to wash my hands every time I've been out?

[itsallsohard]

Since the pandemic, I have taken to washing my hands as soon as I come in the house from outside. Obviously perhaps if I've been on public buses, or gardening; but also if I've just been out in my own car, or to the grocery store. None of us in the family is especially prone to illness or to worrying, and before the pandemic (unless someone in the family was actually sick) we all just washed hands after using the toilet and before cooking or eating.

Is it really disgusting that I didn't do this before 2020? Or is it a bit OCD that I do it now? I genuinely can't decide. YABU = that's too much hand-washing. YANBU = sounds normal, we do too
(edited to try to get rid of some rogue strike-outs of whole lines...)

Yes, but from reading threads on MN not nearly as much as you seem to have in the UK. In fact there is so little that it can easily be seen and avoided. On the rare occasion my shoes have picked up some I've managed to cope without an attack of the vapours.

Yes this.

The people proudly declaring they barely wash their hands on this thread are proving how important it is to wash your hands when you come home! If I’ve been to the supermarket and used a trolley after dirty Brenda who only washes her hands a few times a day, you bet I’ll be washing my hands as soon as I come in. Imagine bragging about how little you care about extremely basic hygiene after a pandemic 🤢 disgusting.

Ah you're lucky then. The pavements are basically paved with it here

What about people who have a suppressed immune system ? Also it's basic hygiene and gross if you don't wash your hands . Especially before preparing food etc ( I am aware I don't know if this is the case in your case). There is no need to be obsessive about it, but after you come in from being out, after cleaning, after loo, touching animals etc.

I think your public transport must be cleaner too. I saw someone wipe their nose on their hand and smear it on the seat once.

I don't think I wash my hands every time I come in per se but in reality maybe I do because I usually need the loo as soon as I get in 🤣 or I've used hand gel while out and somehow washing my hands properly (and getting rid of the slimey residue I know is there even if dry) is a priority, which I think is a habit started in covid. I definitely wash my hands more often now as a result of the pandemic, and I get less colds as a result too. I am aware that I also still avoid people who are coughing in public - not to the detriment of anything, but I'll keep a distance. I work with a lot of kids and definitely wash and sanitise my hands at work more often than I used to, and I've become one of those people who has hand sanitiser in every bag and every coat pocket, and a big one in the car, and I use it fairly frequently when out and about.

I was also the horsey kid stereotype, eating packed lunch at the stables with black greasy fingers and picking dog hair off my sandwich 🙈

If your immune system is fully formed by 8/9 why give adults the flu vaccine? Or travel vaccines?

theres a link between a lack of infectious material exposure, and allergic conditions, people who live on farms have less asthma/eczema/general allergies due to exposure to microbes from soil and animals.

I have sanitizer in my car and use it after I've been shopping, used an ATM and wash my hands when I get home, after the toilet and before I prep food.

Yes this!

Be positive about this change you have kept up. I wish everyone else had kept up good cleaning habits they began in 2020.

Sounds awful.

Same! I was walking up to my flat and realised I was holding the handrail on the stairs…thought to myself “well this is gross I need to wash my hands every time I come inside!”

I put my feet up on my chair with my shoes on - it's perfectly clean. I don't live in the UK, all I can think is that you must have very dirty streets there!

I change into slippers if I'm not going out again, but if I am then it's outdoor shoes on, all day sometimes.

When I was in about Year 3 (but we're talking 50ish years ago) I can remember my class teacher (who I loved but was a bit scared of) telling us that the first thing she did every day when she got home was to wash her hands!
I probably thought 'Well that's nice for you but how does that affect me?' at the time and didn't view it as a habit to adopt 😂
I bloody did when I became a teacher though 🤣

My mother was born in 1929. She always drilled into us that when we returned home we washed our hands with soap and warm water. It is not a new idea. I have raised my children in the same way.

Yes, immune systems are much more complicated than is being thrown around here.

I grew up in New York and live in London. We wash on coming into the house. My mum's a doctor and I guess it's just habit formed in childhood which I've passed on to my kids. I have to say, I'm always surprised by how dirty the water coming off them is, just from being out and about - cities are dirty.

That said, I don't go overboard - never use hand gel when out or use antibacterial anything and I think the only time I've been ill in the past 15 years was a pretty light bout of covid. 2 DCs seem to take after me that way, DH and one DC seem to be much more susceptible to picking stuff up.

Quite a few people on here who would have been amongst those disbelieving Dr Semmelweis, it seems.

Do you never go into public toilets wearing your shoes ?

Ugh you’ve just reminded me how the scamdemic showed up how many people lack basic levels of hygiene.

Lazy parenting really. They should have been taught this from a young age. It becomes second nature.

We do it. DC do when they come in too. Both DC born prematurely so we got used to it then, you had to the minute you entered NICU.

I do it, except, I did forget last week for some bizarre reason and I've ended up with bloody COVID. Can't make it up.

@ForGreyKoala, would love to know where you live where you have streets paved with blotting paper. I've lived all over the world and there's not one place that I would walk in to my home with my outdoor shoes on.

As a backpacker very often the poorest countries I visited were proud of their hygiene standards and shoes were taken off.