On Monday night I put the dishes in the dishwasher and turned it on about an hour before bedtime. I went upstairs to chat online and mess around with my blog a little. As part of the ‘getting ready for bed’ routine Kurt put squeaky pants (Gandalf) in his room and closed the door like we do every night. Minutes later I started to smell smoke. It smelled a little like burning rubber. I went downstairs thinking I left the stove or oven on, but didn’t see any lights on. I went back upstairs, but still smelled something. I went downstairs again and this time looked inside the dishwasher, which was on the heat dry cycle. I called up to Kurt, “I think we need a new dishwasher!”
“Why?”
“Cause this one is smoking.” I said. Then the fumes hit me and smoke just started pouring out of it. I turned off the dishwasher, closed the dishwasher door, ran upstairs and put a towel in front of Gandalf’s door. Kurt asked what’s wrong and I said, “The dishwasher has smoke pouring out of it.” I never use the heat dry cycle, as a matter a fact even though I typically have it set on air dry I usually turn off the dishwasher when it gets to the dry cycle.
Kurt and I opened the door again and pulled out a nylon/plastic cooking spoon that had slipped through a hole in the lower wash rack. The rubber handle of the spoon was resting right on the heating element. I opened all the downstairs windows and stayed up till about one o’clock in the morning. At midnight I think the smell was pretty much gone and I checked in on Gandalf. He WAS sleeping peacefully. He was a little miffed at me for waking him up, but he was ok. I still didn’t sleep very well that night and my throat hurt this morning. My nasal passages felt like they were burning (filled with smoke) all day.
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