Mum and basic hygiene

[katzensocken]

Mum is visiting since this lunchtime. So far she has taken it upon herself to do housework (I never ask and the house was clean to begin with), and so far has done the following:

Used a dirty tea towel (that was on the floor!) to dry washed dishes
Cleaned out the litter tray and then prepared lunch without washing hands
Took out the rubbish, came back and didn't wash hands
Lifted the entire kitchen bin lid off and rested it on top of the clean dish rack

She does stuff like this every time she visits and whenever I politely ask her to wash her hands or 'please, could you try not to do that' she either says I'm being silly or hysterical and that a tea towel from the floor is perfectly fine to be used and 'does it really matter where the bin lid goes.' When I point out I also have a shitty immune system she says 'oh yes, I suppose so.'

She also guilts me sometimes as in, 'well, if I'm doing it Wrong then maybe I won't do it, I'm only doing you a favour' GOOD don't do it, I never asked!

AIBU to go to another room and scream into a pillow?

Just follow her around either a bottle of dettol and disinfect ASAP. She will get the message.

i have the same issues with my mum and dad. picking nose/ ears/ poking inside trouser waistband at crotch area and then straight into the cupboards grabbing something or lifting dog poo and lugging bag around my kitchen before binning it or literally washing hands for 5 seconds thinking they've "definitely washed hands well" etc. there are loads of of examples. sadly we've cooled things a bit recently as my mum particularly was offended when i tried to explain my problem with things. i have no solution really but found it hard to be tolerant.

I work with a woman who constantly picks her very tartarry ( is that a word?) teeth and waxy ears with long, filthy talons then touches everything in sight. I cannot eat food at work because of it - so unhygienic and repulsive.

My mum is the same. She uses the dishcloth to wipe down the cupboards. She spills something and wipes it up with clothes from the laundry pile because "they're getting washed anyway". She leaves dishes to "soak" sitting on the bench full of filthy water (until I find them later and empty them out). She uses bleach to clean surfaces, then obliviously wanders around with a wet cloth dripping bleach (and ends up splashing the laundry pile and ruining clothes). And then she makes herself a coffee and slops it on the carpet. Bleach is now forbidden in my house and drinks aren't allowed outside the kitchen! I can't tell her to stop either - she doesn't listen because she thinks she's helping.

kingdom - YY, her eyesight is terrible! It's very sad - she makes beautiful clothes for babies, but you always have to check them as she will often miss the pins she's left in. She certainly can't see dirt on the floor.

Her cooking has also clearly got worse as she's struggled more and more.

It is so sad seeing parents get to this stage.

Yanbu, I'm not the cleanest person in the sense I'll happily not mop floors for a week plus at a time, but can certainly see why hand washing after dealing with animal mess/bins is a sensible move. Having said that I've just been 'told off' by DP for getting frustrated and tipping several buckets of water to clear one of his shits that has been sitting in the toilet all day. Hygiene is very subjective I guess.

With older parents and eyesight have they been checked for glaucoma?
Also this article has interesting points www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/dementia-signs-symptoms-losing-sense-smell-later-life-scientists-warning-health-elderly-a7973521.html%3famp
Just in case this hasn't been considered especially for those who used to be okay. Good sense of smell and cleanliness plus memory it never hurts to double check whether it's the start of something more serious.
Sorry to add a more serious note to the thread.

For those who just have gross yucky parents. Keep them away from helping. Ugh.

I just cannot abide dirty people like this. If someone did any of the things described above in my kitchen, they'd be told in no uncertain terms. Mother, or not!

I think my generation grew up with pennicillin being an absolute cure all and hygiene not such a worry. They stopped teaching to wash their hands between patients at one point, didn't they? But that era has passed, hand washing is so, so important.

My mum has no mobility or sight issues, she is just a slattern. She thinks I am 'perverse and obsessive' because I wash my hands before eating and use a different sponge to wipe down surfaces as the one I use to wash up 🙄🙄

Urgggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh :(

You just reminded me of what a friend did last week. My youngest had emptied the dishwasher and had left most of the clean dishes on the worktop. My friend appeared snottering and coughing, then tells me about his awful head cold. I’ve told him before not to come near my house with a cold, but he never fucking listens. That’s bad enough but he sneezed all over my clean dishes and didn’t even try to cover his nose and mouth. 🤢 I couldn’t wait to get him out of the door, so I could put them back in for another wash, not to mention scrub the worktop. He a dirty fucker at the best of times but blurgh 🤢

How old are your mums in question? Mine is mid sixties which I don’t think is particularly old. She has always been terrible at eg seeing that washing up stuff is clean at the end. My Dad said recently (and this statement has its own problems though in his slight defence he works and she doesn’t) ‘I always wash up in Sundays because after she’s used every pan in the house then I know once a week things are properly clean’.

She hears eg ‘don’t scrub your non stick frying pans’ and so doesn’t particularly wash them. When I was a kid we had new frying pans at least once a year...

Hand washing is sporadic, and not a given between food types although slightly better than it was.

The worst is the food hygiene. Went a few weeks ago. As we arrived at Saturday lunchtime the stuffing and vegetables were all prepped for Sunday lunch. And left overnight in the kitchen on the side rather than going in the (enormous) fridge. She ‘parboils’ tge veg at breakfast, including the peas, leaves them stewing in the water for four hours, and heats them up again for lunch. One memorable Boxing Day she had cooked everything by 8.50 (having got up at 5am to much harrumphing) and planned just to keep everything warm on hot plates until it was lunchtime.

Despite this she is incredibly wary of eating out (eg won’t have chicken because of campylobacter risk) as she has had food poisoning so many tines...

I feel incredibly disloyal but I find it unpleasant being at her house because of this. Luckily she’d never dream of doing housework at ours.

...and yet somehow we all survived growing up in our mums' houses.

Honestly I've learned to relax my hygiene levels with both DM and DMIL (in fact have to accept that I survived living with DM my whole life ha ha)
DM will cook with raw chicken and then touch everything else with chicken hands and both DSIS and I freak out about this one! Her and DF often have upset tums and we joke now we know why!! Weirdly her home is immaculate (she has a cleaner) but when she stays with us or DSIS she's really. Messy but you know what she's cooking or playing with my kids so I've decided who cares!
DMIL had 3 huge dogs in a tiny house when I first met DH. They would take stuff off the counters (and in fact your plate if you weren't looking) the place felt filthy all the time I hated it when DCs were tiny and I wanted bottles to be sterile etc and the washing up bowl was smelly and putrid with stagnant water and old food
But hey ho I've relaxed about it now and we are all still living !!

Argh also remember DMIL finally got a dishwasher but obviously never even rinsed anything that went in there but was confused when it stopped working
I spent a gross day taking their dishwasher apart and cleaning it out of white slime once

My mum (mid 70s) annoys me so much with stuff like this. They put dirty AND clean stuff on the dish drainer so you never can tell if stuff is clean, and if you want to wash something up by hand, you pretty much have to clean the draining board every time. Clean stuff gets dirty again etc. It's even more annoying when they come round and do it at your house.
She thinks I'm terribly precious, but her way is just ridiculous and wastes so much time.

I'm a bit at all of you who allow visitors to do so much cleaning in your house. Particularly if you don't find it up to scratch. When I have visitors, family or otherwise, I don't allow them to to any housework. I have had to chase my MIL out of the kitchen on more than one occasion. It's not their place to clean my house.
Also, you have survived growing up with these unhygienic mothers so it can't have been that bad

Iwouldliketoknow I would imagine all of us would sincerely prefer them not to do anything. They just ignore us

I can identify with every comment on this thread and I have told my DM over a dozen times to just sit and watch tv. She ignores me and carries on

I get fewer tummy bugs now than when I was growing up that’s for sure

My mum doesn't do any "cleaning" in my house - but she does put dirty dishes on top on my clean ones on the draining board (despite me always shouting "leave that - I'll do it") every time she potters off the the kitchen with an empty tea cup.
I agree that being exposed to germs is, on the whole, good, but there's germs and then there is just filth.

I wish my Mum would wash her hands before touching or preparing food.

OK most of these have made me feel sick at the thought (the raw chicken is just giving me palpitations right now) but @Cirrys I’m pretty sure I’m your Mum! I do most of those things you describe!

This is a bit like the threads about people still feeding their DCs crap processed food - how can anyone miss all the info out there these days. How can anyone not know to be careful when handling raw chicken, let alone litter trays. I think I'd make sure to empty the litter tray before she arrives.

I'm a bit  at all of you who allow visitors to do so much cleaning in your house.
I live abroad so family tends to stay a while and settle in. Neither doing any cleaning but are cooking here

Stop allowing yourself to be manipulated by her guilt trip bullshit. This is YOUR home and you call the shots. Tell her to stop and let her have a temper tantrum is she wants to. She'll get over it.