Our new-to-us dishwasher has a little blue light that shines on the floor when it’s operating. But when the dishwasher has completed its cycle and the dishes are clean, the light goes off. The light is also off when the dishwasher is full of dirty dishes.
This is a problem. The lack of clarity around whether the dishes are dirty or clean has led to Carla putting dirty dishes in with the clean ones. It has led to my husband stacking dishes on the counter instead of putting them into the dishwasher where they belong. It has led to me being annoyed and feeling like I have become both The Keeper of the Knowledge of the Dishes and The Sole Dishwasher Loader/Emptier which are titles I did not consent to and do not want.
(Sidebar: I think it IS possible to figure out whether a dishwasher is full of clean or dirty dishes, at least most of the time, simply by doing a little investigation. You often find a little puddle of water on the underside of mugs after they’ve run through the wash, for instance. Or if the dishwasher has only two plates, a fork, and the water bottle you put into it yesterday, perhaps they are dirty. To be fair, since we are a Full Rinse Before Dishwashing family, it can be tricky to tell the difference, especially if the dishwasher is pretty full. But that is only some of the time, not all of the time.)
It is possible to buy little magnets that tell you whether your dishes are clean or dirty. But the new-to-us dishwasher is not magnetic, so the problem persisted.
But I found a little clean/dirty sign that you put inside your dishwasher and I love it! There has been a bit of a learning curve – I need to switch the sign to “Clean :-)” at the same time I add the soap, and I need to switch the sign to “Dirty :-(” right when I open up the dishwasher to empty it, but sometimes I forget. It’s helping though! Other people have been putting their dirty dishes into the dishwasher all by themselves.
Who is the primary dishwasher loader/unloader in your household? What title do you bear that you neither consented to nor want?
I am kinda sorta attempting to complete NaBloPoMo, with the full expectation that life will make it impossible any day now. If you want to follow along, or join in the fun, check out San’s blog here.
The ONE THING I like about our GE Profile dishwasher is that it has a little light up status bar near the handle that is inconspicuous and also says either WASHING or CLEAN. The washing one is dumb because the machine is REALLY LOUD, but the little green CLEAN message is **chef’s kiss** (I also like the third row rack and the water bottle cleaners, but THAT’S IT).
Being an adult means having Very Strong opinions about dishwashers.
We have a dishwasher that came with our 1970’s house that looks like Noah used it on the Ark. But it’s great and amazing but obviously has NO bells and whistles. But when you open up the dishwasher for the first time after it’s clean the detergent dispenser caddy makes a loud slapping noise, so people have to IGNORE this sound to not realize there are clean dishes.
Technically, the dishwasher is my 12-year-olds responsibility, but I’ve been emptying it more and more because she’s back to school during the day and I hate waiting for her to get home to empty it OR if it’s run overnight, it really impedes our morning to have her empty that while we’re trying to prep breakfast in our relatively small kitchen. I’m not a big fan of emptying the dishwasher, but mostly just HATE doing the silverware, so if I do empty it, I’ll often leave clean silverware for her to handle.
What a smart idea! I almost never unload the dishwasher, although it’s not totally never. My sons typically do it, my older son especially (when he lived here). Now my husband generally does it. In any case it magically seems to happen!
I am 100% The Dishwasher Person in our house – pretty much totally because my husband has not a single, solitary practical bone in his body and his loading and unloading skills are entirely absent (well played, husband!). In 35 years together he has also never replaced a light bulb! 🤦🏻♀️. I do get a cup of coffee in bed every morning, though – not entirely decided on whether it’s a totally fair trade, though…
Even though I am one of four cooks in the house, somehow I ended up as the sole dishwasher, dish loader and dish unloader.
Hmmm! I’ve never seen that clean/dirty sign for inside the dishwasher! I might have to get one. I agree with you though- a little investigating will usually tell you if the dishes are dirty or clean. We’ve had too many instances of someone taking dirty dishes out and eating off them, because they thought they were clean. Or of course, loading dirty dishes on top of clean ones. I would say I unload the dishwasher 75% of the time, and my husband does the other 25%. At least it’s SOMETHING.
The dishwasher is my husband’s purview. I may start it at night once in a while, but he is 100% in charge of emptying it. I can count on one hand the number of times I have emptied it. He does that as part of his morning chores while I’m walking the dog, so it’s not like I’m just doing nothing while he handles dishes. He’s also a lot pickier than me about cleanliness levels, so he might put something in for a second wash that I would not notice and put back in the cupboards. This system isn’t flawless, but we rarely put dirty dishes in with clean ones despite a lack of lights or signs!
We have that same dishwasher. I love it. Well, we have two of them. I love the blue light and I know that someone has opened the dishwasher and not restarted it when the light is flashing. 😉 We haven’t had much of an issue, because we are very specific about starting the dishwasher when we go to bed and emptying it in the morning. Everyone leaves breakfast dishes in the sink or near it in the morning and once they are all gone I load it, because
. . . during the week, a couple of kids are charged with emptying the dishwasher before school.
Paying the bills is my duty – one that I never asked for, but I lived on my own before we were marired and Coach lived with his folks (eek!). He was applying to PT school, so living at home made sense to save money. I was in the habit of paying bills and so I just kept it up. For years I was also the one to do our taxes. I hated it. Once he became a partner in his business, we hired someone to do them (my BF from childhood) and that was a huge relief.
I’m the only one who lives here (besides the cat) so it’s me. I’m also a full rinse person but usually can find evidence of whether the dishes are clean or dirty. Speaking of that, I should run my dishwasher; it’s been a while!
My husband lives by the clean/dirty magnet on the outside of our dishwasher. I use it to humor him and the kids are indifferent to it. However there is hope! The kids have gone from sticking dirty dishes into a clean dishwasher like it was their job to…actually being able to tell the difference…and…wait for it…MOSTLY EMPTYING THE DISHWASHER WHEN THEY SEE THAT IT NEEDS TO BE EMPTIED WITHOUT BEING ASKED!!!!!!!!! It’s pretty amazing. We should probably level up to having them be able to tell when it’s time to start the dishwasher before they move out but I’m happy with where we are right now.
The dishwasher is a war zone in our house. We both unload it, but my husband still doesn’t know where so many things go EVEN THOUGH HE HAS LIVED HERE AS LONG AS I HAVE. And I still do not load it correctly (to his satisfaction.) This goes for the machine at the lakehouse as well. Clean vs. Dirty is the least of our problems.
We both love washing dishes as a mindless meditative thing (I know, we are so weird), so we very rarely use our dishwasher – but we will sneak doing dishes between work from home meetings.
Ooh, I thought you were going to say that the light on the floor changed colors depending on if it’s clean or dirty. Now that would be something! Like a green light saying clean and red saying dirty. I would love a light that doesn’t go off until I tell it to, because our old dishwasher did have lights that kind of indicated it was clean, but they only stayed on until you opened it. And we all know that inevitably someone will open it, take out one knife or something, and then close it again… and the rest are all still clean… I am going to look into that inside clean and dirty sign because we have a real issue with this too. I typically unload the dishwasher in the morning while boys are having breakfast, but lately with puppy, routines are all screwed up. Also, we do not always eat at home/home cooked meals, so we do not always run it everyday either. I feel like sometimes the half loads or not completely full loads are extra confusing because someone will look, see It not totally full and assume it’s dirty…
The dishwasher is a hot button topic around here most days. Our dishwasher has a little green light that comes on when it’s done. It won’t go off unless you close the door all the way. So, generally, if one of us takes something out but doesn’t unload the dishwasher we don’t close the door all the way so the next person knows the dishes are clean. I don’t mind emptying the dishwasher but it drives me absolutely INSANE when I do that and then he just leaves dishes in the sink.
And to be honest, sometimes I’d rather he NOT load the dishwasher. Case in point – a few days ago, he “cleaned” the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher after I went to bed. The next morning, I woke up and started unloading what appeared to be clean dishes (yes, there were small puddles of water to indicate they were clean). Until I got to the back of the top row where I found a greasy bowl. Apparently, he’d loaded a cookie sheet in such a way on the bottom shelf that nothing on the top shelf got clean. Needless to say, I had to put everything back in properly and start from scratch.
There’s usually only my Hubby and I around to empty the dishwasher and it seems like it usually falls to me. We are not full rinse people so all you need to do is open it to work out whether it’s lean or dirty but still the dishes get piled on the bench when they should be put in the dishwasher.
That sign is genius! I mean, it would be better if your brand-new dishwasher would shine a “clean” or “dirty” light on the floor for people to easily know what’s up, but I guess that’s to futuristic yet.
Our dishwasher is very old and has no lights or anything, but luckily, my husband insists that I don’t touch the dishwasher, so he’s the one responsible to keep track of dirty and clean dishes 😉
A blue light? Ours shines a glaring impossible to miss red color. Maybe there’s a way to change the color?
Phil nearly always unloads the dishwasher. We don’t put a ton of dishes in there so we run it every 2-3 days. We are rinsers before putting dishes in the dishwasher but we usually only run it in the evening and Phil unloads it as soon as the dishes are cool enough to handle! When our boys are loading the dishwasher I can see us needing a more clear system like this!
Looking at your beautiful, shiny, and annoying dishwasher, my thought was to get a dishtowel that you like, and when someone runs the dishwasher, they hang it over the handle. So if that dishtowel is there, and the dishwasher is not running, the dishes are clean. Would that be better than the system you came up with? No. Just what I came up with.
My dirty task is that I am the one who rearranges the dishes in the dishwasher because I am convinced that no one else does it right and things will break. However, when I was gone for 2 1/2 weeks last year, I don’t think anything DID break, so probably I could let this go. How many things to we hang on to, that we could let go?
I can say with confidence that I am the primary dish washer in the house. The cats just have never gotten the hang of it! Tehehe. Dad joke???
I never use my dishwasher, though. I do everything by hand because it’s just me and it would take me forever to build up to a full load.
My dishwasher cracks open the door a bit, for venting when it’s finished, which is easy to note for all humans inhabiting the house. I tend to unload most of the time, but we both load our dirty stuff.
I hope you’re getting settled in and enjoying your house a bit more each day.