But I didn’t figure this out until yesterday, and we’ve lived here for nearly 4 years.
Leyna is fascinated with the dishwasher and all it holds inside. If we leave it unlocked, she opens it and either takes knives out of it and runs off or she climbs on the opened door and tries to hoist herself onto the coutner.
If we leave it locked, she starts it over and over and over again until we’ve washed one load of dishes… or no dishes 10 times.
Leave it half locked? Doesn’t trick her. She can unlock it from the half-locked position.
Oh, First-World-Problems, I have them.
BUT! In our house, we happen to have a random light switch that actually controls the power to the dishwasher. I only know this because one day I accidentally switched it to the off position, then I called Scott 2 hours later, telling him to prepare to spend mad cash at Lowes on a dishwasher because our’s was clearly broken and I was NOT ABOUT to live without one.
He came home, flipped the switch on, and we saved hundreds of dollars.
Now, it’s very possible that I’m the only fool who didn’t realize such a switch exists for so long, and I’m not positive every house has one, but I thought I’d just throw this out there… just in case one or a few of you are dealing with the same annoyance and have the same solution sitting right next to your bottle of wine.
Mmm…wine. Only 5.5 hours until bedtime.
Leyna is 15 months old and a climbing fool. I’m bracing myself for an early toddler bed transition with this one.
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Oh how this makes me laugh. My hubby’s name is Scott too, and about a year ago I called him telling him the dishwasher was broken. Same thing, he literally came home and moved a wine bottle out of the way and flipped that mysterious switch that I thought didn’t work for anything 🙂 We have another one of those in our entry way, finally figured that one out after 5years!
We have one of these switches. Except it doesn’t control the dishwasher. It controls the AIR CONDITIONING. In Georgia. Guess whose toddler is kind of obsessed with turning off the lights?
It was 80 mother facking degrees in my house on Sunday.
we have one of those switches too. unfortunately, i don’t think we have a lock on our dishwasher, so when the time comes that my kid is old enough to pull those shenanigans, we might be in trouble!
I have no idea why they have these and it hit or miss if they do have a light switch shut off. My 1983 house has one. The brand new apartment didnt. My parents 1991 house didnt have one. All in Texas.
Side note: Your furnace has a code required one in your attic. Yes, a code required emergency shut off… light switch. That can save you thousands of dollars around Christmas decorating time when your heater suddenly stops working.
That is what that random switch in my attic is for, does it turn off just the heating unit or the ac too? Oh the things I learn.
We have both too (a dishwasher-loving toddler and a ligth switch) though the switch is right next to the garbage disposal and I can never remember what’s what. Which creates it’s own set of problems…
I suspect maybe I DO have one of these switches, since there’s a double light switch right above the dishwasher and we’ve only been able to figure out what one of them does. AHA MOMENT.
It took me a year of stomping around going “WHY IS IT SO DARK IN HERE??!!” to figure out that the light switch in the dining area had a dimmer on it. We had even tried changing the light bulb. Twice.
OH MY GOD I HAVE ONE TOO! And, I have the same dishwasher obsessed toddler. Thank you.
The exact same thing happened to me! It happens to the best of us 😛
Nice. Last year, I called my husband at his office, furious that our 1 year-old oven was already beeping– which I inferred from a periodic, annoying beeping that I was hearing while trying to bake cookies. After about 40 minutes of fury on my part, I realized that the problem was not the oven (which was baking the cookies just fine) but the problem was that I was an idiot who left her reheated coffee in the microwave above the oven and was being reminded 400 times to open the damned microwave and retrieve the pathetic coffee.
Sadly we don’t have one of those in this place or I would be using it. We have had it in past places.
Alas…we have no such switch. But cool you guys have one!
I don’t have a magic dishwasher switch but I do have a suggestion about cot-climbing babies: put them to sleep in a sleepsac ( rather than under blankets). It’s hard to climb out of the cot when their legs are effectively bound together by the sleeping bag.
My son was an early climber…16 months I heard a small thump & cry then suddenly he was opening my bedroom door. Way too young for his own bed there was no way he would ever stay in it. Crib tents are a life saver. Yes he was pissed beyond all hell for two days, but after that it’s all good. He’s not coming out of that crib tent until he’s 16
We have the dishwasher-controlling light switch in our house. First time I have ever seen one or heard of one. The agent was sure to point it out to us and we were like, “That’s dumb, who would want that?” The agent just laughed at us and said, “Oh, you don’t have kids yet. That’s precious.” The person who built our house specifically requested it be installed because of her DW-loving 2 year old son.
I’m in SC – all of my friends think our DW switch is ridiculous and they’ve never seen anything like it either.
I will be sure to keep that switch in mind next time I stay at your house. Leyna kept me on my toes with that dishwasher.
I now have to test every light switch in the kitchen. Vicki loves to play in the dishwasher and press the buttons, but thankfully doesn’t press them without permission. Yet.
We don’t have one, but this is genius! Maybe I should insist on it for the new house!