Guests who won't use the dishwasher?

[Laura2592]

This one has me flummoxed.

We used to say in our house rules not to put food items down the sink and that we prefer guests to use the dishwasher when cleaning plates. Some guests totally ignored this and after a few times of finding a full dish rack of drying dinner plates, we hid the dish rack and worded our rules more strongly-- please do not hand wash dishes after meals as food items get clogged in the sink we and we don't have a disposal, etc. Came in recently and once again there was a full array of plates, bowls and cups drying on the counter.

It is really starting to be a problem as we have had a few clogs. I can't for the life of me figure out why people insist on hand washing dishes when we have a nice, easy to operate standard dishwasher for their use. We always re-wash the hand washing because we want it super hot scalded clean between guests. I understand when its a coffee cup drying because a guest wanted to clean up before leaving. But these are clearly the entire complement of their dishwasher during their stay.

Does anyone have any insight into why this might happen? These are American guests, usually a bit older, and the behavior is equally common in both couples  and singles of any gender. Our dishwasher is fully functioning and working normally too, so its not a matter of the darn thing being broken in some way.

Yes I will probably have to break down and install a garbage disposal.

[Emilia42]

@Laura2592 I find that when you put a message in a frame and write it in some glorious font with a pretty border, that people tend to think it is so precious. And because it is something that looks like they saw it on Pintrest, they will magically oblige. 

[Lisa723]

@Laura2592 @Emilia42 Yep, with modern dishwashers it’s in fact best not to rinse. Just scrape. Again, it is very difficult to persuade people used to older technology that this is possible.

[Kelly149]

@Laura2592 if you're going to go to the expense of adding a disposal, likely would be cheaper to have plumber install the "food can't get thru here" drain trap. I don't know that you could convice people that they MUST use the DW, but you could certainly say that there is no disposal and they cannot put food down the drain.

[Brian1663]

I travel alone and have never once used a dishwasher in Air BnBs I've rented. I always handwash my dishes.