Originally Posted by SueZQ from MN

Just one little piece of information to those of you that never use their dishwasher. My parents rarely used their dishwasher and after my mom died, my dad never ran it at all for years. When he passed away, I wanted to wash all the dishes in the cabinets to get them ready for the estate sale, so I filled the dishwasher and turned it on. What I got was water everywhere!! When the repair man came to the house, he told me that you should run a dishwasher at least 4 times a year to keep all of the seals from drying out and the entire system operating smoothly. It also flushes the hoses and connections to keep the dishwasher free from any odors. I don't mean to tell anyone what to do, but from personal experience, you do not want to have to clean up the mess after the seals or hoses break from unuse.