Soaking dishes - just laziness disguised, right?

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This just infuriates me so much!

Just gone to go to bed and the sink is full of tonight’s dishes that are ‘soaking’. Eg dishes left for me to wash up in the morning! My teens were meant to have done the dishes earlier.

My DH is actually the worst for this, he eats soup every day for lunch but refuses to do it in the microwave so leaves all the saucepans piling up ‘soaking’ until I relent and wash them up.

Its just laziness masked as being ‘helpful’, right?!

Also read about someone giving their DC a plate, side plate, glass, bowl and cup in a their own colour so they were responsible for cleaning their own dishes...

It's militant; but I admire it:

For me, it’s an economical use of time - why spend energy scrubbing when it will just wipe off after a soak.

Also I basically DGAF if I’m lazy in my own home 🤷‍♀️

I agree but I've also long since accepted that I need to wash them myself, otherwise someone will scour them to death.

Sometimes soaking is needed but 10 minutes is normally plenty. I don't like a full sink being left overnight.

If the person putting the pan "into soak" is then expecting someone else to wash up later then yanbu.

I do leave things to soak overnight but I'm not leaving it for someone else.

I suggest you buy some additional washing up bowls. If a lazy teen or dh leaves something in soak you can put it in a spare washing up bowl in their bedroom. (Or on DH's side of the bed)

If it happens every night yes its laziness.

Every once in a while, and there has been an attempt to clean the pan, Ok

I do it. Put dishes in bowl in sink when done with. Run water as and when throughout the day. Sink will gradually fill with both water and dishes. Stack them in dishwasher when all the dirt is slidy and will easily fall off. This means sauce etc. won't get dried on while waiting for enough dishes to run the dishwasher. Our dishwasher doesn't clean dishes with dried on crud reliably, sometimes it bakes the crud on.

It's basically rinsing the lazy way.

If I use a frying pan, make a pan of bolognese or mash potatoes I’d never wash that manually and fill the dishwasher with easier to wash items like plates.

Just leave them there - and then casually mention that you can't cook the evening meal (if you were the one going to do it) as the pans aren't clean.
If nobody steps up, order on a take away for yourself only.
I predict there will soon be a change of heart.

Why not get some pans that can go in the dishwasher?
Pretty sure soup tastes the same whether it is cooked in a £5 pan or a £500 pan

I have 2 sinks. I use one for soaking when needed and the other for washing.

I don't wash much though, it mostly goes in the dishwasher.

I don't mind soaking at it makes things easier than trying to scrape or scrub. I do all the washing up though so it's my own choice! I might feel differently if foisted upon me.

The other excuse I get from DH is "the drying rack is full" 🤔

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/uk/product-reviews/house-garden/g61433966/best-robot-lawn-mower/

Yep it definitely is just laziness, unless they are pans/dishes with really stuck on stuff! Even then, if it's their turn to do the washing up they should take care of it in the morning!

@TotHappy exactly the reasons i soak. my dishwasher never reliably washes anything dried on

Yes to this.

Gut it out, OP. There is no reason for them to bother when they know the sink mess fairy will swoop in and fix it all for them.

Same here. My dishwasher bakes food onto plates and pots. The dishes in the sink are dishes I put there specifically to soak (usually lasagne pans, pots that held mashed potatoes, pie dishes, or pots with burnt on food).

I put everything in the dishwasher and wash nothing if I can help it.

Mostly yes! Something with really crusty, stuck on bits that’s been sitting out for any longer than about an hour will benefit from a short soak (the time spent to do the other dishes perhaps…!) but nothing else ever really needs it when hot, soapy water and a bit of a scrub will get through nearly anything.

If something's got really baked-on food residue, soaking overnight will make the difference between endless scrubbing and elbow grease, and a simple quick wipe. Why would you not do it? It's efficient, not lazy. For crockery that encrusted, the dishwasher won't get it off without a soak beforehand either.

Things shouldn't be piled high though, you won't get more than 2 or 3 pans max per big cook that require it.

Soaking also doesn't mean leaving it for someone else to do. When you divvy up chores, it's yours til it's done. Washing up is my chore so when I soak pots overnight I'm leaving them for me to do the next day, not anyone else.

OP soaking overnight is acceptable, but if your teens were meant to do the dishes last night, they are still meant to do them this morning. The chore hasn't been transferred to you. If they have to be out of the house early it's also their job to make the timing work with that chore (ie, get up earlier or do it all the previous night).

Your time v the cost of buying a new pan? (My stainless steel ones go through the dishwasher all the time). I would get DH to rinse them and sling them in the dishwasher.

Why are you giving in and doing them the next day? You have taught your family that if they leave them in to "soak" then the washing up fairy will deal with them. Stop enabling them. You tell that that the pans will stay there until the person who put them in to soak finishes washing them even if it drives you crazy. They will learn.

I’ll leave crusty hard to clean stuff to soak overnight. It’s definitely so much easier to clean them afterwards.

The difference is I’m the only one that washes up so I’m just leaving it for myself. I’d be annoyed if DH was supposed to wash up and then left it for me to do!

Saucepans are fine in the dishwasher as long as they do not contain mash potato.

If you do it in the end anyway then nobody will worry or take responsibility for it, if there are no consequences then no one else will care. If however they come home, there are no pans and plates to cook and serve with and you say you can’t cook, they may of course bypass that and take snacks. Eventually you let the snacks and convenient food run out, the washing build up, surfaces uncleared, the servant has gone on strike, all things grind to a halt, all because they went to bed and ignored the washing up. Then hopefully they will all see the need to pitch in and take their little jobs seriously.

Why no mashed potato?