Hygiene AIBU?

[Hanspannerly]

Cleaning up the kitchen tonight and dropped a tiny spot of banana on the floor. Had the dish sponge in my hand so bent and wiped it up. Sponge went straight into the sink with very hot water and washing up liquid. DH is appalled by my hygiene practices!! I don’t make a habit of wiping the floor unless with a mop but I steam cleaned the floor this morning so... AIBU?

I’d use a baby wipe

You use the washing up sponge to wash up dirty plates but it's not ok to wipe up a bit of banana off a recently steam cleaned floor?
Honestly the world gone mad.

Some of you are off your rockers - it’s the floor not a sewer. What would you do with a spoon dropped on the floor? Erect it’s own decontamination tent?

I mean, carry on with whatever makes you happy but from an environmental point of view some of you are incredibly laid back about the amount of man made products and harmful chemicals your sloshing about like there are no consequences.

Lighten up and enjoy your immune systems.

Just a note for people using sponges: if the potential germs bother you, just microwave the sponge for 30 seconds. Kills ‘em dead.

This is still a wonderful thread. I'm glad that more 'slatterns' are bringing common sense to the fore.
My cats walk on the worktops, they drink from the kitchen sink tap. I caught one of them trying to stick their tongue into the sponge the other day. We're all happy and healthy here despite having salmonella in my knickers and fanny juice on my utensils.

Fanny juice on the utensils might add a certain something. Perhaps it's like umami.

@howabout 

I have a washing up sponge and a floor sponge (an old washing up sponge that was heading for the bin). I have a cat who is messy with his food, our flat is rented and the limo in to kitchen is really old.

Mopping doesn’t clean the floor properly because of how worn down the Lino is. I do run over it with the mop but I don’t think it looks properly clean afterwards so I scrub the floor by hand once a week with the old washing up sponge and do the area around the cat bowls daily. I wouldn’t use the same sponge for both washing and floor cleaning.

I've always washed the pet food bowls in the dishwasher with our plates and cutlery. Never a problem.

Told you I was a slattern. Proud of it too.

@topseyt are we NOT meant to do that. Dog plate goes in the dishwasher with everything else!!

With the cloth/sponge I use for washing up? No.

I'm not sure I'd use a washing up sponge to wipe something off the floor, but that's more about aesthetics than hygiene.

How many people have actually been ill from all the dreadful things that a lot of us do such as washing clothes in our washing machines and then putting washing up cloths in the machine without sterilizing it first? Very few I imagine.

And who the hell has the time or inclination to rinse all their underwear out before they wash it?

Most of us have pretty good immune systems that allow us to cope with the odd germ or two - I realize some people don't.

And just out of interest how many people have died from using a loo brush? Because according to MN wisdom they're poisoning your home if you have one in your loo. I've got three, one in each loo, clearly I'm going to die any day.

Have none of the pps who are so horrified at the OP's hygiene ever had small children who crawl all over the floor and then put their hands in their mouths? Children eat all sorts of crap off their hands, they tend not to worry too much about hygiene, but somehow most small children's systems manage to cope.

Hanspannerly, probably to some on here it would be minging on a par with toilet brushes. . I also have two toilet brushes, one upstairs and one downstairs. That is to prove my slattern credentials.

I like to earn my stripes, I do.

What would you do with a spoon dropped on the floor? Erect it’s own decontamination tent?

Love it Sums up the ridiculousness of some people’s views on hygiene.

I will be washing up later using a sponge. All the cats dishes will be mixed in with everything else. Then I will use the same sponge to wipe down the sides and maybe even wipe a few marks off the floor with it - ner ner ne ner ner.

This reminds me, it's been a few weeks since I replaced the washing up sponge.

OP I'd do what you did 🤷🏻‍♀️

What have you just said OP . You put reusable sanitary towels in with the dish cloths?

I cannot cope!!

Lol- no I don’t tend to do that. I usually wash them alone at 60 on a stain removing wash but I guess at that temperature it wouldn’t do any harm

He would be incensed by mine then! Yes I would do that (minus the steam clean detail) and goodness knows what my teens do - caught dd1 cleaning up spilt milk with a tea towel, chucking it near washer, then later using same tea towel retrieved from floor to dry up in utility room!

Thank you Junk, I was just going to say the same thing. I often think a spot of compulsory time-travel back to the 50s and 60s would do more to reduce the excessive use of chemical cleaning agents than any environmental campaign.

Not just the 50s and 60s, It gets grubbier the further back you go.

My exh was born in the mid 1930s and grew up in a very poor environment. They weren't too worried about hygiene in those days. The family were fleeing their terrible lives and poverty in Eastern Europe and in one case Russian Pogroms and were putting all their energies into just surviving.

My exMIL's hygiene standards were awful, but they all had the most amazing immune systems and all were very rarely ill.

Exh is now pushing 83 and still working, his brother is well into his 90s and exMIL died in her sleep aged almost 102.

Perhaps we all need to stop obsessing about a little bit of dirt. It's not the end of the world and it probably won't do you a great deal of harm if you don't keep your kitchen at the same level of cleanliness required for an operating theatre.

Meh.

Do none of the horrified people ever apply the 5 (or 10 / 20 / 30) second rule and eat something that's been dropped on the floor?

It's not like she scrubbed the floor with the sponge.

What about a fork being dropped on the floor? it would pick up the same germs / bacteria - but you wouldn't think twice of then putting it in the sink and washing it up!

I probably wouldn't do this, but I know it is illogical because dropped cutlery does get washed with the regular dishes.

Though this reminds me of the time my step mother was horrified that I used the tea towel for the dishes to dry my hands after washing the dishes. Apparently my hands might be contaminated by germs in a way that the dishes wouldn't be.

Apparently it takes 30 seconds for bacteria to migrate on to anything dropped on the floor!