Anyone else feel icky away from home?

[lolaVie]

Currently away from home for the week and experiencing a life long problem…genuine ickiness about hotel showers, beds, carpets, cups, kettles…you name it, it makes my toes curl. To the point that it makes me desperate for my own shower and bed! It’s not homesickness in the sense that I’m sad or missing home. It’s like a disgust response but there’s nothing disgusting!

But I never hear anyone else ever describe this feeling! Place we are staying seems clean enough and it’s not specific to this place anyway. It is anywhere! Not just hotels. Any kind of holiday accommodation.

I don’t feel this way staying with family (as in at the home of either of my parents) and maybe one or two close friends although it’s been a long time since I slept at a friend’s house.

Is this just me?!

I agree.

I once watched an episode of CSI where Sarah Sidle (one of the forensics team) was using her UV light on an apparently clean bed and showed up a lot of biological marks from the top layer and pillows down to the mattress. She said to a colleague "and this is why I bring my own sleeping bag and pillows when I stay in hotels...". That episode was years ago and has stayed in my mind... 🌹

Well hearing that some people boil their knickers in the kettle certainly puts me off making use of the free tea and coffee.

I am with the ick people. I also have a terror of spiders and I’m often awake stressing about it. I’m really a clean freak tbh. Bathroom glasses that I suspect have been wiped out with used towels stress me out.

I used to be a chambermaid and the stuff I was taught was vile. Just wiping stuff with the used towels etc. uurgh it’s horrible!

I have a high-flying friend who travels loads and said she regularly uses the kettle to boil her moon cup. Absolute horrors.

I actually find all this a bit irrational - travelled a lot with work and slept in so many hotel beds I've lost count. Everywhere from places like the Four Seasons and Mandarin Oriental to cheap motels and B and Bs. A lot of different countries as well.

What I don't like is staying at someone else's home - no matter how much I like them after a couple of days I chafe at living to someone else's routine

No, the only thing that makes me feel icky is if the windows don't open. Aircon just isn't the same as proper fresh air.

😆

I've seen good and bad in hotels in the UK and abroad. The worst was a very cheap hotel in Paris. One night only as were off to Nice the next day on the train. It had a communal toilet for the whole floor. It had a brown mark on the wall that DH said was doody, I preferred not to think about it, but we were laughing. A bit of life. I've been in hotels in France and Spain that were amazingly clean, much better than we are used to at home in fact.

Not the point of the thread but I hate that expression - i*k. Like really hate it.

I get a bit uneasy sometimes when going away, I feel a bit anxious in case the accommodation is creepy or dirty. Feel a lot more relaxed if I know exactly where I’m going.

I totally agree 100%. Over the top. Get help.

I've never even considered it. Stuff gets washed/cleaned. Probably not to the standards of most Mumsnet members, but I'm still alive so it's all good.

I would live in a hotel if I could. Preferably the Lanesborough. Failing that, the Dorchester or Claridges would do at a pinch.
No cooking, no washing up, rooms cleaned, beds changed.
What's not to love?

I have had this all of my life. Staying over at friends houses when I was a kid, school, being anywhere really. I hated it.

I used to say to myself, the only place in the world where I'd put my fingers in my mouth is at home 😆 why I'd want to do that in the first place I don't know but it's stayed with my from being teeny tiny. It's now my measure of how clean I deem somewhere to be "would i put my fingers in my mouth?"🤣

Sounds a bit OTT ( or ocd maybe?) to me.

There is nowhere pristine clean and totally germ free. Hospitals are probably the worst!, they check for bugs like MRSA which is a hospital acquired infection. I suppose staying out of hospitals or bringing your own bedding is out of the question if you are sick!

I look at it like this, I enjoy a decent level of cleanliness as do we all, but I am not going to turn over mattresses or the like. It is what it is. Anyway think of all the people who have gone before you in the accommodation. If there was anything dangerous about it, there would be an awful lot of sick people on the planet!

Unclench and enjoy.

I went away with a friend once. Soon as we got in the room she had the anti bac wipes out! (This was way before covid). She wiped down everything, inspected every inch of the bed. I was somewhat bemused.

Later that day (hot summer) she decided to buy a meat roll from a market. The meat had been out in the sun all day, flies buzzing all around it. Made me feel sick! And she wolfed it down. People are strange.

I miss home when I'm away just because I miss all my things around me. But I can't say I've stayed anywhere really grotty so I don't really think about it.

Also my friends daughter works as a hotel cleaner. She's a student and all of her student pals work there. Think holiday inn or similar.

She has said, never use the top blanket they put on the bed, never walk on the carpet barefoot and use the bottom pillow.

They're so short staffed, the manager told them to not bother with the bathrooms, just wipe with a damp cloth.

She's regularly reminded of how disgustingly some humans live 🤢

I thought I was the only one like this! I'm exactly like this, in hotels and if I have to stay in someone else's house. It could be the cleanest hotel and I would still feel the same. I also don't like using cutlery in a restaurant, would rather use disposable or bring my own. I think it's the thought of so many random people having used the cutlery and cups etc before me , obvs I know they are washed, but I still feel the same

Just to add, I am by no means super clean or tidy but it's my dirt so I'm ok with it, the thought of living in anyone else's dirt etc makes me feel a bit sick

American actress Elaine Stritch lived at the Savoy for 13 years. I could handle that but I'd need a suite.

@Orchidgarden Orchidgarden · Today 15:15

I would live in a hotel if I could. Preferably the Lanesborough. Failing that, the Dorchester or Claridges would do at a pinch.
No cooking, no washing up, rooms cleaned, beds changed.
What's not to love?

Oh, me too! I love going away to a hotel which I do quite regularly and have dreamed of living in one, like people used to.

Unless the hotel is really run-down, I have no issues, no ick. What a constricting way to live. I do think Covid / the pandemic has heightened some people's fears about cleanliness

I find l have a kind of domino effect with this. If the whole place is perfect and clean then I’m fine.

But if l find one thing yukky, then it all starts. And everything becomes unclean.

I've stayed in the Dorchester and places like the Plaza and Waldorf in NY, the Royal Monceau in Paris, the Imperial in Tokyo and the Mandarin Oriental in HK. The biggest problem is the prices of drinks in the bar!!!!

This is so unreasonably OTT. It is really not normal to feel like this. If you have children I hope you don't project your unreasonable OCD behaviours on to them.

No. I understand this in theory, but I can't imagine living like this and feeling it myself. I don't mean that to sound judgmental, sorry if it does. I just mean it sounds very stressful and draining and makes it harder to enjoy going away.

Like PPs have said, our bodies are literally designed/evolved to deal with the normal level of bacteria and germs (such as bacteria left by other people who have touched a surface before us), and do so very well. Also that exposure to these things is actually good for us and helps our body fight off actual infections and viruses.