Do you worry about your coat or bag being contaminated in public toilets?

[PloughingOnward]

When you use a public toilet, if you hang your bag or coat in the cubicle. Touch the lock on the door, and touch your bag or coat because you have to to get out of the cubicle and then are able to wash your hands. But your coat and bag now have germs on from the cublicle - does that mean you avoid putting your bag down on your coffee table at home? Hang your coat somewhere separate from other clothes?

Or sitting on public transport seats, then sitting on your own sofa at night without getting changed - is this unsanitary?

Maybe worry is too strong a word but how do you manage the hygiene around this?

I know Mumsnet has a deep dislike for people saying they are "a bit OCD" but I have diagnosed anxiety with OCD traits - just not a diagnosis of OCD. My anxiety is kicking off and my mind is racing so I have a gp appointment booked, but in the meantime I'm trying to pep talk sense into myself. How do other people deal with these germ risks?

I can honestly say I haven't ever given it a moments thought.

Yes. All the time.

I am so envious of pps who have never given this a thought. Unfortunately I have the bladder of an infant and an absolute horror of using public toilets. I would never put my bag or coat on a toilet floor, or sit on a public toilet, or touch anything without a barrier (like toilet roll). I would also never put a bag on a kitchen work top or table, because it might have been on the floor somewhere; car, hall, work etc. If visitors to my house put their bag on my table or worktop I have to disinfect the area.
It drives dh mad...

Only if there's no hanger and I have to put it on the floor because they are usually covered in piss ime. [santa]

Your worries are disproportionate, OP.

I'm another person who does not 'manage the hygiene' around public toilets.

It is not necessary to change clothes before sitting on your sofa. You don't lick your sofa, do you? And if you did, you'd still be fine. Test it, if you don't believe me.

I feel the same as you. I don’t like people sitting on the sofa or beds with clothes they have worn on the bus. I also never put a bag on the table. People who visit often put bags on the dining table having had them on the floor etc. I accept I have anxiety and that these issues won’t harm me. I do worry though and I can’t have shoes worn in the house. Maybe this is ocd.

In recent years I have started covering my hand with sleeve before flushing loo or opening loo doors, office doors, train doors etc. I don't have OCD and rationally I know I'd be ok without doing this and just handwashing consistently. It would not occur to me to worry about germs from public transport being on my clothes or sofa

I would never put my handbag on the worktop/table or bed, they are not that clean. I don’t like public toilets for the germs, but try not to think about it too much.

No. I have never worried about such stuff. I love being clean and tidy at home but believe exposure to germs, particularly in foreign places, is good for the immune system in healthy people.

I love my local shopping centre toilets for this. I open the door with the very top of the handle which is rarely touched.

Enter the cubicle, hover, perform business, get toilet paper without any contact with anything, wipe seat, Chuck tp, wave hand in front of toilet flush sensor, leave cubicle with swipe of finger, swipe tap sensor, swipe soap dispenser sensor, air dry hands, leave toilets using little finger holding top bit of rarely touched handle! 😝

Then cleanse hands with alcohol gel in handbag!

This is exactly the way I think about things, but reading through these responses I'm starting to think that it's not how everyone elses' minds work. I'd never considered that it may be OCD.

YABU. Germs are everywhere and by encountering them you build up immunity.

I'm starting to understand why most of the public toilets I use are littered with loo paper.

YANBU - Im the same.

I feel really sorry for all of those who suffer this anxiety. It must be truly awful to live with it, and to live with you living with it.

Sadly I think standards of hygiene are pretty lacking is some places. A district nurse told me once about the amount of germs on toilet doors and the need for proper hand washing and since then I am the germ police.

I once saw someone at work (and it's a big organisation) leave the toilet cubicle, walk past the washbasins without washing her hands, open the toilet doors then go to use the printer / photocopier used by 50 others, then go to the kitchen. I was appalled! When we first went open plan you could almost watch the germs spread as banks of folk went of one after another

I can absolutely relate - I have to control my anger when someone comes out the toilet and hasn't put the lid down when flushing. It horrifies me and I have shouted at a few family members for doing it because it's absolutely disgusting. I can't stop thinking about it until I clean my whole bathroom when someone does it. I use my elbows to open doors/turn off taps or use the outside of my jacket to switch switches. I do this everywhere I go.

BeekyChitch I mean this with kindness but you may want to speak to someone about your extreme reactions to this. It's not "absolutely disgusting" to flush a toilet without having the seat down, and then using your elbows to open doors. This is suggestive of a problem - and I cannot imagine how anxious you must be.

No. None of this bothers me and I am pretty clean and have a spotless house.

No. I never give any of these things a moment's thought. Largely because I understand risk.

Health anxiety or OCD both can do this to you

OCD you will obsess about it and have a compulsive behaviour that you simply MUST do to stop something bad happening. You can't control it but you believe that you can - if you don't do X it will be YOUR fault if Y happens. YOU not sterilising things is what will be guilty, rather than the germs that caused the sickness or the people who left the germs in the first place (I have/had severe contamination OCD, this was my mindset)

Health anxiety - you will think a lot about it, you will worry far more than the average person, you will start to connect dots that never occur to the average person

Yes me! After spending a night in hospital I come home and washed, cleaned, wiped everything I took with me!! I try to avoid public toilets as much as possible. If I’m desperate I try and use toilets in supermarkets which are often cleaner (I go in and buy a drink and a snack) Then I come and have a shower if I’ve used a public toilet 😩

Chairs in waiting rooms really bother me to!!

This is one of those MN posts where I think ‘wow, I had no idea this was a thought process, for anyone’. Needless to say I don’t give it a second thought, but I’m genuinely sorry that it causes such difficulties for some people,I couldn’t imagine living like that.