To think using the kitchen sink for this is revolting.

[BertieBott]

Essential a kitchen sink is a food prep area. It is for washing food, hands and plates. Maybe sluicing off things that are fairly clean (e.g. getting rid of the water from a flower vase) and filing water containers or attaching a hose.

I think the following are revolting -

• washing babies (at some level you are washing off poo and wee)
• washing pets (same as above)
• brushing teeth (spitting in a food prep area)
• emptying mop buckets (pour it down the toilet)
• washing/dying/cutting hair in the kitchen- hair in food prep area
• washing clothes and shoes in a food prep area.

Aibu ?

Do people on here not have washing up bowls??

I wash dishes in the bowl and occasionally use the bowl to peel potatoes or carrots etc. (Usually just rinse them under a running tap though.)

The bowl is given a good scrub once a week and in between if grubby.

Anything else (emptying mop bucket, cleaning shoes etc.) I remove the bowl and use the actual sink.

Sink gets a good clean once a week or after I've used it for anything 'dirty'.

l would draw the line at anything with dog or cat poo on it though - that would be a job for the outside tap/drain.

I bet a lot of the people on here who are horrified by the idea of someone spitting toothpaste down their kitchen sink regularly use theirs to clean chopping boards that they've prepared raw chicken on? That would worry me far more (but luckily I'm vegetarian).

downstairs loo

We don't have a utility room - though i would love one!

we don't empty the mop bucket down it, we have an outside drain.

we bath the dog in it as only have an upstairs bathroom, the bath is really low down, and makes your back ache to bend over for very long at all, (mum disabled with mobility and balance issues, me with a couple of health problems also through non mobility problem causing mostly) so bathing the dog (small dog) in the kitchen sink is a godsend, as its at a normal height and doesn't require lots of bending. always bleached and disinfected afterward, plus, who prepares food in the sink?????

toothbrushing is done in the bathroom and haircuts at the hairdressers.

TBH, I think provided its all cleaned and disinfected properly afterward, its not so much of a problem, its a family home!!! if iit was in an actual food prep business- cafe/restaurant etc then ok- but then you wouldn't do any of that there anyway!!!

'Don’t know why but the idea of my gorgeous baby in a horrible kitchen sink where all food and food waste is at times (potato skins etc) is the only reason I wouldn’t wash him in there'

This made me laugh what age is your baby? Old enough to rub spaghetti bolognese in his hair/eat dog food/spiders/any other old shite he's found on the floor/take his nappy off and leave a dirty protest in his cot? Potato skins are the least of your worries plus think about it logically - they form part of the potato that he is putting in his mouth and eating for his dinner!

Life is too short to worry about the correct use for your kitchen sink IMO. I’m grateful I don't have to walk miles to a river to wash myself/my pots and pans/my baby. I think I’ll survive a bit of mud/food cross contamination tbh.

Childrenofthesun
The only one of those I would do is empty a mop bucket - don't have a downstairs look or utility room and I'm not taking it upstairs

yep, same for me. No one died yet. Occasionally I'll lug the bucket upstairs risking being tripped over by a cat darting under my feet, falling down and having dirty water all over the carpeted stairs, so yeah kitchen sink is where it goes ...

I think YABU

However I have walked in to my sink being filled with sick because clearly drunken messes couldn't make it that little extra distance to the bathroom.

These threads 😂🤣

At the old house we had lots of sinks, including a fabulous outdoor one. This house is, sadly, lacking in sinks - I HATE not having a utility sink. I’ve never not had one before.

Any ‘dirty water’ (in buckets etc) convenient to the backdoor goes into the outside drain. Any ‘dirty water’ closer to a toilet goes down there. I can’t see why someone was ‘ewww’ about that. I lift the seat, carefully tip the water down and flush. Given what the toilet is designed for, I fail to see the issue?!

Kids, dogs, and anything else muddy type filthy gets washed in the bath, which then gets cleaned. (No outside tap here (yet) either, so needs must).

I personally wouldn’t wash babies, animals or other bits in the kitchen sink that I could wash in the bath, but I can understand why some people do and as long as the sink is cleaned afterwards, I really can’t see the problem.

With the current lack of a utility sink and lots of renovation our kitchen sink is getting used for cleaning paint brushes, grout tools, plumbing sealant etc but it’s all ‘clean’ stuff, the sink gets washed after, and dishes are done in a washing up bowl.

The cat litter tray should be being washed in the bath (if no utility sink or outside tap), not the kitchen sink. Washing stuff like that in the kitchen sink is asking to get a, possibly life changing, illness.

Yabu. I don't have a utility room and just one bathroom. I don't think I'd wash a pet in a kitchen sink but none

I can’t get over an actual human trapsing a box of another species poo into their kitchen / let alone the flipping sink.
You have definitely missed a whole chunk of education if you think it doesn’t matter.
There are germs and then there are germs
Hope you stay lucky,those of you that dice with your health like this!

Why wouldn't you empty the mop bucket into the drain outside?

I don’t prep food anywhere near my sink. My sink gets dirty dish water poured down it daily, can I ask how mop water is any different? .

I don’t wash my cat in it and I wouldn’t wash a baby in it because that’s what my bath is for.

I don’t eat out of my kitchen sink and it has a washing up bowl in it so none of our plates/cutlery touch it. Really confused how tipping mop water or cleaning a litter tray in it makes any difference to my health.

I’m not sick or dead yet anyway so 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'd be more worried about the dirt from my sink getting onto my baby.

Absolutely would not do any of those things in a kitchen sink and as for washing a cat litter tray in the kitchen sink, why would anyone do that? Okay if you live in a house with one tap and one sink I could understand it, otherwise why would you?

And cleaning your teeth in the kitchen sink, probably not a big issue as far as hygiene goes but don't the people who do that have bathrooms? I keep my toothpaste and brush in the bathroom.

I remember an episode of The Royle Family in which Barbara was cleaning dog poo of someone's shoes at the kitchen sink using a dinner knife. It actually made my stomach heave even though I knew it wasn't real. Washing a litter tray in the kitchen sink is exactly the same.

*off, not of.

I do all that in the kitchen sink.

OP we killed our Rooster at the weekend, then cleaned it up in the kitchen sink (for Sunday Roast) would you glass that as food prep?

I have a vintage ceramic laundry trough (with grooves for a wash-board) as a kitchen sink. You could bath a shetland pony in it if you wanted to (well, a very small,baby shetland pony). I do all of those things in my sink (or have done) and then, shock horror I scour and bleach it.

I brush my teeth in the kitchen sink because we only have one bathroom and it means everyone gets in and out quicker.

Hurrah for all of you with second bathrooms and futility rooms so you don't have to use the kitchen sink for any of the things that they were commonly being used for 50 years ago.

Not sure that sinks being used for all those things 50 years ago means it's a good idea to go on doing things that way.

The average home probably didn't have a washing machine 50 years ago either.

The cat litter tray should be being washed in the bath (if no utility sink or outside tap), not the kitchen sink. Washing stuff like that in the kitchen sink is asking to get a, possibly life changing, illness

Only if you're a complete idiot who for some bizarre reason would wipe their food around a dirty sink?

Again, its not the people using the sink to clean dirty things that are doing it wrong, that is what it is for. Its the people using the sink for food prep who have it arseways.

Id say every one of my Nannys 13 grandkids got bathed in her kitchen sink and also my boys so her 2 great grankids. Wonderful memories. Would of been bleached after and everyone has survived

brushing teeth (spitting in a food prep area)

What do you think is on all your cutlery?

rinsing off carrots where 2 minutes ago your muddy trainers were seems wrong

Carrots that grow in the soil that rabbits and foxes shit and the farmer probably ploughs manure into?

Revolting?
Absolutely not!
Some of those things may be unnecessary but you can clean a sink you know!
All these hysterical posts about germs are bloody ridiculous.
You don't like it?...don't do it but stop overreacting.

I’ve washed babies in my kitchen sink so many times I can’t remember.

Sometimes they even weed in the water.

I don’t even bleach it afterwards - just swish around with hot water once it’s drained 😳