Even with all of that I'd been noticing my dishes coming out dirty. It was small at first, usually just a little particulate in my coffee mugs, but it progressively worsened and today I had the time to take the machine apart and give it a good, proper cleaning.
In my past life (before divorce), I could afford to hire someone to do this. Each year I had someone out to maintain all my appliances: fridge, dishwasher, washer, and dryer and it was worth every penny. I also do routine maintenance at home regularly, but obviously it's not enough. Given the fact that I'm living in a rental property, I'm sure that the appliances weren't well maintained by previous tenants, and few people have my standard of cleanliness so seeing what I saw when I got the machine dismantled wasn't necessarily a surprise, but it was disgusting.
This is an image-heavy entry, but it does show how to properly do a deep clean on a dishwasher. Warning, these images are DISGUSTING.
This is my dish washer before. It doesn't look bad honestly.
I pulled out both top and bottom racks to free up workspace.
It didn't look bad at first glance, but I've seen the dark matter under the sump cover and knew something wasn't quite right.
I removed the spray arm by pressing a butter knife into each catch. It came out easily.
Then I took my handy dandy hand socket set and removed the bolts holding the sump cover in place.
When I took out the sump cover I actually recoiled in disgust. There was this skin of scum and dirt covering the top of the cover, it peeled off after soaking in the sink. Vile. I took a toothbrush and scrubbed out the arm and sprayed it clean with my sink's hose attachment. It really wasn't too dirty, but there was a blockage in one of the holes. The cover soaked in a sink of HOT HOT water with bleach and soap (sorry guys, I sold out to the chemical man and went with bleach on this one). Then I scrubbed it with a toothbrush several times.
This is what my dishwasher looked like when I got the spray arm and cover out. I put the chopstick in there to help fish out the gunk, it wasn't found in there...though a q-tip was (gag).
Once I got everything apart and out, I scrubbed the unit with soapy water, going easy on the soap. I did use some baking soda to scour the very grimy spots, but this was an elbow grease job. I poured a goodly amount of bleach into the unit, closed the door, and ran a heavy duty cycle. This was about five minutes into the cycle.
Then I did it again. This is about five minutes in as well (and it was clean). The sump is actually stained from all the years of filth. I've looked online and it seems there really is no way to remove the staining.
After I felt the inside was clean I unscrewed the door cover and removed it from the machine. This is the base of the door cover where I can't reach to clean properly when its in place.
And this is the inside of the door cover, the part you never see. There was actual mildew on the styrofoam cover for the door vent. I removed the screws and took this out. If you do this, be sure to remember how it goes back together. Then I wiped down the entire door with my all purpose spray and a rag.
The door vent was pretty grotty so I sprayed and wiped it out well, using a tooth brush in the corners. Then I washed the actual vent in the sink with hot soapy water.
I reassembled the machine and ran another cycle (still running or there'd be pictures) and considered the job a success.
This is what came out of my "clean" dishwasher. Just goes to show that even clean people have filth in their lives. I'm hoping this means my dishwasher will clean the dishes again.
The WTF finds were an intact carrot slice UNDER the sump cover (I have no clue how it would fit?!), a q-tip, a foil cover for a drink, and an old rusty nail.
This deep deep clean will be added to my every six months cleaning list. I'd say it took me a good four hours between running the three wash cycles and taking care of kids in the mix.
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