A laundry appliance, comprising a cabinet accommodating a laundry treatment chamber and a storage drawer comprising at least one compartment for containing laundry treatment agent ( 220, 220; 230; 230), the cabinet comprising a drawer seat for slidingly housing the storage drawer, the storage drawer being configured to slide with respect to the drawer seat between: - a retracted position, in which the storage drawer is retracted inside the drawer seat, and - an extracted position, in which the storage drawer is at least partially extracted from the drawer seat, wherein the laundry appliance further comprises: - a drawer position detecting system for detecting when the storage drawer is in the retracted position, said drawer position detecting system comprising a target element and a sensor element configured to sense a proximity of the target element to the sensor element, a first element between said target element and said sensor element being located on the storage drawer and a second element between said target element and said sensor element different than said first element being located on the cabinet; - a washing cycle control system configured to trigger the running of washing cycles in response to a command submitted by an user of the laundry appliance, and - a stand-by system configured to prevent the running of a washing cycle triggered by the washing cycle control system when the drawer position detecting system detects that the storage drawer is in the extracted position, characterized in that: - the laundry appliance comprises a blocking system ( 410, 420) adapted to block in a releasable manner the drawer in the retracted position; - the drawer position detecting system is configured so that the sensor element is arranged to sense that the distance between the target element and the sensor element corresponds to the predefined distance when the blocking system is blocking the drawer in the retraced position. - a retracted position, in which the storage drawer is retracted inside the drawer seat, and - an extracted position, in which the storage drawer is at least partially extracted from the drawer seat, wherein the laundry appliance further comprises: - a drawer position detecting system for detecting when the storage drawer is in the retracted position, said drawer position detecting system comprising a target element and a sensor element configured to sense a proximity of the target element to the sensor element, a first element between said target element and said sensor element being located on the storage drawer and a second element between said target element and said sensor element different than said first element being located on the cabinet; - a washing cycle control system configured to trigger the running of washing cycles in response to a command submitted by an user of the laundry appliance, and - a stand-by system configured to prevent the running of a washing cycle triggered by the washing cycle control system when the drawer position detecting system detects that the storage drawer is in the extracted position, characterized in that: - the laundry appliance comprises a blocking system ( 410, 420) adapted to block in a releasable manner the drawer in the retracted position; - the drawer position detecting system is configured so that the sensor element is arranged to sense that the distance between the target element and the sensor element corresponds to the predefined distance when the blocking system is blocking the drawer in the retraced position.