To think hygiene standards are low in Britain?

[castemary]

This obviously does not apply to everyone. But in Britain, I think there is a general acceptance of fairly low hygiene standards. I see it in several areas.
With individuals you have people telling everyone they do not wash bras for months, do not clean their teeth every day, do not wash face masks every day.
In public areas, offices and shops the cleaning often consist of no more than a quick hoover occasionally, a mop and a bit of damp wiping. Apart from toilets, places are rarely properly cleaned.
I think most people simply do not realise how unhygienic Britain is until they go to countries that do have a good standard of hygiene. There seems to be a lot of emphasis in Britain on superficial things that make places look good such as scatter cushions or make-up, and not on basic hygiene and cleanliness.
AIBU?

And I've been to many French houses that don't have a basin in the downstairs loo, and if they do have a basin, chances are it'll only have a cold water tap. And no radiator.

Completely off-topic but brought to mind my friend's first house, where the toilet cistern was plumbed to the hot water feed. We thought it was vair posh having a hot water flush (if you ignore that it's only hot at the point the cistern fills, of course).

Don't go to Turkey OP, if you're worried about hygiene standards here.

I don’t think Britain is markedly more or less hygienic than anywhere else I’ve been really. I’m probably a bit of a slattern though. We wear shoes in the house but only downstairs where we have hard floors, no shoes upstairs where it’s carpeted. Purely because cleaning the hard floors is quicker and less laborious than hoovering the carpets upstairs. Towels and bedding are washed once a week here. Clothes are worn more than once between washes (apart from knickers and socks). I kiss my dog, but not with tongues. I shower daily and brush teeth twice a day but only wash my hair once a week because it’s very dry and coarse and looks ridiculous if I wash it too often.

I do wish bum guns were standard here though. I’ve never even used one but can see how it would feel much cleaner than wiping with paper.

My grandfather travelled the world for work, lived in both India and the USA and famously always said that the lower the cultural hygiene standards the better the food! He was a great man. Probably very poor personal hygiene by modern standards (bath night once a week, rarely washed his hands or his clothes!) Lived to 96 in great health and only died as a result of a freak (not hygiene related!) accident!
That said, he was a different generation and I think Britain and the British have changed enormously. I don't recognise the descriptions of unhygienic British people and homes sometimes described on these threads. I don't know anyone (except some uni students) who doesn't shower daily, change their clothes regularly or take their shoes off in the home. Love her or loathe her, there's a reason why Mrs Hinch is so popular... Disclaimer: haven't read the mask washing thread and think it's pretty gross if people aren't washing/changing them regularly. Vanity alone means I change mine a lot. I would have terrible skin if I didn't!

"I kiss my dog, but not with tongues"

waterlego you win today, I'm crying with laughter

Similarly people on public transport in the UK do not reek of BO.

Yes they bloody do!!

Oh no they don't!

Seriously though, it's a silly generalisation to say "they" do. Clearly only a minority do.

Sorry, I mean to comment earlier but I've been trapped under a mantle of filth

I don’t shower every day as I just don’t smell that quickly and use a bidet shower after using the loo.
It’s not that I’m nose blind, DH/family smell my pits and wonder why I don’t smell.

We also don’t hoover every week.

I look 10 years younger than people I went to school with and colleagues, I wonder if it’s due to my load back approach. 🧐

Sometimes you can’t win though. When I was office based, I liked a clean and tidy desk and used to regularly clean my keyboard, mouse, phone receiver etc and it just opened me up to ridicule and people pretending to cough on my phone, move things around on my desk and call me OCD. This was mainly my supervisor! I probably should have complained about bullying but she didn’t mean it in a nasty way. I just changed departments instead but wasn’t related to that.

A lot of you [redacted] really get in for being filthy and using any means to justify it.

I think there is an actual obsession with cleanliness here.

Judgy posts about how often you wash sheets, take shoes off before you go into the house, deep cleaning obsessions.

We are cleaner than we have ever been in history. A bit of muck doesn't kill you, it's good for your immune system actually. I feel like most of the country has emerging OCD when it comes to cleaning. And I suspect it comes from not only a desire for total sterility but also a 'keeping up with the Jones' mentality - "my house is significantly cleaner than your house"

It doesn't matter.

I can’t stand wearing a mask more than once. I change mine several times a day. It goes all clammy and damp like a wet hanky and gets makeup on it. And it smells musty. Yuk.

I think so much of it is cultural; I'm a Brit living in the ME & have definitely absorbed some different attitudes - some of them mentioned on this thread.

Chicken washing, for example. There's good evidence that it just hurls bacteria everywhere & is a seriously bad idea, but if your chicken was scratching round your backyard an hour or two ago, you'd probably want to rinse the dust off after you pluck & draw it. If it came out of the chiller cabinet from Tesco, it's probably safe to assume it was hosed down before it was packed.

Also bum guns - I feel disgusting now if I just use dry toilet paper! Bog roll is for drying your vulva &/or anus after you give them a good blast with the shetafa, & if the paper doesn't come away clean you haven't blasted your bottom thoroughly enough.

YANBU. Though I am guilty of some of the above myself (wearing bra multiple times, hardly ever washing face masks etc).

As far as personal hygiene goes, The number of people that don't brush and floss their teeth daily always surprises me!

Public places in this country are filthy also. I've been amazed and wonderfully surprised by how clean buses have become during this pandemic. They no longer smell like dust and BO. There are no longer any suspect damp patches on the seats or spills on the floor. It's lovely.

Even healthcare settings are a bit grim. I remember being on the PN ward a few years ago and there was an overflowing sanitary bin, pads on the floor all around, drips of blood on the floor etc for the full 48 hours I was there. Even when I was at the opticians a few weeks ago, in the middle of a blooming pandemic no less, I noticed that their skirting boards were all dusty and gross. I mean, sort it out!

@BigWoollyJumpers

Anyone who has driven across Europe will know what I mean when I reference "French toilets in "Aire" stopping places". You know the ones, the hole in the ground always adorned with a turd and discarded loo paper. Just hell. I would rather pee in a bush (and have done).

I love those. They remind me of childhood holidays. You dont see them on the main routes south anymore, but if you travel departmentale across non touristy routes, you still get them

Similarly people on public transport in the UK do not reek of BO

Usually not. But sometimes in summer sweaty men take their shirts off and you get this horrible hot flesh/meat smell in the train carriage. Eugh. If you're veggie or vegan it must be even more unpleasant as it reminds you of a butchers.

I'm surprised by office workers saying "our keyboards are never cleaned". Isn't that something that people take responsibility for themselves?
I always cleaned my own keyboard and phone. I used to keep a pack of wipes on my desk for that purpose and also had a compressed air aerosol cleaner for the keyboard. Others did the same as me.

@MimiDaisy11

For the people complaining about poorly maintained public toilets. Isn't that just a reflection on public services and the money the council is spending on them, rather than it being a standard that British people like? I'm sure most British people don't like using such places.

But some councils manage to maintain their loos properly. It's a question of priorities.

A lack of toilets has a disproportionate effect on women and the disabled - and therefore should be a priority if a council is considering the public sector equality obligation. But they don't, in the same way they ignore their obligation to maintain a comprehensive library service.

I’d love some of you to see the loos at the Suez Canal crossing, the shit was literally piled up. I don’t think anyone on the coach I was on did anything more in them than take pictures. I heard one American woman say she’d rather wet herself.

The tolerance of flies in this country really shocks me. British people seem to have no issue with flies crawling on their food, getting on the kitchen surfaces etc.

This is the bizarrest comment in a bizarre thread.
Due to the temperatures here in the UK, flies are less of a problem than in most parts of the world.
I've seen flies crawling on meat in markets abroad, never here.

I have had the same conversation with a number of teenage girls who have been lamenting their spots and poor skin.
When I’ve enquired if they remove their make up before bed or before applying more make up in a morning they have replied in the negative.
Once they have set up a good old fashioned routine of wash, tone and moisturise before bed and in a morning their skin has improved.
I’m not talking about severe skin problems- just spots snd black heads.
Everyone knew that when I was a gal!😂

I am very well travelled. But I expect the sixth richest country in the world to be cleaner than a really poor country where not everyone has access to basic sanitation.
It is not about bleach or zoflora. But simple things like washing your hands after going to the toilet and before you eat.

@80sMum I clean my keyboard, many do not.
But in offices a lot of the time desks, lightswitches, door knobs are not cleaned. Even if they are supposed to be, they are not.

Me too! And my cats