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?

Can you tell us which countries have higher standards?
I’ve lived in several countries, my experience is different to yours.
Where else have you lived!

I think people in certain European counties place much more importance on keeping their children clean and tidy. Small DC are generally immaculate and beautifully dressed and are expected to remain that way. We live in an urban area with lots of French residents and their children (the little girls especially) do seem to get a big telling-off for grubbing around in the playground sandpit or rolling in the mud. Spanish children also seem immaculate whereas English children often have messy, tangled hair (lots of long-haired boys round here) and are often covered in crumbs and juice stains. This is all completely anecdotal, I hasten to add .

English public places always seem dirty to me but I can't get too agitated about my DC crawling on the floor, having taken him to the germ-fest that is soft play frequently pre-Covid. I'm not sure other places are much better though. Certainly the Paris Metro and New York subway are filthy compared to the tube in London. And French public toilets tend to be disgusting. By contrast, the French houses we've visited have all been immaculate compared to those of my British friends so maybe other counties are more houseproud.

Whenever I go to another country I make sure to quiz people on their hygiene standards and bra washing.

I judge a country’s hygiene on what I see and smell and their health outcomes.

Maybe we wash less often and wash our clothes less often here, I don’t know. But it’s a cold country, we don’t sweat as much here. I certainly have not noticed a higher level of BO here than in other countries.

Similarly, we don’t appear to have a greater level of food poisoning, bacterial infections etc. compared with other countries. So I would say that shows our level of cleaning and food hygiene is ok. Maybe not everything is pristine but it’s not making people ill.

OP you say offices and shops only get hoovering and a bit of damp wiping. So what? What would be the benefit of them being deep cleaned every day? Just so you never see any dust?

Have you travelled much Op?
I have visited many countries over the years and have lived abroad.

It’s always been abroad I’ve come down with hygiene related sickness, never in the UK.

Some of the toilets I’ve used around the world would shock you, including an Indian train loo- that I was stuck on for 12 hours. (The train, not the loo).

Basically, this country is fine. Too much sanitised cleanliness is not a good thing.

I have lived in several (western, developed)countries and I don't think the differences are huge. What I did notice, however, is that in every country there were people whining about how it was so much better somewhere else!

One thing l have struggled with is shops sweeping up inside and then just brushing it outside I've had that done in a bakery as l walked out they followed me out with all their dust and didn't think it was an issue when l turned around with a shocked look.
plus l live next door to a Vets same thing just sweep all the rubbish outside and a personal favorite clean the floors when some animal has had a wee and just dump it down the drain in the street.
I'd be most interested if this is standard in the UK.

[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]
This is the proper link:

bigthink.com/strange-maps/revealed-dutch-are-least-hygienic-europeans

I’ve travelled an awful lot and the only places I’ve been with higher hygiene than the UK are the wealthy southeast Asian countries - Japan, South Korea, Singapore. Western Europe and the US/Canada are on a par with UK I would say. Other SE Asian countries eg China are better in some respects eg masks, hand sanitising but worse in others eg public toilets are highly variable and sometimes very third world (although the number of them is orders of magnitude better than the UK, but that’s a whole other thread). This was all pre Covid, obviously everywhere is better at masks and hand washing now. So no, I don’t think the UK is particularly bad and is much better than most of the world.

Unhygienic compared to where?

Having travelled a lot in South America I think this is a bit of a sweeping and probably inaccurate statement.

We may have a slightly more lax approach to cleaning in areas where there is less of a direct health risk than some other countries: ie the examples you've cited. Failing to wash your bra on a daily basis is unlikely to trigger a cholera outbreak.

Serious health risks associated with poor hygiene have more to do with sanitation and lack thereof than the number of times you run a mop around an office floor. All the really serious public health crises in which hygiene was a factor over the past 100 years (covid included) have originated in parts of the world with systemic problems around sanitation and animal husbandry, nothing to do with not washing underwear enough or whatever.

We may be less obsessed with cleanliness for its own sake than some countries and tbh that is probably not a bad thing: over-cleaning is bad for the environment and not great for the human immune system.

And yet we all pretty much survive. We're still here, OP. Sterility is not good either. One reason (please read my language here one reason, not the reason) allergies prevail can be attributed to too much sterility. A little dirt doesn't hurt.

I really think the people who wash their jeans 4 times a year are a rare breed. I come from the States originally, where you wear a new outfit every day and you wash everything after one wear. That's wasteful but it is necessary if you're from my hot climate. In the UK, the climate allows us to be mindful about how much we wash our clothes, ourselves. The important thing is oral hygiene, eye hygiene, blow your nose, and wash your hands throughout the day (something the Brits are not good at, it has to be said. But a lot of cultures aren't great at this stuff. It's not an exclusively 'British' thing).

Some people need to shower daily or even twice daily. Others don't. We're all different.

@Maggiesfarm

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?

That's exactly what I was thinking ?. I've worked in numerous countries around the world and apart from Japan ( just about the most racist country I worked in - cut my contract short because of it ) I would say we are no better or worse than anywhere else.

OP, you still haven't stated which countries are the clean ones, or cleaner than the UK anyway.

I lived in China for 12 years and my standards of hygiene are reasonably high: always wash hands after being out, always have hand sanitiser so no change for me at the start of the pandemic!
We don’t wear shoes inside which also helps to keep floors cleaner.
I have seen vg standards in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and in China streets are clean, even though standards in loos and restaurants range from decent to horrific.
I moved back to the uk last year after 25 years overseas and standards seem okay here apart from the bags of dog shit placed on fences etc. If the bin is full, take your dog shit home with you.

From my experience and what I can see, you see plenty of cleaners in public spaces- so hospitals, etc. But very rarely will they clean thoroughly, big balls of dust and dirt floating around and the cleaner will walk past it like it’s someone else's job. I have seen this so many times it is now normal. So they are being paid to do a rubbish job basically and that is why everything is so filthy everywhere.

@castemary - where are you from? I guess you live and work in the UK now, but don't come from here originally? It would be interesting to know which countries' cleanliness levels you're comparing the UK with.

In my experience, hot desking desks are much cleaner than a lot of people's fixed workstations because there are (or should be) strict rules on how they should be left, plus adequate cleaning supplies made readily available for cleaning keyboard, mouse, desk area before and after use.

I've occasionally had to clean up after some minger who ate their lunch at their desk and didn't wipe up the crumbs/clean their equipment adequately, but I just had to reach for the pack of wipes that's at the end of every desk run.

Would be very interested to know where/who you think has such a higher level of hygiene and cleanliness.

The reason the Dutch are considered the least hygienic isn't because they are generally more unhygienic it's based on self-reporting. The Dutch tend to be quite more forward and outwith - whereas culturally for other nations it wouldn't be the done thing to admit to being filthy.

There was a woman on a TV show quite early morning, who spoke of sharing bath water with her family and had quite a laugh doing so.

I do think cultures view cleanliness very differently. I for example would never eat any 'home made' cakes or whatever that other colleagues would bring to the office. Because you just can't know other people. And indeed certain people don't even think you should wash meat and chicken (I don't care what the guidance says). It's all just gross.

Also, just out of interest, how are you drawing your comparisons, OP? Have you travelled extensively? Have you stayed in peoples' homes, gone to offices etc abroad (sterile hotel environments aimed at tourists are not really an accurate indicator of a nation's cleanliness)?

Unhygienic compared to where?

Literally everywhere else across the world.

For the record, OP, I grew up spending my summers in Maine, using a shared outhouse in the woods, dumping hydrated lime down the hole after a shit. And try going out in the middle of the night for a pee in an outhouse surrounded by moose and raccoons (they'd bang on the roof while you were in there literally shitting yourself).
It was gross, unhygienic, and scary... and yet I lived to tell the tale decades later and I couldn't wait for summer to come so I could go back for more! What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

‘Similarly, we don’t appear to have a greater level of food poisoning, bacterial infections etc. compared with other countries. So I would say that shows our level of cleaning and food hygiene is ok. Maybe not everything is pristine but it’s not making people ill.’

I broadly agree with this point but I do think more hand washing and wiping of relevant surfaces in the cold and flu season would help.

Shoes in the house... that's a thing that gets me here.
Why do people (including DH who comes from here) wear shoes in the house?

And yet we're still alive.