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?

I agree with you. Hygiene levels are very low in the UK from personal hygiene, house cleaning and food hygiene. But the most gardens are well maintained.

I grew up in a 3rd world country - by those standards everything I see in Britain has medical standard cleanliness! Honestly, dirt/germs are not necessarily a bad thing... whereas never being exposed to germs definitely isn't beneficial.

Also - no matter where I've lived I've never encountered anyone who doesn't wash their bra or teeth for months - who are these people you're mixing with and why are they telling you about their washing habits?

You do realise is not healthy to live in a sterile environment all of the time right?

Japan was spotlessly clean when I visited a couple of years ago. Even a bog-standard service station had the cleanest bathroom facilities I'd ever seen, you could have eaten off any surface without fear!

"Revealed: Dutch are least hygienic Europeans - Big Think" bigthink-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/bigthink.com/amp/revealed-dutch-are-least-hygienic-europeans-2604513475?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a6&usqp=mq331AQHKAFQArABIA%3D%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16206432613743&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fbigthink.com%2Fstrange-maps%2Frevealed-dutch-are-least-hygienic-europeans

I live in a country where people bathe twice a day (very hot!), use a bum gun after pooing and think paper is revolting, and always remove their shoes when entering a house and not to do so is disguisting, and always dress and groom beautifully if they can afford it.

But, at the same time, streets and canals are full of trash, rats and cockroaches galore, street dogs shitting everywhere, lots of slums with poor sanitation.

I think I prefer the UK even if the personal hygiene is a bit lacking in contrast!

I think some people take a sentence as fact without thinking about it.

I told a friend I only have a bath once a week, which is true I do. She decided that was disgusting, without bothering to think that I have a shower and use that instead.

And each country has some things or aspects of themselves that
they keep much cleaner than others, and some things they are much more relaxed about cleaning than the others.

I can only compare the UK and Italy but I have noticed:
Homes - UK homes tend to be messier while Italian homes are generally very clean
BUT
Street - UK streets are usually cleaner, Italians don't seem to bother when it comes to being outside and there is so much littering and dog mess

One thing that DH pointed out to me and I now I always notice is that the coffee machines in cafés in the UK are often filthy (even, shock horror, in John Lewis) whereas they are generally kept sparkling in Italy.

I see people kissing their dogs, letting their dc crawl over shop floors etc. I honestly wonder how some people manage

What does 'manage' mean in this context?

Surely what is very obvious is that the papers aren't full of stories of people dying from people kissing dogs, or babies dying from crawling.

So everyone is managing just fine without needing to live in a sterile bubble

I don't think we have a massive public health problem outside COVID though, so what's the big deal about super cleanliness? Food prep, toilet hygiene, hand and mask washing during a pandemic I can get behind, but I'm not fussed about a bit of dirt and people smelling like people in general. We do need a bit of grub to keep our immune systems working properly.

I think you need to look at who you mix with, my friends and colleagues are nothing like you describe.
Some of the threads do throw up extreme behaviour though, I'd avoid people like that.
I have visited many countries and some have dreadful problems mainly due to poverty and poor infrastructure though. Which countries do you rate the @castemary

I suppose there are some cultural differences, e.g. when I went to Japan it certainly seemed that people there were more focused on hygiene than a lot of people I know in the UK, but I've no idea whether we'd rank low on the world's hygiene league table.

My impression from previous threads on how often you wash bedding and underwear is that, as in many other aspects of life, we're a divided nation.

I am probably at the 'low standards' end of the spectrum. But my standards are bang on normal for when I was growing up in the 70s - I don't think antibac products existed then, and many people didn't have showers, washing machines or dishwashers, kids played out a lot and weren't disinfected when they got home, people had flannel washes at the sink most days, in my house we bathed once a week. I do shower every day now, but otherwise I don't think my approach to hygiene is much different from my mum's.

In my experience (might not be representative), it's the younger people I know (in their 30s and 40s) who seem to be very hygiene-focussed and carry antibac wipes everywhere, use a lot of cleaning products, do a lot of laundry, etc. Maybe because they've grown up with more cleaning appliances in their homes and in a more consumerist age so are used to buying products for everything?

Other than age, I have no idea why there's such a disparity. It doesn't seem to relate to ability to buy products, and the health of the household doesn't seem to have any relationship to how hygienic the inhabitants are - so maybe 'low' is actually okay?

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

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.

? I don't know where you've experienced that but nobody I have ever known tolerates flies!

@MalteserGeezee
I agree about Japan. They seem to have a real pride about cleanliness. Our toilet in a very basic hotel self cleaned itself every time! Tubes (whatever they are called there) were pristine. I remember the first time I was on a tube in London and I thought the man next to me had forgotten his coffee under his seat so I shouted after him. Stupid me. Took me a few days to realise he was a filthy would be litter-lout.
Look at other Asian countries too. Shoes off every time they enter a house. Lots of people here trail all the dirt and muck in with them all over their carpets

[quote FourTeaFallOut]"Revealed: Dutch are least hygienic Europeans - Big Think" bigthink-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/bigthink.com/amp/revealed-dutch-are-least-hygienic-europeans-2604513475?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a6&usqp=mq331AQHKAFQArABIA%3D%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16206432613743&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fbigthink.com%2Fstrange-maps%2Frevealed-dutch-are-least-hygienic-europeans[/quote]
Wow. I would not have predicted that. When I was there it always seemed spotless, there were women who cleaned their windows every day and I was told it was a throwback to early Protestantism where outer hygiene reflected moral purity.

I also remember (in the 80s) someone going on about how you should get a Dutch au pair because Dutch girls are very clean. Just goes to show how wrong stereotypes can be.

We are no worse or no better than the majority of the first world countries.

You pr examples of bras etc are the extreme, not the norm

The great majority abide by decent cleanliness rules

@Guavafish a very quick google shows that the world economic forum ranks the U.K 6th in food security which considers food hygiene and safety as one of the major contributors. The rest of the world must be in real dire straights!

Some posters have not lived in different parts of the world and it shows.

The no showers in a lot of dwellings, even now. Don't get me started on outdoor toilets until the 80s and lack of mixer taps. Miles behind the rest of the Western world. YANBU.

I understand why separate rather than mixer taps can be annoying but I struggle to see how mixers are a prerequisite for good hygiene!

@blackice

Some posters have not lived in different parts of the world and it shows.

I have and the no showers as de rigeur in many apartments, no mixer taps, outdated plumbing, etc are shocking for developed nations. But they seem fine putting up with it.

Im aware that Brits have a reputation. We were in a static caravan owned by Belgians on our honeymoon. I was told they'd never rented it to Brits before because of the cleanliness issue. I spent the last day of our honeymoon scrubbing the entire caravan within an inch of its life, as national pride was at stake.

Im interested to hear that every country has areas which they consider important to clean and others less so.

i dont wash my mask everytime i use it and im not exepcially ott with bleach-hardly got colds and no covid in my house

Don't generalise for goodness sake, castemary. There are plenty of clean, dirty and in-between people in the UK, just as there is in other parts of the world.

Are you from the UK?

I think you're wrong, OP.

Other than during COVID I've spent the last decade and more travelling the world on business - from West Coast USA to East Coast China, and beyond - spending up to 20 weeks a year abroad, well outside 'touristy' areas on the whole.

I can't think of any country I've spent a lot of time in that's inhabitants are particularly 'more hygienic' than in the UK. Perhaps a couple of Northern European countries are a bit more fastidious in their towns and cities' cleanliness, and possibly some German cities, but you can't be well travelled if you think that the British are bad!