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Dude what? How the hell are you unable to tell if a dishwasher has dirty stuff in it? Are you exclusively putting in glasses that you drank water out of?

I can tell if my dishes are clean because . . . They are clean? How is it possible to have trouble knowing if your dishes are clean?

I know that all the stuff in my dishwasher is dirty because I always empty it directly after the washing cycle. Thus, everything in there is dirty by default.

LPT if dishes are too much to wrap your head around, just eat off the floor like a fuckin animal

Do you just eat plates of water for dinner?

Nope. You can tell if dishes are clean by looking at them.

A liquid detergent can spill if you close the lid, e.g. to make room in the kitchen,

A pod will melt if even one drop of water falls on it.

I know my dishwasher is clean because it’s only dirty for the 5 minutes it takes me to load it.

I don’t know what kind if life you guys live, but I don’t live it

I rinse my dishes off before putting them in the dishwasher. If the dishes have been in there long enough to dry (e.g. overnight), they can visually appear to be unsoiled.

Enough people have this concern that there is a market for magnets and such to put on the dishwasher to indicate whether they are clean or dirty.

Do you wait until you have a load of dishes before loading? I try to load as I use them. In a household of 2, it may be a few days before we have enough to run the dishwasher.

Yes, we wait until the sink is full before unloading/loading/running the dishwasher

ITT: I guess no one has this problem, which is why there is zero market for magnets and decals to indicate the status of the dishwasher.

Fwiw, I do exactly what you do with the soap. Glad I'm not the only one.

Some people pre-wash before putting things in the dishwasher.

That's probably very unsanitary tbh

They make little magnets that say "clean" on one side and "dirty" on the other. Easy peasy.

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Do all you heathens just throw your caked-on plates directly in the dishwasher? I pre-wash most of the visible stuff off of my dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. I asked around and everyone I asked also does this, it’s a normal thing.

They even sell magnets that says “clean/dirty.” This is not some weird thing unique to me.

I wash most of the visible stuff off of my dishes before putting them in there. You don’t rinse your plates and glasses before you put them in the dishwasher? That’s a really common thing. I’d actually wager that most people do it.

I don’t understand how everyone is so baffled that this could possibly be an issue. If you go on Amazon, there are dozens of these clean/dirty signs. This method does the same thing but you don’t have to buy anything, plus it’s more reliable.

Being a renter, I don’t have a top-of-the-line dishwasher that will clean any dish no matter how dirty it is. If I don’t pre-rinse dishes, they have a good chance of still having gunk on them when the cycle is done, not to mention all that gunk being spread around by the water.

I had no idea that a simple LPT like this would be so controversial. A huge percentage of people have little signs on their dishwashers that say “clean” and “dirty” that you can flip around. Like this one. This saves a person from buying one of those and is more reliable. And if you pre-rinse your dishes (like me) it can be difficult to tell whether they’re clean or not.

Yeah. I usually wash off anything I can see before putting dishes in the dishwasher. The dishwasher is for getting rid of any germs, etc. that I can't see. There's some old-school Foul Bachelor Frog stuff going on in the comments here, lol. I think maybe dish detergent commercials have convinced an entire generation to put food-caked dishes in the washer.

The dishwasher has a pre-wash cycle exactly for that purpose. The water is hotter, the pressure is higher, and the process more energy efficient than doing it with the sink.

Also, people are clowning on this post because it makes no sense. Remove clean dishes -> ??? -> somehow unsure whether dishes in dishwasher are clean

I'd assume the ??? would be "insert dirty dishes" but then where does the uncertainty come from? If there's dishes in the dishwasher, they're dirty. The only reason there would ever be clean ones is that you just ran it and it's time to empty it. I'm so confused

I don’t understand: why do you have a full load of dirty dishes to put into the dishwasher?

I don’t think this is the burn you think it is. I slowly fill up my dishwasher as I use dishes, always keeping my kitchen sink empty.

What kind of like do YOU live?

Sorry but that’s gross. Why not just put them in the dishwasher? It’s better than a sink full of dirty dishes. It looks bad, smells bad, and makes more work because you have to handle the dishes twice instead of once.

This is more for people who share a living space. If person A runs the dishwasher and then person B opens the dishwasher a couple hours later, it may not be apparent whether the dishes are clean or dirty. Glasses in particular are difficult because I always wash out the glass before putting it in the dishwasher, so it looks “clean” but really isn’t.

These life pro tips lately have been ass…

Im not emptying the dishwasher until it’s time to load it

How in the absolute ball sack do you have trouble recognizing clean vs dirty dishes?

Lol I know my dishes are clean because they base of the dishes that are facing upwards have water ontop because I guess my drier/heater thing is broken 🫠

So I just do a finger dip test, if it’s wet they’re clean and I have to get a towel to dry the tops lol.

Who needs to wash things before they are put into the dishwasher? Those appliances are perfectly capable of cleaning the dishes without any pre-washing by hand. This is a total waste of time and ressources. Just scraping off excess food is sufficient.

I live alone and use my dishwasher once a week. Never had I any problem with less-than-perfect cleaned dishes.

Too hard to tell. From LPT years ago: put an empty small glass face up on upper rack. Dump it out when you empty the dishwasher. Full cup = clean.

Hard to tell? You can just look at whether the detergent reservoir is open or closed.

The important thing about this LPT is that it doesn’t require any extra steps or expense. You’re still filling up the dishwashing detergent like you normally would, you’re just doing it as soon as you empty the clean dishes.

I’m astounded at how much flak this simple LPT has gotten.

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Do you live alone? If more than one person runs the dishwasher in your house, then you have to go off of how the dishes look. Many dishes don’t look visibly dirty after using them. You can root around in there, looking at them all, and hope that you make the right judgement call (otherwise you’re putting away dirty dishes or adding a dirty dish to the clean dishes) or you can just glance at the detergent reservoir and know that closed=dirty and open=clean. It takes no more time than any other way of doing the dishes because you still have to fill up the detergent at some point.

Spill…into the dishwasher? Oh no, what a tragedy.

Why does it matter if a pod melts? It’s designed to melt. I really don’t understand what you are struggling with here. None of what you listed is a negative outcome.

I’ve been doing this for a decade and never had any issues.

And no, you can’t always tell by looking at them. Lots of dishes aren’t visibly dirty after using them. And why would I I go root around in the dishwasher looking at every dish (and still running the risk of putting away dirty dishes or adding a dirty dish to clean ones) when I could just glance at the detergent reservoir?

This takes no more time than not doing it, and gives you a 100% reliable way of knowing if dishes are dirty.

Again, why? Empty the dishwasher when they’re clean, and then put your dirty dishes in the dishwasher as you use them. Keeps the sink clear, cuts down on work, and keeps dirty dishes out of sight and smell range.

The way you do it sounds really lazy and backwards.

Why are you acting like I’m advising you to do this. It’s clearly not the right way. Yes I wish I had my life together enough to do that, but I don’t

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If either rack is out, I can't see my detergent hatch. I'd have to close one or both racks to see that. Boooogus.

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