To expect guests to wash their hands on arrival?

[SillyFillyDress]

Am I being unreasonable in thinking people should wash their hands when coming from outside to your house?
Would you ask kids who come to yours for a playdate to wash their hands?
Would you ask adults?

I usually wash my hands if I've been out and touching things, definitely if I'm about to cook and also in the days I had small children. But my mother has ocd and despite my best endeavours some things stick. Think a nanny or health visitor dealing with small children should though.

wouldn’t occur to me

I wash my hands after the loo, before eating or if they are dirty.

not just because I’ve entered a building

Previously was a Health Visitor and I would use alcohol gel rather than wash my hands, reason for this was not all homes had liquid soap but had manky bars of soap and the towels were sometimes gross

Haha yes, OP! I’m with you on this!

All these commenters saying they’d consider this to be “rude” “weird”…,
I bet, are the ones that don’t regularly wash their hands. Most of them probably don’t even wash them after the loo or before handling food never mind regularly doing it simply for hygiene reasons.

There are far too many people on the internet openly claiming they don’t bother washing their hands after a wee, as “it’s just a wee”
😳🤢

Having everyone wash their hands on the regular, just for hygiene purposes? I would absolutely love this to be common practice.
But sadly it isn’t, it’s very evident in the fact that so many grown adults have the “black french tips”…eg dirty/filthy fingernails.

I’m from eastern europe and guests would usually was their hands on arrival at your home after taking off their shoes. The people in the UK who would be upset about washing their hands are the same people who would prefer to keep their shoes on in your home and spread all the dog shit, salvia and public restroom germs all over your home 🤮 It’s so weird that people find both of these things offensive.

Not someting i do, but i have a very good immune system

It became expected during Covid but for most people Covid has been and gone. Other people will live with Covid-related Health-anxiety for the rest of their lives. If I was visiting a friend with Covid-related Health-anxiety (assuming they could cope with such a visit) I would wash my hands as a courtesy.

She was dealing with sick and injured war wounded. In a deadly unhygienic environment, with horrendous sanitation, open wounds ripe for infection. An environment conduisive to all manner of horror. Are you suggesting that’s comparable to a clean modern home, in a world of at hand hygiene, sanitation, medication?

And yet one is considered absolutely filthy if one doesn't change bedding every week!!

Although if people are so dirty, the sheets probably walk themselves to the washing machine

How depressing to see the indignant responses of those who think it's rude to ask someone to take off their shoes or wash their hands when entering a home. As if such simple requests might somehow infringe on their liberties!

There's a fair amount of ignorance and naivety in this kind of defiant attitude, often mistaken for fortitude. People think not washing hands gives a good old healthy low-level exposure to a few germs that will toughen us up, even when the evidence in front of our noses is that norovirus is doing the rounds. (And norovirus does not toughen you up, although my godmother died of it; see also Covid). And to those who talk as if shoes might bring in a bit of 'mud' - grow up! This isn't the 1920s. Shoes that have walked around outside are a source of endocrine distrupting pesticides, forever chemicals, microplastics, heavy metals, and they get brought into the home.

I would be glad to live in a society where it's normal to wash hands and take off shoes upon arriving into a home. I like my home to feel like a cleaner space than the outside world, and nobody has the right to come in and ruin that for me because they've decided they know better. Especially not when the evidence is actually on my side.

My husband and I both wash our hands immediately when we come home, there's no telling what germs could have been lurking on door handles, banisters and other surfaces we've touched while out, this was particularly true during the height of the Covid pandemic.
Our baby is ddue in January and I plan to ask all our visitors to wash their hands thoroughly before they can touch her. I don't think our friends and family will have a problem with this as they know what we are like about hygiene. We also have a strict no shoes indoors policy which applies to anyone entering our home.

This is absolutely incorrect. You have got the wrong end of the stick.

Exposure to microbes is beneficial, eg from playing outside is beneficial. Exposure to germs such as norovirus is not beneficial at all, and could make a new born seriously unwell.

Shocking orrrrrr maybe an indication that you’re overestimating the risk perhaps? just the tiniest bit? Adults can and should be trusted to decide for themselves when their hands need washing, and especially healthcare professionals. Kids, fair enough.

Spot on!
People are so ignorant
Norovirus comes in many strains and evolves into new ones so all the bullshit about blah blah exposure protects them is tripe.
It's a VERY nasty illness.

If I had a friend or relative so neurotic that they asked me to wash my hands on arrival
at their house, I’d think they were suffering from some sort of mental health issue.

Agree.

Some people here are coming across as very touchy, as if the requirement to wash hands is meant as a personal rebuke.

Of course not, I am suggesting that she understood the link between hand washing and hygiene and that it still a very simple and effective way to reduce the spread of common but often nasty illnesses; ones which can be very harmful for newborn babies.

There's a happy medium between "the more dirt the merrier" and "sterile environment". The happy medium occupies a spot closer to 'sterile' than 'dirty' all the same, for young babies especially.

Health visitors and midwives who don't wash their hands when they come in - shame on them. It's grossly unprofessional.

Didn't you see the PP from an HCP, saying she uses alcohol gel, and why?

Wow!

Wow what? I used sanitiser when requested. I continued to wsh my hands after going to the toilet and before making food or after doing something like putting the bins out. All the normal, sensible things.

Sometimes I remembered to also wash my hands when I got home as was suggested. I just wasn't constantly thinking about it. I wasn't opposed to the idea, just didn't often remember because I wasn't obsessing. Don't think that makes me that unusual really.

I do, but only since covid. It was a habit that stuck,

Dirty

Silly!

As you wish. It's dirty to not wash your hands when you come home. You've touched rails and handles on public transport, which are covered with bacteria. This is so basic and obvious. I can see that the lack of handwashing is so common apparently - it doesn't make it less gross though.