Warning ..... WORDS

So, I'm living in an apartment for basically the first time in my life, and overall it's pretty nice. Well landscaped, well taken care of. I had some minor issues with how long it took them to fix the things I pointed out were jacked up during the initial walk-through. It turned out that the chic who did the walk-through never wrote up the work orders to have the stuff fixed, and I just never had time to go down to the office when they were open. When I DID go down there, they were really nice and put in the work orders right in front of me. I did this last Friday, and when I came home today, everything was addressed, so I thought that was pretty good, especially since I hit them up at the office late on Friday.

However, I'm curious about the dishwasher. If I could find my camera, I'd take pictures of it, but my crude descriptions will have to do. It's clearly an older model, and that doesn't bother me. It's got one spinny thingy from which water shoots, and this thing is on the bottom of the machine. I wasn't initially surprised when stuff on the top rack didn't get all that clean, because I just figured that I had shit blocking the water on the bottom level, though I think that is squirrelly in its own right.

Then, I noticed that shit on the BOTTOM rack wasn't getting washed right. Example: I sometimes eat applesauce in a little cup type thing, and I'll put that on the bottom rack when I don't have much to wash. I don't lick the cup clean when I am done, but I don't leave a ton of stuff in it, either, so when the cup comes out of the washer with dried applesauce on it, I am a bit disappointed. I also washed a cup from which I had drank some Gatorade, and the cup still has gatorade all up inside of it. I had a bowl of icecream yesterday and there is dried icecream all in the bowl.

I don't normally rinse the stuff before I put it in the washer, because I've never done that before. The stuff doesn't sit in the washer for more than a day before I wash it, so I don't think that is a problem. My family had a similar dishwasher back in the day, similar layout, similar features, and it never had this much trouble. I'm using what I think is a standard detergent, one of those little JetDry detergent pouches, so I don't know if that is bad or not.

Basically, I wanna know if I am being unreasonable with this dishwasher right now in expecting it to do more than it is. The guy came by today to check the filter and said that it "checked out OK," but if he had looked at the dishes that were "washed" in it, I'm sure he would have said otherwise. Am I being overly bitchy here or am I just using the damned thing wrong? Do I need a different detergent, or is this machine just plain busted?

I kept the dishes that didn't get washed today, and I am probably going to take them down to the office tomorrow, but I just wanna know if I am crazy here or what.

7/23/2007 11:44:12 PM

cliff notes?

7/23/2007 11:47:17 PM

The dishwasher definitely should do better than that for the bottom rack.

7/23/2007 11:49:39 PM

idk, my dishwasher sucks and i am really grossed out by food on dishes so i scrub every bit of food off before i put them in the dishwasher, but you should probably at least pre rinse for best results. cheap dishwashers are basically only good at dissolving grease, disinfecting and drying the dishes. heated dry for that autoclave-fresh flavor!

7/24/2007 12:54:55 AM

it should definitely be doing better than that. by your description i'm assuming the water nozzle/jet is one of those telescoping tubes that shoots around willy-nilly at the whim of the water pressure, so just make sure you're not obstructing its extension or movement in any way. if not that, the motor might be shot and though it sounds like it's running, it might not be spraying very hard. older dishwashers are pretty easy to trick (like washers/dryers, just find the switch and hold it down while you run it), so just run it briefly and see what it's doing. you'll probably get a little wet, but you probably need to mop your floor anyway.

7/24/2007 3:44:59 AM

I've always rinced my dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. It seems like if there is any dried food at all on a dish (doesn't matter if it's from lunch or from 5 days ago) it won't get it off.

But maybe I've just had crappy machines...

7/24/2007 6:04:47 AM

Mine actually does pretty damn good.. Everybody always washer stuff off the dishes before putting them in and I always tell them not to bother because it'll get it off... Your machine is def not up to par

7/24/2007 6:33:48 AM

I'm really anal about rinsing/wiping things off before putting it in the dishwasher. I always get all the "whole" food parts off the plate and anything else that may be sticky or hard to get off.

7/24/2007 6:59:52 AM

dude you should spray the stuff off before you put it in at least

i fill a side of the sink with soap and water after dinner and let all the stuff soak for like... till later then spray em all off and put em in before bed sometime

ps you in the boro? what complex?

7/24/2007 7:27:53 AM

get yourself a new dishwasher

it should do better than that. does it not have jets that get the top rack clean? when i look in mine, i see some jets/spinner thingys that clean the top rack (although mine has a button on it to clean just the top rack, i guess to save water)

i don't leave any solid foods on it, but any sauces like ketchup/bbq sauce/glaze/etc i typically leave on because no matter how caked and dried it is, they always come out spotless

I would check your detergent, too. If your dishwasher is the kind that you throw in a whole bottle of detergent at a time, and it releases what it needs, then the tube might have become clogged.

7/24/2007 7:33:24 AM

i pay like a dollar a bottle for soap and it works great. i buy all my soap and paper goods at ye olde dollar general for mad cheap

7/24/2007 7:54:59 AM

Our dishwasher at our old apartment was kind of the same way. Sometimes there would be this black stuff on the dishes that I swear wasn't even in the dishwasher when I turned it on stuck to all the glasses and such. But when we called the maintenance people about it, the guy just tested to see that it was spraying and that the water was hot. When it did those, he just told us to switch to the liquid dish soap.

So, yes, you should expect it to clean better, but I doubt you'll be able to convince the maintenance people that without a lot of trouble on your part.

7/24/2007 9:17:25 AM

almost every old/cheap dishwasher is like that. You just have to either wash off the dried stuff or run the dishwasher when the food/drink is fresh on there.

7/24/2007 10:33:14 AM

Seriously, rinse your dishes off before you load them. No need to scrub or soap them up. A simple rinse will loosen everything up. Even a $1200 Bosch Dishwasher will leave things behind if you do not rinse it off.

I would try to clean out your machine. You can use the website below for details or find a vinegar cleaning recipe online.

http://www.mrscleannw.com/tips/clean-dishwasher.html

7/24/2007 2:37:08 PM

you either need a new filter/pump or to clean out the appliance or simply get a new one

never had any problems with any dishwasher i have ever had, and thats like 5 with all the movin I have done

they work wonders

and NEVER use dish soap in a dishwasher, it will explode with bubbles

7/24/2007 2:41:58 PM

nope, the spinny thingy doesn't spin. I played with it a little after work today and saw that there is this plastic piece below the spinny thingy that is cracked. Like, the piece is supposed to be a ring, but it's cracked, and the spinny thingy gets caught at the crack. Time to FIX THAT SHIT, people.

7/24/2007 6:54:16 PM

call maint.

7/24/2007 8:42:01 PM

and check if there is a warranty on it as well

but call maint first

7/24/2007 9:14:08 PM

why do i care about a warranty? It's an apartment appliance, mang

7/24/2007 9:17:09 PM

Just tell them your dishwasher is broken. Its not your job to do an analysis - you can assume they have plenty of tenants are not mentally equipped to determine how a dishwasher might be broken, so dont think that you should just because you can.

Typically, the administrators of an apartment complex will have a maintainence guy for this type of thing. Once you tell them it's broke, they'll usually send a guy over to do an inspection (half the time its something stupid like they forgot to change the filter, or forgot to plug it in etc etc). Once he determines it's truely broken, he'll either fix it or advise the owners to order a new one.

7/24/2007 9:24:18 PM

Tell the management. If part of the agreement is including appliances you have a reasonable expectation for them to work. They don't have to provide you with top of the line, but it should be in good working order.

7/24/2007 10:38:45 PM

$5.15 an hour, speaks some english, that's about it really

7/24/2007 11:43:50 PM