AIBU or is DH? - loo rolls for art/play

[JumpJockey]

I will honestly accept the opinion of MN majority on this one even if it means admitting he was right .

This morning dd was playing at trumpeting through the middle of an old kitchen roll. I went into the bathroom and picked up an empty loo roll tube off the window ledge for her to try, in case it made a different sound. DH (who is a doctor) frowned and said "No thanks, that can go in the bin". I noted that generations of children and Blue Peter presenters had been using loo roll middles for art/craft etc and nobody had died. He insisted that the presence of the loo roll in the bathroom meant it could have picked up horrible germs and wasn't safe.

Who was BU? Me, to potentially risk dd catching god knows what bathroom borne diseases? Or DH, for being massively over-worried?

good lord.

I remember making all sorts of things out of loo roll inserts, both at school and elsewhere.

I'd have thought Fairy Liquid bottles (which were also much used by Blue Peter) would be much more likely to have germs all over them actually.

I agree with your dh,they must be germ ridden given where they are stored and the fact that they are touched with dirty hands. Apparently bacteria from poo can pass through 3-5 layers of toilet tissue (according to a kids programme I watched with my dd2!) so some must pass through to the tube. I admit that I'm a tad OTT when it comes to hygiene but the thought of a child blowing through a toilet tube would make me heave!!

I think it's the putting-it-on-the-eye issue though?
Not ordinary play?
Can that dog thing - toxo -something, be caught from humans, or only dogs?
Goodness, all the things to which I never gave a thought.

Hang on, now I'm confused about how the poo gets onto the loo roll middle. Don't you all grab the hanging end of the roll with your clean hands, then use this to wipe your bum? I don't then re-grab the loo roll with potentially pooey hands. It's not as it you use your hands to wipe your bum, then the loo roll to clean your hands with?!

Completely OTT IMHO.

If you can't tolerate your own bowel flora your are in serious trouble!

Does nobody else blow their nose on loo paper? Never?

it's an urban myth

Thats the thing JumpJockey nobody should touch the roll with poo smeared hands but children are unpredicatable and none too bothered about hygiene! When mine were small I once found poo on the bathroom curtain!! How you ask...well I never did find out!

OP: you DH is a man of science. Ask him to show you the research paper that proves the connection between toilet rolls, but not kitchen rolls, and untimely deaths. Ask him to quantify the probability of harm. That should stop him in his tracks.

He is BVU. Well done to you BTW for your impromtu experiment in music/phyics.

I guess it depends on if you poo & wee around the toilet rather than in it and keep the loo roll on the floor rather than in a holder of some sort...

Durham - since dd is still in nappies, in fact the greatest risk to her health comes from the few moments between me changing her nappy and washing my hands Am not looking forwards to the stage of discovering random poo around the house...

The DC's schools wouldnt accept them but at the same time the children's ward DD was on was happy to use them.

I thought they were far more sensible and at the time I was a freak about hygine as DD didnt have an immune system to speak of.

I think its daft. Who knows what people have been doing to their yogurt pots before they donate them to preschool?

Good Luck with that then!!

I've not used them recently but when I have, I've followed the advice to microwave them for 10 seconds or so.

DS1 uses them all the time, he isn't dead yet.

I remember the Mythbusters team testing the 'bacterial plume' theory (the idea that every time you flush the toilet a plume of bacteria rises like a mushroom cloud out of the toilet and coats everything in the room). Their conclusion was that the theory was a load of old horseradish.

I'm certain the loo roll middles will have far fewer germs on them than the child playing with them. We had a girl at one of my nurseries who used to lick her toilet paper. I also once found 2 boys in the bathroom licking each other's tongues to see what another person's would taste like.

Use 'em.

SuzieHomemaker I would love it if that was found to be a myth...I heard about the spray of bacteria and got so worried that I now turn my back whilst I flush the toilet (not normal, I know )

I thought I remembered reading on here that guidance used to be not to use loo rolls, then it changed and they're cool again now.

I've no idea who posted that or whose 'guidance' it was though.

I worked in a zoo, and they would not allow them to be given to the parrots.

They gave them kitchen towel tubes.

They tested them and found they had dangerous bacteria on them.

A study has been done, and published in the BMJ some years ago, showing a very high level of e.coli and other nasties on loo roll inner tubes collected from schools and nurseries where they were being used for creative play. I read it at the time, but can't remember exactly when it was done or by whom.

I expect your DH has read the paper.

I suppose I wouldn't object too much to my own family's germs, but am not too keen on other people's.

3littlefrogs did the bugs and beasties arrive with the loo rolls or were they kindly supplied by the children at the nurseries etc?

While I wouldn't use them from public loos your DH is being ridiculous not to allow them from his own bathroom.

For goodness sake. I work in a school. Kids always have their hands down their trousers or knickers, and then touch things. None of them drop down dead (although it makes me feel queezy sometimes)

I honestly can't remember, SuzieHomemaker.

Someone has posted a link to the original article in an older thread that has been resurrected, on this topic.