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??

[thebestfurchinchilla]

I give mine one towel a week anyway!!! They keep it in their room and I change it at the weekend. MY DH and I have one towel each too for the week.

[thebestfurchinchilla]

flying Bath mats catch clean water not urine so not in the same league as pedestal mats. I have tried those wooden bath 'mats' but the water collects underneath and you have a pool of water to clean up so I don't get the point of them.

[LittleLionMansMummy]

This is a bit like the bedding thread - I don't use a new bath towels every day, it gets reused for at least a week. I'd make her wash them tbh though.

[wowfudge]

I don't run myself on the bathmat. I stand on it.

[wowfudge]

I don't rub myself on the bathmat. I stand on it.

[RaeSkywalker]

Flying bath mats are fine. They don't collect wee. Ours gets washed and tumbled weekly and is a far better option for me than stepping into a tiled floor with wet feet and slipping. The only body part that touches it are (clean) feet.

[WiIdfire]

I have to ask the one-use-ers - what exactly do you think will happen if you re-use a towel? I can't even think of a potential hazard that you could be worried about. Maybe if it's damp it doesn't dry as well, but thats it. So you dry your clean bum with it, then what? So weird.

[thebestfurchinchilla]

The one users must have very dirty bodies or they don't wash properly. I pat myself dry after a shower and stand on a bath mat. I then use the same towel to put my hair in a turban and put on a dressing gown. Then very damp towel gets hung up to dry and is usually dry by next day. Th towel doesn't smell even by the end of the week when I wash it anyway.

[roundandroundthehouses]

My 14 yr old dd elegantly dumps her once-used bath towel on the floor every morning. After she's gone, I hang it up to dry and then stuff it back in with the clean towels. When it's made three or four circuits, I put it in the wash.

[parmalilac]

Seems wasteful and completely unnecessary to change bath towels every day, don't some folks wash themselves properly? Once a week for us too, each have a hand and a bath towel, plus hair towel for me. Isn't it really making a rod for your own back by letting/encouraging your kids to use multiple towels AND leave them on the floor for you to pick up?

[budgiegirl]

omg how can you use things other people have rubbed themselves on?

Who rubs themselves on a bath mat. That would be weird. Surely you just stand on them, with clean feet. Then hang them up to dry.

OP, I'd be furious if DD left 5 wet towels around, get her to wash them. We use one towel each, washed on average twice a week. It's really impractical to use any more. I have a family of 5, if everyone used two towels per shower, every day, that would be 70 towels to wash weekly! There's no way I'm doing that!

[Slowdecrease]

I would be happy as a lark is she did only pick them up off the floor and hang them to dry....I've had nagged, reasoned, explained, trusted....she still does it! So one a week or is. That or adoption.

[specialsubject]

house not hotel, as I'm sure all our mothers said.

the towels can easily be reused if she could be less idle and hang them up.

the usual removal of beepy-beepy privileges should do the trick, assuming she has been taught the basics.

[Slowdecrease]

Well I said the WiFi is going off for half hour for every towel tonight...that's 2.5 hours of my phone free delightful company tonight - that'll learn her !

[Dee03]

I feel your pain op

I have 3 teenage boys who shower daily and they will each use 2-3 towels....it drives me batshit

[665TheNeighbourOfTheBeast]

Considering the level of repulsion for things that have touched clean body parts on here I am currently imagining people only able to have sex actually in a shower of bleach - whilst gargling a mouthful of disinfectant ?? awkward

[TheCrumpettyTree]

665

One towel a week here. Washing towels after one use is OTT. It's only clean water on it that's come off your clean body.

[AugustaFinkNottle]

Give her one towel a week. If she leaves it on the floor in a soaking mess, put it on her pillow, or on top of whatever you know she wants to wear later in the day.

[GreenMarkerPen]

dc uses one towel a day atm, but that's because of the most amazing revolting athletes foot.

[Longdistance]

We have a bath mat to stand on, bath sheet towel each and turbie towels for our hair except Dh who is losing his

[FormerlyKnownasFK]

Yup give her a flannel and lock the airing cupboard.

I wash towels about once a week but I am a wrap n faffer not an arse drier.

[FeckOfffCup]

YANBU it's leaving them wet on the floor that would drive me nuts.


Well I don;t normally shit myself between getting out of the shower and drying my bum, and I don't consider a freshly washed bum something that requires treating with hazardous waste protocol

^ I agree with this though! Hahaha, I don't wash towels after every use either. I'm clean as I'll ever be when I get out of the shower so I'm not scared of using the same towel more than once, it is my own body after all. I don't dry my arse either.
And why do bath mats collect piss?! Unless you piss on them? All they're for is to stand on so you don't go flying when you get out of the bath/shower

[OhtoblazeswithElvira]

I have what could politely be described as childbirth injuries. There's no such thing as a clean butt crack as far as I'm concerned.

MIL is a fierce towel reuser - her towels smell musty and so does the room where she dries the used ones... yuck.

[BeALert]

Boarding school. It's the answer to everything...

My 14yo now keeps her room tidy, hangs up towels, washes and dries her own clothes, and empties the dishwasher without asking.