Household Hint: Vinegar!

Now I realize that taking cleaning tips from me is like asking a supermodel for cooking lessons (as anyone who has seen the natural state of my house can attest) but I actually stumbled across a good one and thought I'd share.

For the last couple of months, my dishwasher has had a strange, musty odor. The dishes are still clean, but every time you open the dishwasher you get a waft of this unpleasant smell. I've tried cleaning the inside, just in case there was a piece of food lodged somewhere. I've tried running it empty so the dishwasher detergent could just wash the dishwasher. I even bought a pack of dishwasher cleaning tablets and use those. And still the odor remained. Bearable, but annoying.

This morning I loaded the dishwasher and realized that I was out of rinse aid. I didn't have any more to refill the dispenser, but I hate to do without it because I don't like the cloudy film that our hard water leaves without it. I remembered a tip I'd seen on one of those 100 Uses for Vinegar lists on Pinterest that said you could add distilled white vinegar to the dishwasher as a rinse aid. I was a little skeptical, since some of the vinegar uses I've tried in the past have not worked out. (My weeds are still flourishing.) But I decided to give it a try - hoping that the whole house wouldn't end up smelling like I'd been dyeing Easter eggs.

So I was thrilled to open the dishwasher at the end of the cycle and discover - no vinegar smell and no strange odor! It totally eliminated that weird smell I've been fighting for months. And the dishwasher and dishes don't smell like vinegar at all. And everything is sparkly clean. Awesome!