My wife refuses to load the dishwasher because to her she "doesn't do it right" or "don't want to fight with it"
So I get OP.
I've had to teach people how to mop a floor, and how you should sweep first, it's just deer in headlights when explaining it. People just don't go outta their lane to learn new things or fix things that don't work right.
MIL does this on purpose. Fucking grinds my gears - I gave up on preaching that there is a reason for that little closed compartment.
My dishwasher was caked in that white film that denotes very hard water when I got it. Came with the house. Literally did not clean anything put in it. Found some stuff online called Afresh. Comes in tablet form. Tossed one into the machine ran an empty cycle and now it works like it should
Unfortunately the little door on my dishwasher sticks and won’t open 99% of the time so I have no choice but to chuck the pod in the bottom. It sucks, but my dishwasher works well in every other way and my dishes are clean enough so I’m not spending money on a new one until some other part of it breaks.
I also put laundry pods in the little compartment even though they say to just toss them into the thing where the clothes go. I do this because
The pre-rinse cycle will just flush out all the detergent before the actual cleaning cycle
The plastic shit that dissolves to release the detergent was getting all over my clothes and fucking shit up doing it the way the package instructs you.