzymes activate it. Dishwashers are tested with like peanut butter and shit stuck on the plates. Just drop the big chunks of food into the compost or trash. Any properly-functioning machine made in the last 10 years should get them clean. I think some people load improperly (big bowls or pans covering the sprayers, plates and bowls on top rack, etc) and then think the machine is the problem. Or maybe theirs are broken, I dunno. But mine is like 6 years old and not fancy at all and all I do is shake my dishes out first and they come out perfectly clean every time without me standing at the sink running water for 20 minutes. I mean, even if you fill the sink up and let them soak, how many minutes do you spend rinsing those? Seems like a crazy amount of hot water to me.

Seriously google “dishwasher vs hand-washing” or “do i need to rinse before dishwashing” or something similar. You might be surprised!

NOW WHO’S THE NINNIE , MARIJKE.

By the way, how did your dishwasher get all that gross water in it if it wasn’t used? Does it just get water pumped into it when resting or something???

At our old rental, there was a fancy drawer-like dishwasher with two small “drawers” or compartments — ideal for a smaller quantity of dishes as you could run one at a time. I miss this fancy dishwasher.

And since moving, we’ve had another kid and he likes to drink water and milk all day long and I can’t keep everyone’s glasses straight and almost every night I curse the amount of dishes that I must wash by hand. Other nights I put on my green gloves and find it to be an oddly pleasing activity.

I have read that one benefit of handwashing is that our inability to sanitize the dishes when washing by hand allows enough residual bacteria to remain, leading to a stronger and healthier immune system through exposure. Bonus!

2) We didn’t have a dishwasher before this house, but the one in this house is GOOD. It actually cleans the dishes well. We usually give them a quick rinse, but that might not even be necessary. It has cleaned a bunch of baked on gunk off of a glass casserole dish. Surprisingly, using the fanciest Cascade “Platinum” dishwasher packs is what does the trick. I tried the cheaper ones and they didn’t work as well. One scenario where something that seems like flashy branding is actually legit.

We don’t have one and I never notice. Although I did like using the one at the rental as a gigantic drying rack to save counter space.

Truly a gift from above.