Thanks for your previous advice.
It turns out, that some Rats chewed holes in the big rubber piece that connects the big drain hole, makes a 90 degree turn and narrows into the drain hose/mechanism. The rubber piece looked like swiss cheese, and sure enough in the basment underneath it there were signs of water.
The reason we pulled it out, was because it stopped working, due to it not spraying water, who knows how long some of the water was draining into the basement. It is more of a crawlspace than a basement though. And still, who knows why it stopped spraying water.
Thanks for your help, now you can recoil in disgust at the squalor I live in, thank god we rent, this stuff wouldn't fly in my house. Landlady is buying us a new dishwasher right now.
--Falooley