The Nastiest Thing I've EVER Done

I'm off work today.

Usually, I've planned out my day with non-office related work/play, in order to be productive and useful.

The sloth, I am usually not.

This morning I woke up and realized, I haven't planned out a single thing to do.  No errands. No chores. Not even something fun or entertaining, like catching up on TV shows.

It did occur to me that the house was in need of some TLC.  Not your normal straightening the living room, sweeping the floors or doing a last minute load of dishes, but things like, cleaning the microwave, fridge and even the dishwasher.

Yep.  Major stuff.



I started with the microwave. Easy. Finished in a couple of minutes. Felt very accomplished.

Moved the the dishwasher.  This guy needed something major loving.  He's actually a pretty terrible dishwasher.  It's rare that all of the dishes come out clean.  Mostly, the glasses end up with a grainy residue after being washed. Or there is nasty water floating in the bottoms of the upside down cups or bowls.  Basically, it's a pointless appliance.

So, I did some reading up (via Pinterest) and decided it was worth a shot to remove and clean the filter and also clean out the holes in the spray arm, just in case anything has gotten trapped.

First, it was a very difficult task trying to remove the filter.  I had to take out screws, remove other parts of the spray arm/filter/doo-dads, all while hovering above a pool of stagnant dishwasher water.  Yuck.

Finally I removed the filter.  Success.

I forgot to mention that I had NO rubber gloves...or any type of gloves on while doing this.  Bare handed.  I was very desperate.

I turned the filter over to check and see if there was any buildup and almost vomited on the spot.

Friends and neighbors, imagine with me, if you will, turning over a harmless filter (or bathtub drainer, thermostat cover, sink stopper..whatever you can relate to) to find a gigantic, water-logged turd seeping into every crevice of the contraption.  Odorous, gooey, gunky, hairy, and wet.

Obviously, not my actual dishwasher build up, but it definitely looked like this.

[de-fine] Dishwasher Poo:
a collection of food particles, gunky dishwasher detergent, brown, black and red molds, all rolled up into one conglomeration of disgusting-ness.

Now, okay.  I understand that cleaning a toilet is a pretty dirty job. If you clean it regularly, once a week of every two, it makes for a pretty effortless job.  Spray some cleaner, swish the toilet wand around a couple of times and voila.  Clean commode.

However, there is the chance that you might run into a red ring in your toilet or even the occasional skid marks.  Or you might lift up the seat to find a nice collection of pee droplets, possibly coupled with the sporadic appearance of stray poo bits.  Sometimes there is blood.

Yes, that is gross.  There is no denying it.

**DO NOT google "dirty toilets".  It's actually very intensely disgusting.**

But most people clean their toilets on a regular basis.  Crisis avoided.

How many people do you know that regularly clean out their dishwasher filters?????  Imagine the build-up.

Personally I don't know anyone.  Heck, why would you need to clean out something that has soap and water running through it daily?  Self-cleaning, right?

So I scrubbed...gloveless, mind you.  Luckily I had a toothbrush reserved for household cleaning purposes and a box of toothpicks.  I armed myself with the ultimate science project ingredients...baking soda and vinegar....and stood back while the volcano erupted.

Fortunately, it just foamed and sizzled, no real explosion.  I would have died on the spot had I been consequently covered with Dishwasher poo.

After the One-Two Punch, I knocked it out with an intense application of Comet and some toothbrush scrubbing and toothpick dislodging.

The nastiest thing I've ever done.  So far.

Just in case you're wondering the last step of the dishwasher cleaning process is to run an empty dishwasher with vinegar in the detergent cup and other smaller cup.

Sorry that I've been MIA and that this nasty post was my re-introduction into blog world.

I would love to hear your disgusting household cleaning stories.  For some reason, as gross and gag-worthy as cleaning the filter was, it was very satisfying too.  In a very weird and partially mentally unstable way.  Am I alone in that?


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