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

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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??

Quintessential, my 14 yr old son has suddenly started having lots of extra showers

I also do my grandad's washing every week. Amazingly he's survived to his mid 90s with his towels and bedding only being washed once a fortnight - it doesn't seem to have done him any harm. He doesn't shower every day either never mind several times a day, but he doesn't smell, is clean, and he doesn't get ill.

Washing towels after one use is crazy. What do you think will happen if you use the same one twice?

superfly- does that make a difference regarding towel usage?

We share one towel amongst 7 of us, kids use it first, then me then DH and then the dog, followed by the hamster..............only joking [GRIN]

captain. so funny.

When I was growing up in a poverty stricken council estate in the 1960s we did actually have issues like this.
Money was incredibly tight. No phone, no central heating, no fridge. A typical meal would be corned beef and potatoes. we ate chicken once a year at christmas.

We all had a weekly bath. Kids first, then same water mother next, my dad would fill up a kettle of boiling water to warm things up and take his last.

Hey I know, 3 in a bath in my house growing up, definitely shared a towel with my siblings if not whole family. It wasn't until my dd1 got threadworm when she started at nursery that I thought about the 1 towel each thing .

I use a hair turban and a bath sheet, one of each per week. I get out of the shower and wrap towel around me. Faff around a bit and I am basically dry. The towel is wrapped around a clean body so I am happy to use it for a week. All of us here do the same except DH and DS don't use hair towels like DD and I do.

I have a towelling robe. I put it on after a shower and it dries me. I use a swim towel for my hair.

All the competitively slovenly MN... do you have any objections to sharing towels with others then? As everyone is clean as a whistle after their shower. A clean butt crack is a clean butt crack, yeah? A bit like Japanese people sharing the bath water because they wash thoroughly before going in the bath.

Well you can spread infections such as conjunctivitis and impetigo by sharing towels so it's best not to really. Found out the hard way
But there's nothing to fear from your own towel

I don't particularly mind using a communal towel, no. When our family go on holiday and share a hotel room we don't divvy up the towels and refuse to share (the towels are always too small anyway). I also have no particular issue with sharing bathwater, it was standard to do so when I was growing up. Japanese baths are fantastic, and yes everyone does wash before they get in.

I don't mind sharing towels, no. We don't but it doesn't bother me to.

Of course infectious diseases can be spread by towels, that's because they are infectious. It's been mentioned in the thread already.

Agghh the word towel looks so weird after seeing it 100 times!

I am baffled at those that don't dry their bum crack
So do you dry your vulva?
Or in-between your toes?! Underarms?

I don't 'dry' anything. I wrap a towel round my body and turban up my hair, then I clean my teeth like that, then take turban off, comb hair with fingers, spray seven second conditioner and then booster spray in it, take other towel off (hang them both up as they will be used again ad infinitum) put dressing gown on, into bedroom, get dressed, dry hair, back in bathroom for make up.

I just sort of am dry, but I don't physically do anything.

"I am baffled at those that don't dry their bum crack
So do you dry your vulva?
Or in-between your toes?! Underarms?"

No. They all dry by themselves. Amazing isn't it.
I'm baffled by those who actually pat or rub dry - something I associate with being a child like using talcum powder. Don't you use body lotion? I've used body lotion/body butter after every shower since I was a teenager, which means that if I rubbed with my towel I'd rub it off, so I just let it sink in. Even with all that, my skin's still dry, can't imagine how dry it'd be if I didn't use lotion.

I never use body lotion.

I never used to dry anything I just waited around till I was dry but now I leave the house at 7 and like to get up at about 6.45 so I have very quick showers and rub everything dry in a brusque and military fashion.

I don't understand why you allow your children to use so many towels . In this house we all have our own bathroom with towel rails and our towels hang on them for a week and then get washed. Even if you don't have your own bathrooms you can colour code the towels and put them on the radiator . Easy ! They don't need washing after every use !

I put on body lotion after I have dried myself with the towel.

imo not drying properly between toes is rank.

I wouldn't want to use a towel a week. Constant wetting and drying in a humid atmosphere is a breeding ground for microbes.
I would use a towel twice - no more. Flannels are one use only.

It's hardly constant wetting though is it. One shower a day.

Anyway having looked up microbes they seem rather helpful fellows.

My family can use as many towels as they like, it's no big deal.

Dry your vulva????? What the hell ?? Only on mumsnet

Chinchilla, MN often makes me laugh - 'drying your vulva' was definitely one of those occassions