Your question isn't offensive but it's based on a couple questionable assumptions.

First, blind people can wash dishes by hand. I do it all the time even though we have a dishwasher. Washing dishes is a ritual for me - it's a reminder of the meals I've made, a chance to be thankful for the food we have, and a way to feel like a contributing member of the household. I *know* the dishes are getting scrubbed better by me than they would be in the dishwasher.

The dishwasher gets hotter than the sink water and hot water kills bacteria and degreases cutlery, so I will occasionally run a load of dishes through the dishwasher *after* I've scrubbed them by hand. It depends on the amount of grease and how much meat and dairy was used.

The second questionable assumption is about the ADA. The ADA is about accessibility, not convenience. ADA sinks are designed for people in wheelchairs to be able to reach them. There are legal requirements for the height and width of the sink and the space underneath it.

I'm really struggling to think of anything in the ADA that could be interpreted to require a dishwasher in a blind person's apartment.

Do you not touch the utensils and plates that you are washing? A dishwasher is a convenience and not something hard-coded into ADA compliance as it cannot be guaranteed that every apartment can have a dishwasher. Most new buildings contain them for overall convenience for everyone, but you are jumping to a very ableist conclusion here regarding our ability to do basic cleaning. Cleaning is a very basic part of our independent living skills, and it's really not that difficult to ensure clean dishes without being able to look at them...

Yeah, I think you’ve been thoroughly schooled here. Haha! So I won’t harp on the subject. But I like washing dishes by hand. And do it probably very well I am also a very thorough person.I use my hands to make sure it’s clean and a lot of water.

But yeah, a dishwasher wouldn’t help us anymore than anyone else, it would provide convenience and not quite the same as an acomodation.

I wash dishes by feel, and am probably better than my sighted peers at getting them clean as a result.

Can’t comment on the ADA (not American), but accommodations tend to be things like railings, high-contrast markings on steps, bump dots on appliances. If you could make a case for being unable to wash dishes by hand (could see someone with mobility issues having problems), maybe, assuming the apartment could accommodate it. I live in a tiny place that couldn’t fit a dishwasher, no matter how much I argued that I need one, for example.

I'm legally blind and also have nerve issues in my hands that make it very difficult to just "feel" the dishes to ensure they're clean. I can't feel small food particles and the difference between greasy or clean. I didn't ask permission I just bought a countertop portable dishwasher as it doesn't require any installation and won't damage the apartment I rent. It sits on my counter. You pour water into the tank, and the water drains through a hose into your sink drain (or a bucket if it can't fit at your sink).

It beeps when the water is loaded in to the fill line, and it beeps when it's done washing.

The manual is available as a PDF i had my phone read me.

You press the power button for 3 seconds to turn on. (That's the button to the furthest left). And then press it 5 times to get to the proper wash setting. Then you push the button furthest right to start. They all beep as you press them. There's no other buttons to press. Just power, and start.

Someone with sight would use it to tell where the light was showing was highlighted, what mode of wash, but it can be operated with no usable sight at all either.

Its the Comfee portable dishwasher if anybody is interested.

You’d… feel it? Do you not feel your things when washing them?

Not an ADA expert or lawyer, so don't take anything I say as 100% correct. However, it is doubtful you could argue that a dishwasher was necessary for accessibility and thus ADA compliance for the reasons other people mentioned regarding a dishwasher being more of a convenience item.

Now if they did have a dishwasher installed that was for some reason not accessible, and thus you cannot make use of while other tenants can, you might be able to argue that you either needed an accessible one or needed your current one altered to make it accessible. For example, if you were unable to tell which buttons did what on the dishwasher, you could request they add tactile labels to the buttons so you can identify their various functions.

Otherwise, if you really wanted a dishwasher and an apartment did not offer one, your options would be to get one of those dishwashers that are able to roll about and be hooked up to the sink when in use. Or a countertop dishwasher that is also able to be hooked up to the sink when in use.

However, you have to be cautious of those as some apartments don't allow them because they tend to be more prone to water leakage and thus more prone to causing water damage.

It's not a reasonable accommodation as you've probably gathered

So I am very dedicated to having spotless dishes when it matters. When I pick up dish that I’ve either hand washed or ran through the dish washer, my fingers automatically begin searching for discrepancies between what the object feels like when clean and what it feels like now. It’s not hard for me to tell when it’s still dirty.

As far as I know, no one makes talking dish washers. Even if they did though, in most cases the price wouldn’t be worth it. I can label them with sticky transparent dots. Different types of dish washers require different labeling methods. The same goes for washing machines and dryers. Odds are, the more complex dish washers and washing machines are harder to label. For example, there are washing machines that are touch screen or habe a wheel thing that remain on the previous setting used but with no way to tactally indicate that. With the wheel set up, if it resets every tine to a default option, I might be able to count the number of clicks or beeps to the option I want. When it doesn’t , and if I can’t remember the last option I used or someone else has used it, I have to ask for help. I’m not sure if there are dish washers that convoluted yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they appear soon. Either way, we would love for our appliances to be accessible when we purchase them. It wouldn’t be hard for manufacturers if they built in accessibility from the beginning. We have tried building momentum for regulatory guidelines to be made legally binding in the US for a long time, but no luck so far.

The ADA doesn't have a set provision for appliances, that being said I have been told by several caseworker for blind people that if it can be justified then they can most of the time make it happen but a dishwasher? That would be a longshot

ADA requires "reasonable accomidations" so that would be a tricky one, probably could not force them to have one installed if there is not already a place for one, however likely would allow a person to keep a freestanding one even if that would not usually be allowed.