The safety cannot be assumed or guaranteed - residential dishwashers don't sterilize.

I would let my landlord know I was making inquiries with governmental agencies - board of health, landlord/tenant office, whatever. Send the landlord a certified letter with a return receipt requested, (and take pictures of the black stuff).

Bleach? Boiling water?

Seems to me that if you clean it off with either of those, with a cloth or sponge, then run another cycle with bleach you will be quite safe. They are somewhat right, in that after a cycle, there will not be any spores to inhale, which would be the danger. And bleach will definitely kill any mold, including the spores, so you are dealing with dead material after that.

Definitely not enticing, though.

Don't mess around - call the board of health - that will get the landlord's attention

After seeing thousands of "mini worms" crawling around in there, I don't think I'd ever have the guts to put my dishes in there. Your landlord sounds more like a slumlord. You have my sympathies. Apartments are supposed to be cleaned BEFORE a tenant moves in. I'm sure you have rights as a tenant, but I don't know what they are for the area that you are in. If you don't want to make a fuss about it, try doing as Raee suggests and just bleach the daylights out of it. But it is really your landlord's (and again, I use that term loosely) responsibility and he should be paying someone to come over to your place and make sure that the dishwasher is in good working order.

The real estate forum often deals with landlord issues and that's what this is I think! They may have more suggestions on what agencies to contact if your slumlord won't fix this. This should not be your job.

It's probably perfectly safe. But ew. You at least deserve a major rent discount.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/realestate/

Try running ascorbic acid through it. That's good for removing staining in dishwashers. They make a powdered form for this. After that acid wash, I'd disinfect with the clorox.

I forgot about the worms! but they probably aren't really a danger.

College off-campus landlords (often a rather large company) are often barely a step above slumlords, and in this large university city, the health department is not too interested in the conditions of the rental units sad to say.

And it is not unusual at all to find that the units are not cleaned between tenants. But you can bet your bippy that they charged the last tenant for "cleaning"

Some residential dishwashers sanitize? Ours has a sanitize option and a high heat drying cycle.

The worms would gross me out more than the mold! Yuck!

Just to stir the pot, in some jurisdictions it is legal and legitimate to withhold rent if the landlord fails to make needed repairs particularly health code violations. This could lead to him attempting to evict you but he'd have to go to court to do that. It's a question of how far you want to push this.

Personally, I wouldn't use that dishwasher. Although you're talking about what you can see on the dishracks, how about in all the parts of the dishwasher that you can't see? And does this DW even work properly? It doesn't seem that water should sit long enough to grow mold. Even if the previous tenants were pigs who left grungy dishes in there for months, the grunge should have dried up and dried on. Does it drain properly? Is it vented properly?

BTW, Mike Holmes ("Homles on Homes") says bleach doesn't kill mold, that the black parts are just mold by-product (the mold equivalent of feces), and bleach does clean that up. Soap and water is what kills the mold spores themselves.

I read recently that a combo of bleach and vinegar is best for killing mold.

I had a mouse problem in an apartment once and the landlord was completely unconcerned until I informed him that I would be withholding my rent (as per California law) until the problem was rectified. He had an exterminator there the very next day. Rodents are certainly a health issue, as is black mold. There is the chance that the landlord could solve the problem by simply removing the dishwasher ... no more black mold. That might be a good thing, though, considering its condition.

This post was edited by jellytoast on Tue, Sep 10, 13 at 18:04

My last apartment had a dishwasher that got moldy. The landlord contacted her plumber, who told us to first, clean the interior of the dishwasher with a sponge and any basic liquid cleaner, but not a scouring power that could scratch the insides. Then to put a bowl with bleach on the upper rack and run a full cycle.

It cleaned up nicely, but the mold came back a month later. The plumber investigated further and the dishwasher wasn't draining properly. He fixed that and there was no more mold.

There are several different ways to remove mold. It sounds like from the other posts, that bleach gets rid of it, at least temporarily. I think camlan's post gets to the heart of the problem, if the humidity and dampness inside the dishwasher just sits there, the mold will return. Maybe just opening the dishwasher a little bit after it finishes its cycle will help things air out.

Here is a helpful website that I used for getting rid of mold: The Remove Mold Guide .

This could be caused by poor drainage, as camlan suggested. We had an old dishwasher that started to show little signs of mold and it turned out that the drain was all backed up with sludge. Once the sludge was removed and the drain mechanism was thoroughly bleached, the mold disappeared. (No idea why you would be seeing worms though! yikes!)

Good Luck! Don't give up until this is resolved!

Hey Mustang,

One thing I know for certain is that it's far easier to clean a dishwasher yourself than it is to enlist the help of a government agency to compel someone else to do it for you.

Bleach is the most effective cleaner for mold, and it works best if you let it set for a while &/or soak parts that can be removed and soaked. So I'd start by adding a few tablespoons of bleach to the dishwasher and start a cycle, then stop it a minute or two into the cycle and let it sit for a while before restarting. A little elbow grease will probably help as well - I'd hit the corners with with a vegetable brush to loosen it up before running the cycle. It may take a couple tries, but it'll come clean if the dishwasher is still functioning properly.

And no, the mold isn't gonna hurt you. I'm aware of all the horror stories about lives being ruined by mold, I just don't believe the vast majority of them, and there's no way that the mold in your dishwasher is gonna hurt you, especially after you knock it down with a little bleach.

good luck,
g

Not so fast on the bleach, please:

Here is a link that might be useful: mold

I am in a rental now. Our dw doesn't clean our dishes well. It basically seems to make them worse, leaving a horrible film on them. So, I simply hand wash them. I know that is not the answer you probably want but if I had worms and then black mold there is no way in the world I would use that dw!

With respect of using bleach against mold, see article below:

J Occup Environ Hyg. 2012;9(11):663-9.
Occurrence of household mold and efficacy of sodium hypochlorite disinfectant.
Reynolds KA, Boone S, Bright KR, Gerba CP.
Author information
Abstract

The occurrence and distribution of mold on household surfaces and the efficacy of bleach-based (sodium hypochlorite, NaOCl) disinfectants on mold viability and allergenicity was documented. Household microenvironments prone to increased moisture were specifically targeted. Using the sticky tape method, 1330 samples were collected from non-porous indoor surfaces of 160 homes across the United States, and analyzed for mold. Homes were randomly selected and recruited via phone interviews. Culture and immunoassays were used to measure the viability and reduction of allergenic properties of Aspergillus fumigatus following 2.4% NaOCl treatment. All homes and 72.9% of surfaces tested positive for mold. Windowsills were the most frequently contaminated site (87.5%) and Cladosporium the most commonly identified mold (31.0%). Five-minute exposures to 2.4% NaOCl resulted in a >3 to >6-logâÂÂâ reduction of culturable mold counts in controlled laboratory studies. Organisms were nonculturable after 5- and 10-min contact times on non-porous and porous ceramic carriers, respectively, and A. fumigatus spore-eluted allergen levels were reduced by an average 95.8% in 30 sec, as indicated by immunoassay. All homes are contaminated with some level of mold, and regrowth is likely in moisture-prone microenvironments. The use of low concentrations (2.4%) of NaOCl for the reduction of culturable indoor mold and related allergens is effective and recommended.

Were the worms maggots because of food left in the DW? It's quite common that mold grows in a warm, moist environment with food leftovers.

Here is a link that might be useful: bleach is efefctive and recommended against culturable indoor mold

Paula

I suspect the 'worms' were maggots and there is no way I would use that dishwasher.

Paula, no way on God's green earth would I use that DW, "cleaned" or otherwise. Like the OP, I suspect there are plumbing issues which led to whatever that is. I would insist on both a plumbing inspection and a new DW. Even sitting unused in your kitchen, that looks like a health hazard.