What your friend is saying is true. I've seen sump pump gaskets dry out and leak after people were on vacation for a prolonged amount of time. And a dishwasher isn't a dishwasher that's false advertisement a dishwasher is just a sanitizer for dishes you need to be the one cleaning the dishes by hand then putting them in. When you don't clean them your machine works overtime with the sensors that are in them now of days reading the debris within the water and adjusting the times longer to clean your dishes so you end up spending more electricity and straining the motors more if you don't clean the dishes good. No matter what's on commercials or no matter what the salesman says you must clean your dishes or pay me later to come to your house at around 100 a pop for cleaning and coming out for something simple you can do. That's a fact some models are more prone to this problem because of shotty gasket materials from foreign vendors cutting corners also. Also if you think about a sump pump in any other application they like being in water or wet at all times otherwise you run it dry and you'll burn it out. These are things i've seen and learned thus far and i consider a fact without a doubt.