Step son used my bath towel

[Green0911]

Want to gauge if IABU here.

My and my husband's towels are in the bathroom. Teenage SS keeps his in his room. We each have a hand towel and a bath towel. They all get changed every 3-4 days. When it came to changing them, I realised SS didn't have his towels in his room. He said he'd put them to be laundered a few days before. When I asked him which towels he'd been using in the meantime (he'd showered at least twice during this period), initially he claimed none, then admitted he'd used mine.

I blew a fuse. Couldn't believe he thought this was acceptable. Husband has laughed it off and is accusing me of being dramatic/blowing things out of proportion.

AIBU?

Further, some of us have standards a bit higher than "will it kill me?" I personally like to care for myself with fresh towels and linens, making a shower pleasant, rather than grabbing up any dank rag used by umpteen other people.

But @BettyBardMacDonald you are framing it as a safety thing, must avoid faecal bacteria etc. Faecal bacteria don't magically appear wherever there is water. What you posted is nonsensical.

Of course if you're the type of person to have faecal matter on your hands, which you don't wash but just wipe on a towel, then yes, you should wash that towel.

The article in Time you linked to concludes like this re towels btw:

“As long as it’s drying completely between use, there’s almost no chance of passing bacteria from one person to another,” she says. Still, you’ll want to wash them at least once a week."

Happens all the time, hope you never touch anything outside your home. Because some of ye people that have touched it before, would’ve shared towels!!

I wouldn't want to share a towel with someone else, but in practice, it's likely to happen if you share a bathroom and the other person does not have easy access to his own towel when he wants it. Making your stepson keep his towel in his bedroom is unreasonable and is likely to make him feel unwelcome in the house. How difficult would it be to put up an extra towel hook?

What causes more damage, a shared towel or when a dss is screamed at and humiliated over using a forbidden towel. I know which I think will have a more lasting negative effect..

It doesn’t really matter who shares or does not share towels. It isn’t the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where one must always carry a towel. Everyone can do in their own what they want with towels.

What matters is that op “blew a fuse”. This is not a conducive to teenager anything other than she lose her shit instead of calmly explaining why she found it gross. Teenagers don’t respond to shouting and fuse blowing. It really sounds like OP doesn’t like the stepson.

If DH is laughing, that is unkind, smear a streak of Nutella on his towel and tell him you wiped your arse on it. Then perhaps he can see why you were upset, but chill your beans on the fuse blowing.

@HoppingPavlova

yeah, no. I’ll stick to using my own towel

No, I want diamonds on mine! Fully encrusted!

This. Among all the faux scientific pedantry and grandstanding what a lot of people have missed is that OP blew a fuse at her stepson over this.

Mosr people, regardless of where they were born, should understand that this is not acceptable.

Or maybe if many of today's shit men had been told off in no uncertain terms when they were teens, they'd be more aware of the effects of their behaviour on others. Instead of selfish, self-absorbed and entitled.

Or maybe if the DSM were more level headed they wouldn’t be laughed at!

Would those who are accusing OP of 'screaming' and 'shouting' care to point out where in OP's posts she has said this?

No, thought not. This thread's turning into projection central as stepparenting threads always do.

Also stuff like threadworms, herpes, warts etc can deffo be spread by sharing towels. Loads of bacteria and viruses thrive on damp material like towels.

and when you have a Peircing done you’re advised to absolutely not share towels, so clearly there must be transmission of bacteria etc via towel sharing

just use your own towel people!! I genuinely can’t see any reason why you wouldn’t

@BettyBardMacDonald you can tell someone off without screaming at them. In fact, if you model screaming at them then surely they will think that is the correct response.

We shared towels when we were kids. This shit men hysteria is very disproportionate to the event being discussed.

We loosely now all tend to use our own towels due to preferences etc but if someone uses someone else's towel fuses are not blown nor is an immediate sterilisation programme initiated, but we are a happy chilled household.

She says in her OP she “blew a fuse”. It clearly wasn’t handled in a calm and measured manner.

Exactly! The dss has learnt that shared towels bad, shouting fine. What a lesson. He'll make a prize future dp.

It's not a safety matter to me, though clearly it is to some, if you google information on MRSA and shared towels, among other conditions.

But just because it won't kill me, I still don't want to use a nasty communal towel teeming with bacteria or someone else's sloughed-off skins cells.

That's just beyond minging, no matter what the "I just wipe off with the dog's blanket; what's the big deal?" crowd may say.

Even in zoos and veterinary facilities, animals under care are not wiped with communal towels used.

I know for a fact that one of my DC caught molloscum from one of her cousins using her towel, and while it wasn’t life threatening it was a real nuisance for well over a year.

@musicismath what do you think blowing a fuse means? Also do you think if OP had talked calmly to SS about the situation she would have started a thread about it

She says in her first post she blew a fuse, does that seem like a calm reaction?

No, I thought not, this thread is turning into the SM must be right central as step parenting threads always do.

I didn't think many people had died nowadays - surely Mumsnetters have circuit boards?

Grrr autocorrect - I didn't think many people had FUSES now ...

This shit men hysteria is very disproportionate to the event being discussed

Yes it’s interesting that the attitude to towel hygiene is seen as a high watermark of optimal male behaviour.

In the scheme of things I would look for in a potential partner or father this wouldn’t feature at the top of my bucket list.

Where is it said that she "screamed"? Blew her fuse means it was the last straw and she told him off, not that she turned into a raving out of control maniac.

A teen is 10 years past the age when a child is able to keep track of their own towel and make sure it's at hand. If they are sufficiently motivated to do so. It's rock-bottom basic life skills that should be trained at age 5, not 15.

Even in zoos and veterinary facilities, animals under care are not wiped with communal towels used.

Neither are people who are being looked after when ill? I don't think anyone is suggesting that.

Zoos do allow animals to live together in spaces where they shit wherever they feel like it, and I've heard that gibbons in particular are notorious for not flushing.