Disgusting behavior in swimming pool changing rooms!

[WakeAndBake]

Returned to the U.K. a few months ago and took the kids swimming to an indoor water park with a ‘changing village’.

The facilities were not sex separated and everyone goes into cubicles to change. And that is when things got nasty.

Instead of having a decent shower and getting clean before entering the pool people just stood under a shower IN THEIR SWIMWEAR for a few seconds. No attempt made to wash sweaty bum cracks or armpits. Most women did not even bother to wet their hair!

How horrible to swim in a soup of shit, smeg, sweat, hairspray and toe-jam. This also meant the amount of chlorine in the water was insane, burned my eyes and I nearly crashed the car on the way home!

Who thinks this is a good way to do things???

This is really an issue ! Nowt as queer as folk

Public pools are just liquefied human anyway.

That ^^ is a scientific fact. A doctor told me.

@izzywizzygood the people who live in the downstairs flat might not be so keen on that... maybe an easier solution would be to get rid of them somehow, then brick up their doors and windows and fill their flat up with water. Well, if the boredom get really bad...

I, for one, am quite happy to see a return to normal service on mumsnet.

You breathed out of doors? Go straight to Jail. Do not pass Go, do not collect £200.

Some people have really weird ideas about hygiene. "Sweaty bum cracks" somehow reaching you. Unless you're licking them, OP, and there's chlorine in the pool, you will be fine.

@wakeandbake

I've swam in many countries and it's normal to have communal showers, often poolside, to rinse down before getting in the pool. I've never seen anyone properly shower just before swimming because we shower at home before going to the pool!

I had no issue with Icelandic pre-swim hygiene when I went there, but there just isn't the provision to have people showering thouroughly before and after at most public pools. Most have about 8 communal showers and a couple of cubicles for general use which is a struggle just for a post-swim shower.

This thread's reminded me to check on DS's lessons. He was ready to move up in January and there hasn't been the space. I was hoping that someone might have cancelled their place.

I've never caught anything from the pool, even in the pee pit of the toddler pool.

izzywizzygood

Another problem solved and no more risk of bum crack contamination for ever more.

Does anyone else love the smell of Chlorine?

Yes, especially in the morning.

I am used to showering naked in a communal womens shower, as I always went to cheap gyms

However, never a big deal for me:
I come from the generation that went to school in the 1960s & 1970s when we showered naked together after every gym or swim class

Then when I worked in Germany and Sweden, all the showers at gyms, pools and spas were communal nudity - and single sex

It is far more hygienic and I definitely prefer this, now retired in Germany and normally a gym rat

This showering and non use of chemicals is not true of all 'abroad' pools though 😆. In Cyprus everyone just piles in covered in sweat and sun cream and the pool guys just come by and throw an unmeasured amount of neat chlorine down the drains every now and then whilst people are still swimming. Seems effective enough. Also with the realisation that chemical free pools are rare, feel a bit smug that our local council (Scotland) is in possession of one cleaned not by chlorine but by UV

I think the issue you have is that you chose to discuss slagging off brits in your diverting thread, on a mainly British site when everyone is feeling very unsettled.

If you'd started a thread on funny things your cat does everyone would have played ball 🤷‍♀️

I "shower" before entering the pool but I don't undress and use gel for it! My local gym has the pool shower which is an open cubicle in the pool area, if I was to get naked to shower I'd have the whole pool to myself! No one is expected to have a naked shower pre swim... are they?

Did you shower naked OP? That's generally not allowed 😬

Also HORRIFIED at the thought of someone watching to ensure I've washed myself thoroughly. I'll take 'smeg' any day (although really? Men are expected to wash under their foreskin before getting in..?).

It's 'behaviour'.

🤣🤣...after this thread I longer have any reservations about digging a pond in the garden and making the kids swim in that rather than a public pool😷!....OP I totally get where you’re coming from but we Brits are a dirty bunch who owe our Stirling immune systems to a distinct lack of care for hygiene in public places....though sadly el corona is showing us up to not be quite as invincible as we’d hoped!!

Do you wash yourself naked then put your cossie on your wet body? I think that sounds uncomfortable.

We all wear our swimmers to the baths under our clothes and then just have a quick shoulder shower before we get in. We adults shower properly first at home and the kids bath the night before.

While i'm happy to change and properly shower after a swim in a single sex communal changing area where everyone is concentrating on their own stuff (have done often, always did at schools and gyms till relatively recently) but i'd not soap myself up poolside for everyone having a leisurely swim to see.

Everyone should definitely shower off before getting in to a pool. Most people are dirty fuckers who do not ergo I do not swim in communal pools in the UK.

On the contrary, everything is fine here. We can go out as much as we like, there are no queues or restrictions at the supermarkets

So what country are you in now @WakeAndBake where you can go out as much as you like?

This thread made me laugh. After many years in Norway and now being used to the Scandinavian "shower naked" standard, I also think it is disgusting that people don't shower properly before going in the pool in the UK!

We don't have the swimming attendants that they have in Iceland though, who check you do it properly and point out the bits they think you should do better, thank goodness. That I think is a step too far.

YABU for using the tern Toejam.
And for ignoring that fact that your children might well be having a sneaky wee in the pool

I was expecting this to be about a man pleasuring himself in the ladies....

I’ve never showered before entering a pool, wouldn’t occur to me to do so.

Why has this been playing on your mind for so long? So weird.

That’s pretty normal in the UK I’d say. I can’t get too worked up about it, sorry. If I was that bothered about germs, I wouldn’t go to a public swimming pool.

Soooo you shower naked, giving your bum crack a good wash, in front of everyone, men included?