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Running a dishwasher infrequently invites pest insects to be feasting on the food in it between washes, and cockroaches are a not insignificant issue in low and middle income urban living conditions. I don't recommend inviting them in like that, ecology arguments about dishwashers aside.

Never even seen a cockroach in the UK.

Our dishwasher tends to go on daily, maybe every 36 hours at most.

I have 6 kids, so there is 8 of us in the house. We run the dishwasher at least once a day, sometimes twice a day. THe amount of time wasted on washing dishes when it was broken just after we moved in was staggering, close to two hours a day. No thanks.

We do have an absurd amount of plates/bowls/cutlery though, I am not going to lie. I mean, even more than the large amount of use and washing dictates. But it is nice to not have to worry at all when one breaks once in a while, because we have plenty more.

We are absurdly first-world here. We even have two full-sized refrigerators. But "trivial" problems, like dishwashing, are the sort that I regard as the least bearable, because it could so "easily" not be an issue.

It is like the difference between having an uncomfortable pair of shoes and having no shoes at all. Both are "problems" but if you are in the position of having no shoes at all, you are likely to just bear it, since you likely can't change it. If you just have a pair of uncomfortable ones, you might donate them, throw them out, buy a new pair, or wear a different ones. And, chances are good, you'd do all that while complaining about how wrong it was that they not be comfortable. The very means, or view that means exist to change it, make it more likely, in my opinion, that you will loudly gripe about it.

Dukeofstuff wrote:
Running a dishwasher infrequently invites pest insects to be feasting on the food in it between washes, and cockroaches are a not insignificant issue in low and middle income urban living conditions. I don't recommend inviting them in like that, ecology arguments about dishwashers aside.

If you're putting food in the dishwasher, you're doing something seriously wrong.

But it might explain why people are suddenly turning up with clogged or broken dishwashers...

Luckily the only problems I've had with bugs in an apartment came from other people's failing to clean properly (the building manager basically stopped caring about any of the halls and common areas).

But I also keep a spray bottle of cheap vodka for cleaning the dishwasher and anything else that might need it. I figure if any of the vodka somehow makes it through a wash cycle and ends up on my dishes it's not a big deal.