to only wash bath towels once a month?

[starkadder]

or less

DH is in charge of washing his own towel and I am sure he never puts it in the wash more often than once every 2 or 3 months...

DS's goes in about once every 2 months (but it barely touches him as he likes to run around naked pretending to be a train driver straight after his bath, which dries him quite effectively).

I usually wash mine about every month but have realised that I haven't washed it since coming home from hospital with DD, who is now 5 weeks...in my defence, there is one HECK of a lot of other washing to do and it just won't ever fit in the machine....

We do wash out clothes (!) and sheets once a week. And I do the kitchen hand towel every week or two - it gets quite grubby and also fits in the machine with another wash easily.

But are we grim and disgusting when it comes to bath towels? How often do normal people wash bath towels?

Ps I've heard some expert recommended using a drier on kitchen towels since apparently they are one of the worse things harbouring all kinds of nasty gearms if they're constantly damp so did not recommend being all Eco and air drying those!!!! The heat will kill anything left in them after wash . Also need to wash them in a high temperature unless you want to spread germs on your clean plates with them... towels in general are one of the few items I put in the drier since it does wear out clothes... Drier is good for getting rid of dust mites too .

I've heard it all now . Are there people out there that dry their dishes on kitchen towel?

Just joined the end of thread. What's wrong with tea towels? My parents use tea towels to dry washing up. No-one gets GERMS.

sardine i think your arguement is everyone gets germs (as in you all have germs anyway) towels are not the most sanitary of things, best thing to do is use a hairdryer for your washing up

Poss.

I have cloths that are tea towels, floor cloths, mopping up cloths, god knows what else cloths, I wash them on 40. Most of them are dd's old terry nappies.

Shoot me.

oldenglish are you saying you dry crockery on a kitchen terry towel?

I cannot imagine that being more hygenic than a clean, flat fibre tea towel.I have a dishwasher but, as Fellation says, sometimes you just need to dry a few things and a tea towel does the job and is easy to wash. I get through several a day and of course a damp tea towel is nasty but they are not hard to wash and take up very little space.

no I wipe it dry with the kitchen towell if I needed it dryed quickly. Otherwise it drys on the draining rack. (Which I clean frequently) Tea towels would mean even more washing as they could only be used once before being put in wash basket.

aries - I know no one actually died from those things but they are still bleugh!

I am envious of the people on this thread who get to use their own towels. I would LOVE to have two towels that are mine and mine alone and I could dry my arse on one, and my face and hair on the other, and wash them once a week. But no. My family do not respect the sanctity of the towel and every bugger in the house uses whichever towel they happen to come across to dry whichever crevice they fancy. I can't even persuade them to stop taking bathroom towels to the pool, the buggers.

There are three of us so we have one bath towel each on the go (for a week) and I also have hand towels in the kitchen and the downstairs loo that also get changed at least once a week but often sooner.

Will noone think of the children?

Gobblers, I used all the old nappies as kitchen cloths and towels too. I had lovely birdseye ones and they were very absorbent. Lasted years.

wrt 'fecal matter? do people seriously use their towels to wipe their arse? what are they doing? Making it into a mankini to dry with?
Eew.. i have always used loo paper to dry that part of myself.
I am also not in the habit of sucking/biting on my towels.'
Hoping you close the loo lid when you flush...

HughBastard, do you have girls or boys? If boys, maybe you could buy yourslef a Barbie towel or something. That might put them off nicking it

Every time I go for a shower now I am eyeing up my towels in a completely different way... and I always knew I was right when it came to drip drying dishes.

IN YOUR FACE DP!!!!

Now I can parry his "it clutters up the sides" with "tea towels are evil germ infested crusty sickness harbourers and won't you...please... think... of... the... CHILDREN!"

Why would you wash a tea towel several times a day? Do you have nothing better to do with your time!!

I wash stuff when it appears dirty. No set frequencies. Not rocket science is it?

What is a kitchen towel and how does it differ from a tea towel?

Dear me, weekly at a minimum - think of all the microbes breeding in there??? Kitchen handtowel, after 3 days usually, tea towels and dishcloths changed every day - can't imagine leaving it longer!

I took it to mean kitchen roll/paper wordgirl.

I'm ready to be corrected though.

A kitchen towel is a towel in your kitchen for drying your hands on. A tea towel is for drying up. Do people not have separate towels? Yeeuurrghh.

Well yes it's a problem of terminology.

I would call the thick type of tissue on a roll 'kitchen roll' or 'kitchen paper', but on the packet it says 'kitchen towel'.

A thin, flat, woven, cotton linen cloth is a tea towel for drying dishes.

A small terry towel hanging by the cooker is a kitchen towel in this house for drying hands.

Yes I think that's it Schroeder. So Oldenglishspangles means she dries her dishes with kitchen roll because a normal tea towel is unhygienic. I was having trouble processing that information...

Thats right wordgirl & Shroeder - top of the class for you both. The paper version.

Yep, quite frighteningly wasteful and ott.

I'm loving this ! But I think I may be a freak and somewhat of a outlier here.

The bath towels are washed when I remember - can't remember when the last time was, but probably sometime this month. The bedsheets get changed when I remember, I think this was a couple of weeks ago. And when they are washed, it's usually at 30C in ecoleaf and then dried on the line (outside or garage) or if I'm feeling lazy or it's raining the tumble drier.

Germs ? Probably. But then again I leave the house everyday and venture into the outside world. Frightening or what....?

More amusing - I work in a microbiology lab - I grow bacteria for a living. I'm fairly sure my tea towel doesn't pose a biological risk... If you are really worried, pour 100% ethanol over everything and set fire to it - it's how I clean my bench at work