As an apartment dweller, a dishwasher is a luxury that we cannot always count on.  Especially if you geek out over older / eclectic homes like we do.

However, we lucked out with a dishwasher, garbage disposal AND washer / dryer hook ups in the space we are living in now.  Three fricking cheers for that, these are household gadgets that we never take for granted.

But sometimes our budget apartment dishwasher has attitude problems that will not go away with verbal coaching and promises of more frequently rinsed dishes.  That’s where some of these dishwasher cleaning tricks come in hand – simple, cheap and effective:

• Try cleaning your dishwasher regularly to knock out any leftover food particles
• Clean your dishwasher with lemonade Kool Aid
• Use vinegar and run on empty
• Load your dishwasher correctly in the first place, to ensure a nice and even clean

Photo thanks to Flickr user Kevin McShane