to think people overthink hygiene and germs and this is quite a new thing?

[Chicchicchicchiclana]

and also quite harmful to health?

I realise there's quite a fine line here and if we turned back the clock 50+ years then we would see an awful lot more children (in particular) being seriously harmed or dying of childhood diseases. So thank goodness for vaccines! But then those illnesses (like measles) didn't spread because of dirt in the environment, they were just nasty bugs that spread through human contact.

But now I see people worrying needlessly about the dirt in carpets, imagined dirt on things that haven't been bleached or wiped with an anti-bacterial wipe, not buying cakes at bake sales because "someone else" has made them, complaining about staff in food shops not wearing gloves, fretting about food that is on it's sell-by date, buying a thing called "laundry cleanser" I mean EH?

This is probably a question for non-Covid times. But, covid aside, aibu?

All the evidence seems to show that mild exposure to dirt and bacteria is beneficial to the immune system in the long run. Suffer some mild but irritating illnesses when young and build your immune system against the more serious ones.

It is called the hygiene paradox.

I'm the same as you CremeEggThief.

As an emetophobe I am evangelical about frequent hand washing, so life in lockdown has hardly changed for me. I would never come home from being outside and not wash my hands thoroughly as the absolute first thing I do.

I also wouldn't take a chance on under-cooked chicken, fish or seafood.

But I don't feel the need to bleach all the hard surfaces in my house every day and spray disinfectant around everywhere. Surely those two products alone are ultimately more harmful than a bug.

I daresay some people do, I don't. I used to be scrupulously hygienic but can't say I am now, especially being stuck indoors - not complaining about that, I quite like it but I know it would be good for me to get my act together. I keep thinking that tomorrow will do.

I have anxiety and issues around contamination too, so I deliberately haven't washed and/or disinfected shopping and post during lockdown, as I knew it would lead to me obsessing and worrying I could never get things 'clean' enough.

Hello Chic, I am a fellow emetophobe!

I also wash my hands immediately after coming in from outside. Avoid seafood or undercooked meat. Never eat something with my hands without washing them first (even a biscuit).

But I also only wash towels and bedding once a month (MN sin), don't frequently disinfect surfaces (use a 'natural' surface spray every couple of days/if something is spilled), and have a pet (cat).

So hopefully all that will keep my immune system topped up I am also rarely ill.

I agree some people take things to extremes! I wonder if they are all severe emetophobes?

At work I am very hygeine conscious ( a nurse ) , at home I am far more blase about it, will eat food past its sell by date if it looks/tastes/smells ok, don't have an spotlessly clean house, have pets, 5 second rule if the pets don't get to it first. I have had food poisoning (Salmonella ) once nearly 40 years ago and norovirus once when I first qualified as a nurse about 20 years ago. I did work on a gastro ward for a long time and spent an inordinate amount of time being sprayed with a variety of vomit and worse.
If people visit though I do step up the hygeine again, make sure the bathrooms are clean, clean the kitchen properly and am very careful with food prep if making anything for others. We live quite happily with our germs and they don't make us ill, but they might not be as kind to others

Covid has turned me into a germphobe. I was always pretty relaxed about cleaning really. House given a good clean once a week (ish) hands always washed before meals and after coming in from outside but that was pretty much It! We were very rarely ill.

Now I worry about everything I bring into my house. I went to Morrison’s on Saturday and although I know it’s faintly ridiculous, the cupboard stuff is in a box in ‘quarantine’ for 72 hours and I wiped down all the fridge stuff before I put it away.

I’m cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen throughly at least every other day. The only reason I don’t do it everyday is because I’m so tired after work (I feel guilty about this). Kids and I all change our clothes and shower after coming in from school/work. DCs are taking packed lunches in a freezer bag so they can throw it away at school as I want to minimise the number of things going backwards and forwards.... I keep disposable gloves in the car for when I have to get petrol. I haven’t used a cash point since March because I worry about using they keypad.

I hate it and wish I could stop. I’ve lost all sense of what is a sensible precaution and what is nuts. This level of hyper vigilance isn’t sustainable.

Yes. People who use antibacterial spray and zoflora on every single thing. I think I would rather ingest germs and risk occasional mild illness, than ingest toxic chemicals on a regular basis.

@Voxx, that is exactly what would have happened to me, but probably much worse, if I'd started disinfecting/washing everything. Please share your concerns with someone close who you can trust and won't laugh at you or dismiss you.

As a germaphobe pre-Covid I love that all my obsessive germ avoidance behaviour is not only socially acceptable now but positively encouraged

Would be the first to admit it's not the healthiest way to maintain mental health though!

I agree op. I was thinking about this the other day as a friend walked round behind her 3 yo pouring gel on their hands every 30 seconds.

Same friend I last saw in a massive soft play

Now it’s germ this and wipe that.

Nonsense.

Grew up on a farm knee deep in pig shit most of the time so maybe I’m a bit different.

Sadly I think like a lot of things post COVID there is going to be a gaping chasm between those who forge ahead regardless and those left behind paralysed in fear of this murderous virus.

There is a very fine line between being safe and sensible and going totally over the top. I have always been particular about washing my hands when I get home from the shops,before preparing food,and after using the toilet (especially public ones!) and have actually been called 'fussy' because of it! Now,I have people trying to preach at me about the importance of always washing your hands when you get home. I'm like,excuse me?

My late DM used to drive me mad with her lack of awareness about food hygiene. E.g. leaving a packet of shop bought egg mayo sandwiches sitting in her shopping bag overnight,in temperatures of around 24 degrees then saying it was perfectly safe to eat them the next day! Or touching a raw chicken then not washing her hands afterwards. She had frequent upset stomachs,but wouldn't have it that it was due to poor hygiene. She blamed it on the preservatives that were in the food. I also remember her trying to persuade me to eat some prawns that had been frozen then defrosted,then refrozen and defrosted again. She wouldn't have it that that was a sure fire way to get food poisoning.

But I do agree that some people go to the other extreme. It's not necessary to bleach and disinfect everything within an inch of its life. I think this is the reason why so many young people have allergies nowadays as compared to 40 - 50 years ago. Their immune system never gets 'challenged'.

@CremeEggThief. Thank you. It’s weird but I was at my boyfriend’s flat this weekend (he lives alone and is my support bubble) and I was much more relaxed. As if, because it wasn’t my home, I didn’t need to take on responsibility for all the hygiene stuff? It was very relaxing! But I’m back at work tomorrow, and I know I’m going to feel the need to antibac my hands every thine I touch something someone else has handled.... I don’t want to be the person using a paper towel to open the communal fridge but I can’t seem to stop.

A pp mentioned going through 6 dish cloths a day. Do others do this? I don't.

I don't go through that many dish cloths in a week @ICouldHaveCheckedFirst , but my washing up water is very very hot , no-one else in the family can put their hands in it.

@Chicchicchicchiclana

Oh. Am amazed at a case of gastroenteritis from a cake? Cake is baked in an oven at a high heat so where did the bug come from? More likely passed between people who had been in close proximity to each other.

And a gastro bug is nasty but generally not life threatening. If the answer to never having a gastro bug is never going out then I'm willing to take the risk (chronic emetophobe that I am).

Definitely traced to the cake, and others baked and packaged by the same person, who had been ill herself and evidently not washed hands properly before handling the baked cakes. Half the village, plus us, were ill.

And I didn’t say I never go out because of it - just that I’m choosy about whose food I eat. Hardly an overreaction.

Before covid. I agree but now I am just as bad and worry about touching surfaces, and wipe down door handles more often etc

I use a dishcloth to wipe surfaces. I change it daily, not after every wipe but give it a good wash out under hot water each time.

I used to wash them at 60 but I’m afraid I’m one of those laundry sanitiser users now because I got a new washing machine (replacement from hotpoint when their’s were setting themselves on fire) and the quickest 60 cycle is 3.5 hours long 😮 So I bung them in on 40 for 90 mins with the sanitiser. They come out smelling good and none of us have got sick so it seems to work.

All these disinfectant sprays are polluting the atmosphere in the house. People don't seem to realise that they are inhaling this stuff while disinfecting their surfaces.

It's hardly a new thing.

Countless religions have vast amounts of historical rules about food hygiene and personal hygiene. Clean and unclean animals, methods of slaughter, of preservation and cooking. Bathing at particular times. Washing before prayer. Covering hair, braiding hair, wearing washable underlayers to keep outer clothes clean. Avoiding the dead, washing the body, burial away from the living areas.

People didn't stop having their livestock living in their houses because they suddenly realised they'd have more space if the goats had their own hut or invented a new job called 'shepherd', they did it to reduce the amount of shit on the floor. Before, they used disposable floor coverings. Beds were stuffed with herbs that smelled nice or repelled parasites and were replaced whenever possible.

Think of some of the ancient artefacts and ruins - earspoons, nit combs, baths, soaps, perfumes, unguents.

Diseases and infections killed and human efforts have been made throughout history to find ways to reduce that, much of which have been related to hygiene.

***

And if somebody informs me that my autoimmune disease and multiple severe allergic reactions must be due to my mother having too high cleaning standards ever again, I might just scream. It was a fucking shithole. Same with my sister's brittle asthma and RA. I doubt very much if I'm a special rare snowflake whose immune system decided to not read the theory.

Well, there will without a doubt be an absolute explosion of children with allergies and childhood leukaemias in the following years that's for sure.

Children's immune systems do a lot of developing when they are young and they need exposure to pathogens to work out self from non self (when there isnt an actual pandemic/outbreak of something nasty like covid or norovirus going around - those are different situations)

People also get far too hung up on food allergies as well and what ages they can introduce allergenic foods to babies. Most good research these days supports that earlier introduction of allergenic foods reduces the chance of babies getting allergies in the first place but NHS recommendations last time I checked seem to pretend this research doesn't exist.

Basically, people love their kids and spend so much time trying to keep them safe that they do them a disservice long term for their normal immunological development (assuming no other factors are at play such as the child having other health issues that makes them vulnerable or a global flipping pandemic going on)

Yep. I'm very lax by mn standards. I don't wash my hands after coming in from outside. I wash teatoweld about once a week, towels once a fortnight or so. They are used to dry clean bodies. My kids are tweens. In their whole lives, I don't recall them having more than one stomach upset each. Ditto me. V v rarely ill with anything. I have a friend whobis do OTT. On a coach trip once, I offered her a jaffa cake out of a packet and she gelled her hands first. Out with our kids, one of hers dropped a crisp on the clean cafe table and she wouldn't let her eat it. She takes their temp all the time (pre covid). I only got a thermometer a month ago when I thought I probably should for CV reasons. Needless to say, they are always ill with bugs, sniffles, sore throats.