What To Do About Non-Handwashers

[The Preserver]

Not exactly a casual chat topic but, I don't see anywhere else this topic would fit here. It has been absolutely driving me crazy lately to have people in my house who don't wash their hands after touching unsanitary surfaces. An all too common example is someone who will take a No. 1, and then not bother to wash their hands after flushing. What is so hard to understand about the fact that the toilet handle is covered with an untold number of germs at any given time? This is a pet peeve of mine. Another problem this creates is that I am forced to disinfect surfaces around the home even more frequently than I normally would need to around people who have as good a sanitary habits as I do -- this forces me to go through my sanitizer and disinfectant supplies like nobody's business. It puts me in a tough spot where I become the guy's parents in their mind for nagging them about it when I shouldn't even need to. I'm actually unsure how to go about it without potentially starting a fight for being the hygiene police. People should wash their hands after touching any dirty surfaces regardless of whether the danger comes from COVID or any other type of germ. I'm really getting sick of this kind of inconsiderate and uncivilized behavior. This is becoming insufferable!

• After someone has interacted with the toilet in any way, whether it's to pee or poop, to open the lid to spit out their mouthwash into the toilet bowl, or any other activity, they are supposed to wash their hands immediately after!
• After merely even touching anything inside the meat drawer of the fridge, or even the meat drawer itself, you are supposed to wash your hands!
• After handling the garbage to get it out to the curb for trash day, you're supposed to wash your hands!
• If someone picks up some tomatoes from their garden that had made contact with the ground, that person should wash their hands!
• When someone retrieves their mobile trashcan from their front yard after a pickup, they are supposed to wash their hands!
• When someone retrieves their recycling bin from their front yard after a pickup, they are supposed to wash their hands!

 

[Phaewryn]

• Don't you clean your bathroom? I could eat off the lid of my toilet. I never wash my hands after peeing unless there's a guest over that I'm cooking for and I'm about to be in the kitchen cooking for them (and I do it then because it's the polite thing to do, not because I think my hands are really contaminated). Urine is actually sterile. You can drink urine, it's perfectly sterile. You should also be bathing/using the bidet often enough that touching yourself doesn't make your hands gross. If I'm using my hands to soap up my crotch in the bidet after I use the toilet, BOTH come out of the bathroom clean, no sink required. If my junk reeks bad enough to foul up my hands, I need to wash my junk, not my hands. If you wash your crotch and your bathroom regularly, your hands don't get dirty while in there. Why would anyone brush their teeth into the toilet? Maybe this is a cultural/socioeconomic difference? Too many people sharing a single bathroom, and not enough sinks?
• Meat is not generally poisonous, especially not lunch meat in the meat drawer in the fridge (most people don't put raw meat in the fridge, they freeze it in baggies). A little blood never hurt anyone (very few diseases are zoonotic through skin to blood contact with long dead meat animals). Raw poultry is the exception, then yes, the risk of Campylobacter, Salmonella, and Clostridium perfringens makes washing hands after handling it recommended, but raw chicken should not be being stored in the meat drawer, it should be divided up and frozen as soon as it gets home from the grocery. If the meat drawer is that dirty, try cleaning it so it's not so gross you can't touch it without having to wash your hands afterward. Also, keep your meat in baggies which are clean on the outside and you're not touching the meat when you touch the packaging, this also keeps the drawer clean.
• My garbage is clean. We have mandatory composting here so no food waste is allowed in the trash. There's nothing in my trash that is "dirty". If your trash is gross, think about what you are putting in it and make some changes. Wash all containers that can't be recycled, wash all plastic wraps, plastic covers off microwave meals, etc. before throwing it away and your trash won't be nasty. I use a soap that's called "kitchen fresh hands" to wash all my recycle and trash before throwing it in the bins, it makes everything smell like lemons. The only time my trash is sometimes dirty is after I sweep the floors and dump the dustbin into it (and then it's just cat hair, the occasional coffee grounds or spilled sugar, and a little tracked in dirt from outside, nothing gross). On grocery shopping day after I divide up my raw meat into baggies to freeze it, the containers from the grocery go in the trash, but if you put those in a gallon size ziplock baggie, they are fully contained and don't make the trash dirty (they will still stink if you don't take it out for 3 days though).
• The ground is not poisonous, dirt won't hurt you. The exception is if you know there are parasites in your soil (there usually is not anything that will go through your skin, roundworms being the exception - don't google that, you will have regrets), so as long as you don't rub your eyes, dirt on your hands won't hurt you (it could, however, make your house dirty inside, so I could see wanting people to wash their hands if they are dirty for that reason - I don't have anything white in my house, so don't worry about that). Many many people work in jobs that make them eat their lunch with some dirt on their hands, and they never get sick.
• Well, in COVID, probably, since the trash pick-up person may have touched your can, but otherwise, just keep your trash cans clean - it's not that hard. Your trash can should be less "dirty" than the handle on the grocery shopping cart at the grocery store (since only you and the trash pick-up person touch it, unlike the carts which everyone touches), and you touch that and don't wash your hands afterward (or didn't, before COVID). Treat your trash can like a shopping cart, wipe it down after other people touch it. It should not be dirty other than the handle from being touched. If your can itself is so filthy you're scared to touch it, wash it!
• There's nothing dirty in recycling (or at least there shouldn't be). Paper and cardboard is not dirty (if it is they won't take it), and all glass/cans/plastic should be WASHED before going into the recycle bin, otherwise it's going to stink.

It sounds to me like you have some challenging ideas and habits that limit your ability to function happily and which sound like they are also impacting others around you. Some changes to how you maintain your surroundings could help (like cleaning your bathroom and trash cans more often and not throwing away dirty containers or food waste). But it sounds like you may be suffering from a mental illness. I'd make an appointment with a therapist or psychologist as you might have some kind of treatable mental illness that's making you so paranoid and inflexible. It also can't be very easy to live with you, so you'd be doing your housemates a solid by getting yourself checked out. An alternative might be living alone where you can control everything in a way that doesn't trigger your condition, but usually that's not what a psychologist would recommend for someone with a challenge like yours. They would usually have you try to get outside your comfort zone and obtain a better level of functioning in society through pushing yourself through/past your constraining thought patterns. I have a mental illness, and with a lot of work, I'm now mostly functional and can even support a few personal relationships in a healthy and normal way. You can get through this! Seek some help!

 

[Tetters]

We have been in self lockdown now for 6 months. When/ if we invite anyone into the house again, and they don`t observe good manners they would be told to leave.

Your house guests wouldn`t last 5 minutes here @The Preserver


@Phaewryn We are suffering a deadly pandemic. Washing our hands frequently is absolutely necessary.

 

[roadrunner]

Maybe you should stop having house guests.

 

[Peace perfect peace]

We talk about washing hands after using the toilets and from early school day's "infants" we're educated to wash your hands after using the toilet,
Did the teachers get it right ? As a male and using the toilet to urinate and " Then" wash your hands having just held your private part,
(penis) If you did have any germs on your hands at this point !!!! Then you've just spread germs on this vital part of your body,

Wouldnt it have been a lot cleaner and better to teach young infants a lesson for the rest of their life "wash before you use the toilets And after you used the toilets ?
It's all very well saying once your an adult you decide for yourself when you wash your hands, But all those years as a child and you think your doing the right thing but with all the viruses about these days early learning is very much needed But teach the right way,

I hope my point of view has'nt upset anyone,

 

[Owdboggy]

It sounds to me like the OP is a little bit OCD about it. I usually wash my hands before and after as mine are usually dirty from gardening.
I can only point out the example of our daughters school friend. Her mother was a Theatre Sister and and fanatical about sterility. Our girls always said that their friend's house smelled of Bleach. Those girls got every stomach bug going. Ours coming from a less particular situation got nothing. People who never encounter germs never develop an immunity to them.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Not exactly a casual chat topic but, I don't see anywhere else this topic would fit here. It has been absolutely driving me crazy lately to have people in my house who don't wash their hands after touching unsanitary surfaces. An all too common example is someone who will take a No. 1, and then not bother to wash their hands after flushing. What is so hard to understand about the fact that the toilet handle is covered with an untold number of germs at any given time? This is a pet peeve of mine. Another problem this creates is that I am forced to disinfect surfaces around the home even more frequently than I normally would need to around people who have as good a sanitary habits as I do -- this forces me to go through my sanitizer and disinfectant supplies like nobody's business. It puts me in a tough spot where I become the guy's parents in their mind for nagging them about it when I shouldn't even need to. I'm actually unsure how to go about it without potentially starting a fight for being the hygiene police. People should wash their hands after touching any dirty surfaces regardless of whether the danger comes from COVID or any other type of germ. I'm really getting sick of this kind of inconsiderate and uncivilized behavior. This is becoming insufferable!

• After someone has interacted with the toilet in any way, whether it's to pee or poop, to open the lid to spit out their mouthwash into the toilet bowl, or any other activity, they are supposed to wash their hands immediately after!
• After merely even touching anything inside the meat drawer of the fridge, or even the meat drawer itself, you are supposed to wash your hands!
• After handling the garbage to get it out to the curb for trash day, you're supposed to wash your hands!
• If someone picks up some tomatoes from their garden that had made contact with the ground, that person should wash their hands!
• When someone retrieves their mobile trashcan from their front yard after a pickup, they are supposed to wash their hands!
• When someone retrieves their recycling bin from their front yard after a pickup, they are supposed to wash their hands!

Buy a loaf of bread. Let them handle a piece and toss it in a ziplock to pin uo on the wall. Handle slice in sanitary fashion and do the same. The results in a day or two will demonstrate your point.

 

[Owdboggy]

Could always call in a plumber and have him fit a foot operated flush or one of the electric eye ones which they use in Public ones.

 

[Peace perfect peace]

I also came in to a situation while serving in the forces, I did a course ref germ warfer and what to expect should such weapons be used
we spent a few days at portadown and it really made you re-think ref germs/virus etc and how easy it is to not take a chance by a stupid idea of not knowing what such germs can do to you and yours,

Like its been said ref that Lady who worked as a sister in the hospital, she'd had first hand experience of the results of germs etc,
Is'nt this enough to tell you "Not" to take the chance or perhaps you'd like to catch some killer decease and lay in a hospital bed "tv cameras on your face" Saying I was wrong and im sorry????
This very situation has already happend this last month,

You dont have to take advice "but ive heard if you put your hand on a red hot cooker plate 'it hurts.
Time my friends is the most valued thing we have, Dont waste it laying suffering in a hospital bed when you dont have to.

Once again Thanks to the moderator for letting this subject stay on the forum.

 

[NigelJ]

Some people went to posh primary schools. At first two primary schools the boys toilets were walled round, open to the air, with a channel along one wall for urine; there was one flush toilet in a cubicle with a wash hand basin, only cold water, no towel and carbolic soap to go with the Izal toilet paper. As it also stank you didn't use it unless really necessary. The girls had three or four flush toilets with wash basins and cold water etc.

 

[Peace perfect peace]

Hi Nigel, And nice to talk to you,
Ref posh schools and the upper step of lifes ladder,
Well i was really looked after by my gran and grandad, both aged both never had passports both never went very far in life "But" they led me through life with a couple of pointers, one being to be clean both in body, (wash yourself / bath or now shower yourself, And in mind ie again try to do the something nice with your life,
Little did i know when i lived in that concrete jungle that out there was a big world, with some really fantastic places, But all had a down side,
Now we are at the time of life we're we all share, the germs, the greed, the blind without white sticks (can't see the important things thats sitting in front of them)

But a few simple things that we were shown as infants has now taken the world to a place some wont be returning from,
Their lives had been taken (virus number 1 has struck) and we're not out of the woods yet by any means,
If we we're to be honest with just ourselves we know more of these viruses are here,

The world will be destroyed by man, it would be a wonderful place if it was'nt for man and his wanting more &more at cost to everyone else
Plastic's killing the sea's/ocean's Man's killing all the wild life for so called parts of these wonderful animals so man can have longer sex, live forever etc etc ,Kill these animals for fun and then stand at its blood covered body and smile for the camera,
Burn the world with heat and melt the ices, cut the rain forest down,

And those who can't go back to the early learning of keeping yourself clean both in body and mind ??? Well it's latter than we all think.