random poll

[ratcreature]

Like many other people, especially those without a dish washer, I'm not fond of doing dishes, and due to me lacking in discipline the dirty ones pile up, and I get to the point where no clean plate/fork/mug... is to be found when I need such an item to prepare and eat the food I want. And yet this does not always result in me just doing the dishes. So I'm curious about others.

Poll #5895 (not) doing dishes, how do fellow sloths cope?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 53

View Respondents

How do you cope with a lack of clean dishes/cutlery?

View Answers

I never let my dirty dishes accumulate to such an extent in the first place.
15 (28.3%)

Once it's come to that point I give in and just do the dishes.
32 (60.4%)

I invite over someone who I know can't tolerate the sight of piled up dishes, and hope they'll volunteer to (help) clean up.
4 (7.5%)

That's what the reserve stash of paper plates and plastic sporks is for.
10 (18.9%)

I go out to eat elsewhere.
8 (15.1%)

I switch to eating food that can be prepared/eaten without the dishes/cutlery. (Or eat things that way regardless of custom.)
14 (26.4%)

I wash the single plate/fork/mug/whatever I need and leave the rest.
22 (41.5%)

If still possible I use related items that are clean if not ideally suited (e.g. all forks are dirty so I make do with a cake fork, or use a large plate instead of a small one etc.)
24 (45.3%)

I try to find a used item that might still be reasonably clean enough to be used again without washing it.
9 (17.0%)

I buy new dishes/cutlery.
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[yvi]

That really only happens with cereal bowls (we have 4 for 2 people who both eat ecereal in the morning) and occasionally pots here. In which case, the dishwasher finally gets turned on again or cereal might get eaten out of soup plates :)

[ratcreature]

*suffers dishwasher envy*

Yeah, it most often happens to me with bowls as well, because I use them for cereal and often stews and soups too.

[yvi]

I didn't have one for 5 years with a short interlude of having one for half a year before it broke, and wow, it's convenient. Though finally having a working oven again is a great deal better - I am not sure how I went 1.5 years without that :D

I could just buy more bowls, of course, but I always forget. I used to be the only person eating cereal here and 4 bowls are plenty for that.

[ratcreature]

Unfortunately in my bathroom there is no place for a washing machine, so that had to go into the kitchen, where a dishwasher might have fit as well, but there is no space for both. So I prioritized owning a washing machine.

[isagel]

I ticked all the options that I've been known to go for, but my most common one is only washing the single item I need right then and there.

[ratcreature]

Yes, I often do that too. I mean, it is kind of ridiculous, because in the end it would be the same effort to just wash the used dishes right away, only then there wouldn't be a pile of dirty dishes in the sink but a stack of clean ones on the shelf, and yet...

[sholio]

Generally, running out of things is enough to prompt me to do dishes -- a sinkful, at least, if they've piled up to the point where one sinkful is not going to do it. (I'm actually trying to improve on this, because it bothers me that I can't seem to keep the dishes clean, but I am a very lazy dishwasher.)

Though at certain points, we have broken down and bought more dishes because we were constantly running out of something -- we have so much flatware now that it's basically assured that we'll have no clean dishes of any other sort left by the time we run out of flatware (which is good, since I hate washing it).

I have been able to combat my dishwashing sloth a bit by doing something else while I do dishes. Sometimes I'll move my laptop to the kitchen and watch a TV show, or talk on the phone -- dishes and other housework are GREAT activities to do while on the phone, because they don't require much thinking, and I never liked lying around not getting anything done while I'm talking on the phone. (All my family lives elsewhere, so I spend a few hours a week on the phone to them.)

[ratcreature]

I hate talking on the phone, so that would make dish washing truly horrible, and I don't think I could position a screen anywhere near the sink without risking it getting wet, but maybe I could listen to podfic... I've not really gotten into it so far because with most activities I dislike listening to stuff (words or music) in the background because it ruins my concentration, but for dish washing it wouldn't matter. Hm.

[sholio]

Ha, see, I hate talking on the phone too, but having actually accomplished something at the end of an hour and a half phone conversation (a clean pan of dishes, or a clean bathroom) makes me less bitter about the fact that I'm otherwise engaging in not just one but two activities I dislike. I can see how it could do the exact opposite, though. (The only person in the family who actually seems to believe that I don't like talking on the phone is my mom, because she's the same way. Otherwise they just think I'm avoiding their calls because I'm angry at them, so I've long since given up on trying to explain it to them, and just deal with it as a weekly obligation.)

Podfic might work very well! I'd never thought of doing that.

[auburn]

Apparently I'm a freak. My dishes don't pile up - when I'm cooking, I'll wash anything I'm done with before the meal and everything else afterward. I like the feeling of everything finished and put away. But I find washing dishes somewhat meditative, since I can think about other things, listen to the TV, talk with someone, and at the end, I've got something accomplished that I can point at as a chore done.

It probably helps that my kitchen literally doesn't have room to pile up dirty dishes and do anything else. They have to go before I can prepare another meal. So I'm not actually virtuous in anyway, merely forced by practicality and a grumbly stomach.

Plus I was raised to the tune of: Leaving Dishes Dirty Will Result in You Having Mice, Ants, and Cockroaches! At least I'm not as bad as my Mom used to be. She'd snatch your dish before you were finished eating.

[ratcreature]

In my experience, long before a pest problem you have a mold problem with disgusting smells if you ignore dishes. Though I suppose pests might be more of an issue on the ground floor or if you have a garden or the like. My brother (when he still lived alone) once asked me to water his plants while he was on vacation, and he hadn't washed the dishes before he left. The mold that grew looked like some scary space alien. I mean, it was so alarming because it began creeping out of the pot over the stove. My dishes at least never reach that stage.

[tassosss]

This is me! And my roommate!

So, our problem is that once the drying rack gets full, then the dish cleaning is done for the time being. Yes, we could dry with a towel but that never seems to happen.

So the full sink is now mostly empty but then there's probably pots on the stove and random dishes on the counter. Then you get hungry and since there are some clean dishes, you use them - filling up the sink again. Rinse and repeat so to speak.

Every two or three weeks, one of us will clean all the things. It usually goes with grocery shopping which we also kind of fail at.

Today I am actually trying to tackle all the dishes since I have to grade papers to. So grade three papers, wash dishes until the drying rack is full. Grade more, clean more. It doesn't always work out (and may not today) but at least I'll have forks.

[ratcreature]

Yes, this sounds very familiar, though I think presence of a roommate might shame me into neater behavior than I exhibit while living alone, when I don't need to show consideration. I know that my cleaning got better even by merely having rats as pets, because they are sensitive to respiratory issues from dust (you would think rats could cope what with them being vermin in the wild, but apparently not).

[goss]

Ha! That last option reminds me of a late uncle. His wife left him and their 2 kids when they were quite young, and being completely non-domestic, instead of just doing the laundry, he'd go BUY MORE CLOTHES for the kids when everything got dirty. Seriously.

[ratcreature]

Wow. I could not afford that solution, but even if I had the money to spare I find shopping for clothes and household goods not very pleasant at best and stressful at worst and it takes quite some time too, so it wouldn't make things better.

[goss]

Heh, same here. :b

I remember my cousin mentioning that his dad would like go to Costco and just get whole packs of tshirt/underwear/etc. He worked really long hours and the kids had to fend for themselves a lot. :/ When my cousin got old enough to learn how to do his own laundry he took over that responsibility, thank goodness. *shakes head*

[kiratael]

I have gotten in epic trouble for using a 'dirty' pot repeatedly - I figured, hey, all I'm doing is boiling spaghetti/noodles/eggs, how bad can it be.

The usual route in this house is that they pile up until my mother gets sick of it and does them. Sometimes I have to bribe her when there's a particularly bad pile - usually by doing something like cleaning out a cabinet and reorganizing it, or going to the post office for her.

[ratcreature]

I guess there are some advantages to living with family.

[acari]

*eyes dishes piles*

This morning I ate cereal out of a big coffee pot...

[ratcreature]

Hah, I've done that sometimes as well. *fistbump of sloth solidarity*

[elf]

I have a rule: if I have to wash something because we're out of dishes, I have to wash at least two extra things.

Not "two per thing I need" (or I'd just dodge around them or decide that no, really, I can eat cereal out of a coffee mug), but if I have to wash a bowl & spoon, I wash two extras. Two more spoons. Or a coffee cup and an extra bowl. Or a spatula and the dessert plate that were in on top of the bowl I wanted.

Often, this means I spend a few minutes washing half a drainer of bowls and cups and silverware; it's somehow easier to do if I tell myself it's okay to stop after two things. And sometimes, I'm tired and I stop after two.

[ratcreature]

Yes, I do that sometimes as well, pick a middle road between doing all the piled up dishes, and just doing one piece I need.

[shadowvalkyrie]

I do the dishes as soon as it becomes necessary (i.e. exactly because no cutlery's left). Unless I'm really stressed out, that is, in which case I do it the next day. But every other week, it's the roommates turn to do them, and that means that by Wednesday there is no clean cutlery left and there won't be any till Saturday or so. But unless more than, say, 70% of the dishes were produced by me, I don't see why I should be doing them in her week. So I stir my tea with cake forks and suchlike. (But I NEVER reuse something dirty, though I might in a pinch, if I could be entirely sure it was mine. Cleaning just an item or two seems annoying and inefficient and wouldn't occur to me.)

[ratcreature]

Yeah, I can see that kind of roommate trouble happening.

Reusing dirty dishes I do mostly with things like tea mugs, or plates on which I've just had prepared a sandwich and such, that didn't get that soiled to begin with, so it is less gross than it seems...

[lilacsigil]

We wash all the dishes every evening (no dishwasher) - it's probably the tidiest thing we do!

ETA: I should say that living in Australia is good incentive for this - most of the year, if you don't wash the dishes, the ants will come. st_aurafina lived in Sydney, and there, giant cockroaches show up.

[ratcreature]

Yeah I suppose scary fauna like yours would be incentive. My brother gets ants sometimes, but he says that they usually only bother him twice a year in some sort of migratory pattern for a brief time. He says he has an arrangement with them...

[busaikko]

My father, when he was single, used to pile the (scraped) dishes on the bottom of the bathtub so they got "washed" whenever he took a shower.

I have a small dishwasher which I love, but have to handwash the pots. I usually let them pile up for 2-3 days before I pull on the gloves and turn on the hot water....

[ratcreature]

Okay, that showering with the dishes thing is just ridiculous. And I can't imagine it would work very well or efficiently either (speaking here from the experience that my dishes don't get clean if I just stack and soak them in the sink, rather then using a dish brush or rat). Not to mention that I'd be sure to accidentally stumble against a glass and cut up my feet.

[laurajv]

I've never done it with me in the shower with them, but actually it works pretty darn well. See comment below!

[ratcreature]

I suppose if all surfaces are exposed, like when you put them in a rack or it aren't many, then it would be similar to a dishwasher in principle, which after all also sprays the dishes, if your shower has sufficient pressure. Though my showerhead is one of those water limiting ones...

[laurajv]

yes, exactly -- you make sure the dirty surfaces are going to get hit by the spray, and you do need pretty strong spray. The spray in my university dorm was, shall we say, epic.

[ratcreature]

I think even aside from the water pressure and such it would be a really bad idea to try cleaning dishes in my shower because clingy food remnants like fats, sauces and such over time would cause the drain to clog, even with my drain sieve to keep out larger particles, especially with the hair that gets in the shower drain that would give the fat something to cling to. My shower drain is not easily accessible (there is unfortunately no tile to remove or anything like that to easily access the pipe), and as it is I have a hard enough time to keep it clear. Meanwhile last time my kitchen sink drain had clogged with the disgusting crap buildup, I could just take apart the drain beneath the sink myself and clean out the curved trap manually.

[laurajv]

let me tell you my college trick.

1. take dirty dishes
2. place in shower stall
3. squirt with dish soap
4. run hot hot shower on

this will do about 75% of the work for you! spend time saved playing video game of your choice.

[ratcreature]

I had no idea how many people showered with their dishes.

[lynx212]

This is so funny...I tend to let mine pile up from time to time as well ^_^

[ratcreature]

Someone should invent self-cleaning dishes. Or at least some with dirt-repelling surfaces, where nothing would stick, and a quick rinse would be enough to clean.