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Original poster

Name something unhygienic/disgusting but people do it

334 replies

stoow · 02/07/2025 06:43

I start off:
. Holding money their mouths. It’s mainly an elderly person thing. Friends working in retail see this often. Even in mask wearing days, customers lowered masks to do this, yet denied it.
. Going to the toilet and not flushing
. Washing chicken out. People don’t realise that this can spray bacteria around. Cooking it properly will kill bacteria.
. Coughing without covering mouth. Even with Covid, people are still doing this.
. Not washing hands after using loo. In public toilets, I use hand sanitiser as seen people from certain cultures spit and mums letting their toddler DS to wee in the basins.
. On planes, people walking barefooted especially in toilets. With the quick turnaround of planes, the staff can’t clean everywhere

OP posts:
Cherrytree86 · 02/07/2025 09:20

SPITTING! If you spit you should be fined. End of.

oh and I don’t think it happens so much these days , but shop assistants licking their fingers to open carrier bags. They should get a disciplinary for that.

apostrophewoman · 02/07/2025 09:14

K0OLA1D · 02/07/2025 06:49

-Wearing outdoor shoes inside.
-Using the absolutely manky sponge at work instead of putting things in the dishwasher and then leaving the manky 'washed' dishes on the equally manky drainer without wiping them.

I can't get my head round the manky sponge at work and the tea towel that spends more time on the floor than hung up. People pick up the manky sponge and give their cups a good clean and then wipe them on the manky tea towel. It turns my stomach. Someone once helpfully said they'd cleaned my cup for me and I just knew it had been manky sponged 😖

SpiralSister · 02/07/2025 09:10

TurnThatLightOn · 02/07/2025 08:41

I've worked in a busy shop for 15 years and I've never once seen anyone hold money in their mouth. Not once. I mean, I've seen it done over my lifetime but I think it's very rare.

Hard agree. 10 years (admitted only once a week( serving an elderly population. It’s never happened.

I have had people handing me cash in the same hand as their used tissue though! Grim. Although money itself is absolute filth!

polarsystem · 02/07/2025 09:10

Using only tissue paper to clean after the bathroom. Water is a must.

StrawberrySquash · 02/07/2025 09:09

RhaenysRocks · 02/07/2025 07:16

Not washing every towel after every use

Not getting up in the middle of the night to change the bedding..gross to have a WHOLE night in one set

Breathing within 20ft of another person

Allowing food waste to drop from their body without a hermetically sealed chamber and then NOT scrubbing with bleach afterwards

Eating anything except green leafy veg grown in their own garden in filtered air

Using anything that anyone else have ever touched ever.

I've been on MN too long 🤣

You forgot then cleaning the toilet with that week's new loo brush

Sahara123 · 02/07/2025 09:07

ItsCalledAConversation · 02/07/2025 07:48

I do some of these. I haven’t died.

I do quite a lot of these …. I don’t remember the last time I had a cold or a tummy bug

Septua · 02/07/2025 09:05

Install hand dryers above basins in public loos, so what everyone has just washed off their hands gets blown back in your face. Boak! (Or above the bins. Just why!!!?)

rwalker · 02/07/2025 09:02

People working in food shops who wear gloves ( hilariously for hygiene reasons) then touch absolutely everything from food to money with there gloved hand

tumblingdowntherabbithole · 02/07/2025 08:59

randomchap · 02/07/2025 08:55

Rather tricky to put your own in

Show quote history

Depends how flexible you are 🤣

Original poster
stoow · 02/07/2025 08:57

When people wore disposable gloves when shopping etc, most had no clue how unhygienic it was. Touched hundreds of items, touched their face etc. Then saw people taking out gloves from coat pockets and reuse the disposable gloves. Then took them off by grabbing a finger of glove with teeth.

Doctors, nurses and care staff change their gloves between patients and touch very few things. May had to change gloves more frequently if a messy job.

I would liked to show these people in the first paragraph a swab sample grown in a Petri dish and do the same with hands sanitised twenty minutes previously and medical staff’s gloves. The former will have more nasties

OP posts:
randomchap · 02/07/2025 08:55

tumblingdowntherabbithole · 02/07/2025 07:10

stick other people’s genitals in their mouths.

Rather tricky to put your own in

Fizbosshoes · 02/07/2025 08:55

AndImBrit · 02/07/2025 08:45

This one is a bit weird - because looking I my bathroom bin now it has an empty shampoo bottle, a cardboard toilet roll tube and an empty toothpaste tube in it. It feels like overkill to have bagged them and thrown them straight in the outside bin. And they’re no less hygienic than when they were in the bathroom shelf filled with product as they were for weeks before them went into the bin.

Show quote history

I would recycle what you've listed, although our bathroom bin is mainly dental floss, but I wouldn't bother taking that outside at 11pm when I've just brushed my teeth!

ObtuseMoose · 02/07/2025 08:53

Arthurnewyorkcity · 02/07/2025 07:38

I know I'm in the minority but I've always found bathroom bins very unhygienic. Anything that goes in a toilet bin, goes in a nappy sack and straight outside into our main black bin. It just seems idle to me. I could maybe understand with limited mobility but otherwise no

What on earth are you putting in the bathroom bin that needs bagging and removing from the house immediately?

tumblingdowntherabbithole · 02/07/2025 08:52

Abhorrentpeople · 02/07/2025 07:29

Ah, I see the "sex is disgusting" MN brigade is out early today.

Show quote history

I never said it was disgusting 🙄

OldWomanInACardigan · 02/07/2025 08:52

............."It’s mainly an elderly person thing." How very patronising. I'm elderly (66) and have never done that. Nor have I ever had a tissue or hanky up my sleeve.

Original poster
stoow · 02/07/2025 08:51

Alpacahacker · 02/07/2025 07:51

Some (usually elderly) people carry tissues round in their sleeve / hands all day. Gets used for several wipes and then put back up the sleeve.

I have seen them discarding tissues on supermarket shelves. One time a lady put hers on an empty cardboard tray which had cans. When not looking, I placed the tray with tissue in the trolley

OP posts:
EmotionallyWeird · 02/07/2025 08:49

Pudmyboy · 02/07/2025 08:02

This is one of the ways kids can build up resistance to illnesses, along with playing outside on grass/mud/sand. Let them build up their immune systems!

Show quote history

I take your point but what about dog poo? My understanding is that it can carry illnesses that you would really not want to test your immune system on. By the way I do realise I probably expose myself to it without knowing sometimes and I'm OK so far!

LightBuIb · 02/07/2025 08:45

Own dogs.

AndImBrit · 02/07/2025 08:45

Arthurnewyorkcity · 02/07/2025 07:38

I know I'm in the minority but I've always found bathroom bins very unhygienic. Anything that goes in a toilet bin, goes in a nappy sack and straight outside into our main black bin. It just seems idle to me. I could maybe understand with limited mobility but otherwise no

This one is a bit weird - because looking I my bathroom bin now it has an empty shampoo bottle, a cardboard toilet roll tube and an empty toothpaste tube in it. It feels like overkill to have bagged them and thrown them straight in the outside bin. And they’re no less hygienic than when they were in the bathroom shelf filled with product as they were for weeks before them went into the bin.

RobertaFirmino · 02/07/2025 08:44

Not covering mouths when coughing/sneezing. Of course, small DC cannot be expected to do this every single time so I reserve my disgust for the parents who don't remind them.

None of us are perfect though. I feel sure we all do something others would find revolting. The thing to consider is 'Does this affect me?'.

TurnThatLightOn · 02/07/2025 08:41

I've worked in a busy shop for 15 years and I've never once seen anyone hold money in their mouth. Not once. I mean, I've seen it done over my lifetime but I think it's very rare.

Kittylickingplate · 02/07/2025 08:40

Taking their phones into the lavatory.
Absolutely disgusting.

Phoebesparrow · 02/07/2025 08:39

Picking noses
I was at work the other day and a group of 4 where sat at a table just outside and in my line of vision
One of the group where sat scoffing their burger
One bite of the burger and while they where chewing it,a finger flew up their snout,had a good rummage,ate it and had another bite of the burger
Rinse and repeat
I felt physically sick
He then went to the toilet and there is no way he washed his hands
Fucking grim

Goatinthegarden · 02/07/2025 08:30

EmotionallyWeird · 02/07/2025 07:56

When I was a teaching assistant I noticed an awful lot of children sitting on the floor touching the bottoms of their shoes. Those shoes had been outside and you just know the children would go on to put their fingers in their mouths at some point. If I'd been the teacher I would have told them all at the start of the year that that was one of my rules, and sent anyone I caught doing it off to wash their hands immediately (or if I thought they were using it as an excuse to mess about in the toilets for ages, maybe made them use hand gel).

I teach upper primary. When having a cooking lesson and you have a lengthy talk about germs and then make them all scrub their hands, even the cleanest looking little cherubs will absent-mindedly rub their hands all over the floor, the walls, the chairs, their hair, faces, clothes, each other, before getting from the sink to the food prep. If you rewashed hands x30, you’d never get the lesson done.

Just assume, and accept, everything in a classroom is filthy.

Myblueclematis · 02/07/2025 08:24

People who yawn in public and don't cover their mouths. So rude!

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