AIBU to issue my 14yo DD with ONE bath towel for the week to teach her lesson

[Slowdecrease]

I went out for a couple of hours last night to visit a friend. My DD said she was going to give herself a pamper night. When I came back DD was in her bedroom and on the bathroom floor were four, that's FOUR wet scrumpled bath towels (freshly washed yesterday). My face felt hot. I went into my bedroom and there on the floor in front of my bedroom mirror, was a further wet, scrumpled bath towel. My face was now purple, my eyes were starting to blur with blind fury!!! Five freshly washed towels left wet and scrumpled on the floor. She does this EVERY TIME she has a bath (though five is a record it's normally one or two).

AIBU to issue her one towel for the week (and hide all the others) so she learns to use it, put it on the radiator if it's usuable again the next morning or put it in the wash bin? Yes I know by the end of the week it will be minging but to prove a point that other people live in this house and would like a dry towel occasionally without washing the whole lot every single day, is this a fair and good way of teaching a selfish 14 yo a lesson??

[LupoLoopy]

That or start leaving your dirty laundry on her bedroom floor for a while and see how long it takes before she moans about you being gross

[OnceThereWasThisGirlWho]

Confused at those not drying their arse... are you all super slim people with no arse crack? How does it dry "wafting around"?

Also doing old gimmer -I'm only 30 thing of "when I was 14..." I used to babysit a younger sibling, make sure they'd had their bath - with one towel, hang up towels, do laundry etc. I remember doing overnight nappies too (vaguely under supervision, mum doing washing up or something whilst I did that), must have been about 11 for that. These sorts of threads kind of explain the incompetent housemates I lived with in my 20's!

OP I'd suggest something more drastic like she has to do her own washing for a fortnight. Do that for each of your DC in turn, too, so it doesn't reinforce the idea of "women's work".

[KayTee87]

At 14 I did my own laundry.

In our house per week my husband uses one towel at home and one at work (cycles to work most days), I use 2 lots of towels (1 hair & 1 body), we use 1 bathmat that's hung up to dry in between and 1 hand towel (hands usually seem to be washed in kitchen tbh and we're only home in the evenings)

[RaeSkywalker]

I use 2 towels a week- one for drying my body, one for my hair. DH has 1 towel for the week and we also have a clean bath mat each week.They all go in the wash on Friday and are replaced with clean ones.

[MangoMoon]

I'm definitely not slim with no arse crack, and yet I can't remember ever drying my bum.

I'm another that puts one towel round body, one round hair, then wafts about - brush teeth, do make up, dry hair etc then am bone dry and ready to put my jammies back on get dressed.

One towel for hair, one for body per week here, too - kids have one towel each per week.

[happyhearts7]

Our bath towels only ever get used once before washing and hand towels are changed at the very most every other day! If we have visitors & they use the downstairs toilet, I MUST change that towel.. don't know why but it just eats away at me until I do, even if it's 2 or 3 times in one day

But OP 5 towels for one person!! That's insane, if my 5 boys used 5 towels each I'd be fuming too.. show her how to use the washing machine says she who does all the washing in her own home

[Ifiwasabadger]

Guffawing at "I don't shit myself after getting out of the shower" !!!

[DoreenLethal]

She not only needs just two towels that she manages, but she starts doing the washing as of now.

[SunLolly]

How can all you daily towel changers be arsed with all that washing? I am clearly disgusting as we each have one bath towel which we use for up to 2 weeks before.

[Nelly1990]

In our house me and dp have 2 towels each one for body and one for hair and the dc have one each and the towels are washed once a week if not manky before that.

[chemenger]

At least she left them where you could find them. At one point I thought I must have had a load of towels stolen because I was struggling to find some for guests. Then 14 towels of various sizes appeared from dd1's bedroom when she left for Uni. She has two towels with her, I can't imaging how she is managing.

We have colour coded towels now, different for each person, which helps a bit.

[Slowdecrease]

It's clearly a teenage girl thing.

[Whathaveilost]

People have commented on the 3 showers a day thing with my lads.
Shower in the morning. Ds1 is an apprentice doing a manual job and usually has a shower and change of clothes after work. He goes out most night and either mountain bikes, fell running or a team sport so he a shower when he gets in before bed.
Ds2 similar, shower in the morning, school and then shower and 4 nights a week does training where he comes home very sweaty and smelly so shower again.

A few months back DS1 nearly overslept for work and had to skip his shower. The first thing he did when he came home was shower,he said it was on his mind all day and he couldn't wait to get home!

At least it's not a bath each time! Like I said, I pick my battles. Showers and towels isn't one of them.

[BillBrysonsBeard]

Love these threads
I use one towel a week, I am clean when I use it! It dries and smells nice still. I have never dried my (huge) bum crack. I love the sentences this forum makes me say
People make so much more work for themselves than they need to. Endless washing, ironing, cleaning..

Anyway YANBU OP! Teenage girls eh?

[schokolade]

Fuck me. How do people find the time to wash all these towels? I wash ours once a weekish, if I remember. They don't smell.

I am on the go all the time, keeping up with work, school, chores. There is literally not time to do more washing.

Maybe people's washing machines run on faster cycles than mine...

[MrsMattMurdock]

We use our bath towels until we notice they've got a bit gross....seriously Washing them after one use is OTT. Think of the environmental impact!

[LupoLoopy]

IfIWasABadger

As was I! I nearly shit myself there and then, I was laughing so hard. Better stay away from bath towels for a while

[MissWimpyDimple]

Wow. We are clearly rancid. We share 2 towels for everything. They get hung up to dry and then washed around once a week. Only other towel we have is a hand towel that everyone uses for their hands after the loo and that DD uses to wipe toothpaste all over

Oh well. I do seem to be alive though and pretty robust health wise!

[kaitlinktm]

FIVE bath towels - how selfish! Who does she think should pick them up off the floor after her and wash them? The laundry fairy? It would also enrage me to find one of them in MY bedroom - WTF?

A bath towel should last a few baths showers. Definitely only issue her with one bath towel and one other one for her hair - they should last up to a week IF she doesn't leave them at her backside in a wet crumpled heap. And if she does - she will have to use them anyway.

[Whathaveilost]

Fuck me. How do people find the time to wash all these towels?
Gather them up, put in washing machine and ....that's it really, it's not like we are taking them to a river to hand wash.
It takes very little physical time to bung in a machine and later someone will peg them out.
It's annoying when towels are left in bedrooms and the floor but how many they use is none issue.

[TondelayaDellaVentamiglia]

I stopped all the excessive use of towels by buying the children their own in different colours.

two of each, bath sheet, bath towel, hand towel, along with a nice big radiator rack to use to air them off as required.

if they want to use them all and leave them festering on the floor until next time that's their own business. Only spare towels in the bathroom are hand towels....so having to sprint up flights of stairs with your nethers barely covered by a hand towel is also quite the deterrent

Laundry rules mean that anything needing washed goes into the appropriate pile in the bathroom. and towels are washed in sets...so keep one set fresh while the other set are being washed.

they all learned eventually that stinky damp towels are not nice.

[Mari50]

I use one bath sheet and one hand towel for my hair, DD uses my bath sheet. I fail to understand the logic of clean towels every shower unless you're covered in fake tan because that can make a mess or you haven't cleaned your bum properly, in which case- eww, change your cleaning regime not your towel!!

[BackforGood]

It's clearly a teenage girl thing


Er - no. I have 3 teenagers (2 of them girls). They do use 2 towels after a shower, but then they spread them out to air / dry and use them again after the next shower. As others have said, they are clean when they get out the shower - the towel just removes clean water.

[FlyingElbows]

Bathmats (vom) are right up there with pedestal mats, or "piss rags" as they're known in this house. Disgusting rancid damp things that other people have touched!!! Aaaaaaahhhhhh run away. Ok, I am weird about it but omg how can you use things other people have rubbed themselves on? It's not natural.