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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Local leisure centre is filthy?

55 replies

girlfriend44 · 07/02/2025 16:54

What's yours like.
Our local leisure centre is dismal. Filthy hall floors and toilets.

Can't be healthy for people doing classes etc.
Some people even get down in the hall to do exercises.
It's like they have not got any cleaners?

They keep trying to sell gym membership though?

What's yours like?

OP posts:
JSMill · 07/02/2025 16:57

Ours is too although it's run by an external company. As you say, it's horrible to be on the floor doing an exercise and seeing how dirty the floor is. Mind you I used to belong to David Lloyd and it wasn't much better. I now go to an independently owned gym and it's spotless.

LuckysDadsHat · 07/02/2025 16:57

The same, and the swim changing room floor is absolutely disgusting. I even offered to take my pressure washer in to the centre manager to clean it. We have now moved swimming lessons to a private pool its slightly more money but whole lot cleaner!

Original poster
girlfriend44 · 07/02/2025 17:01

Thanks, it's not just me then. Why don't they clean it?

OP posts:
Lovelysummerdays · 07/02/2025 17:13

I do think the textured tiles in swimming changing rooms cling to dirt. It’s the sort of thing you need a long handled scrubbing brush, hot water and lots of elbow grease to get off. Instead they mop it with too much cleaner. The water dries and the cleaner sets on top of the tiles looking grubby.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 07/02/2025 17:16

Ours is filthy. Clearly just very short of money. Tbh I am just pathetically grateful it still exists, I suspect as soon as something big goes wrong they will just shut it down and no more local swimming pool.

ThisMustBeMyDream · 07/02/2025 17:17

I belong to the council run gyms. Toilets are disgusting beyond belief. I've been in last person of the night before, and first one the next day. They haven't been cleaned at all, even in the 2 hours between getting there in the morning, and leaving. The flushes don't work properly so there's always piss and shit and period blood floating about. Lack of tissue paper, crap all over the floors, overflowing sanitary bins. There isn't even that many people using them.
Grim as fuck.

Mimilamore · 07/02/2025 17:28

Can't speak for the leisure centre as that is being refurbed ( levelling up) but the swimming pool and health studio, if a bit tatty are spotless. Showers hot and changing rooms clean. The rest of the town is a filthy pit though so all praise to the staff at the pool.

Kerning · 07/02/2025 17:32

Ours is grim. Looks like it hasn't been cleaned since the 80s.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 07/02/2025 18:10

Clearly that's unacceptable, OP, but I used to run ours and the challenge was always getting cleaners who'd stay and actually do the ruddy job
Individuals, agencies, you name it - by the time non-attendance had been reported it was often too late to do anything about it because groups were already in and using the place

It got remedied the following day though, so if yours is that awful it sounds as if it's not being chased up effectively

TomatoSandwiches · 07/02/2025 18:22

Our nearest one is old but good except the swimming pool changing rooms, so I use the classes and hire a private personal swimming pool once a month.

There is a new one built about two yrs ago that's further out but better facilities for the children so we take them there in the holidays, it's a mix of council and private hire which is normal, never had a problem with the cleanliness.

rosydreams · 07/02/2025 18:26

same plus the pool heater does not work and the time slot 45 mins.I need to go swimming as my pelvic floor is abysmal but i worry about catching some nasty bug

dizzydizzydizzy · 07/02/2025 18:30

I work in a leisure centre. They rely on lifeguards to do the majority of the cleaning but lifeguards are usually very young and hate cleaning and just don't see dirt. Management are usually also very young - one of ours is 22 - generally lovely people but not the most skilled at motivating the staff to clean.

As PP mentioned the textured floors can only be cleaned properly with a long-handled scrubbing brush but it is very hard work. Pressure washers are better than mops but not much.

It makes me sad. I'd love out centre to be sparkling.

Ididntsaybanana · 07/02/2025 18:34

Ours is gross too. Dd missed her lesson last week as she dropped her swimming costume in a puddle of pee in the cubicle.

1apenny2apenny · 07/02/2025 18:34

Yes, very dirty and that's the reason why I didn't renew my membership. Filthy, yet all the staff sitting in reception doing nothing 🥴.

Bornnotbourne · 07/02/2025 18:45

Yes agree with the other response that David Lloyd is often dirty and our local one looks incredibly shabby recently. They’ve hiked up the prices then didn’t have any hot water for two days!!!

Glowingworms · 07/02/2025 18:48

Ours is gross too.

I was contemplating a gym membership but went swimming as a one of
It cost closer to £10, and had to pay for parking.

The swimming pool in general was gross, showers worse. Toilets awful. The lifeguards cleaning were playing a game of smell that puddle and talking about diarrhea as we left

There's a small sauna which was completely rammed with a group of men who were talking about rape and how they'd fight people, and how they would have rough sex with the teenage lifeguards genuinely for about 1.5 hours straight (we left after 5 min, and came back an hour later to find them still in there). The men were genuinely sat on the floor, against the door and there was at least 4 of them in the 8 person max sauna for the whole 2 hours we were there)

The main pool was rammed. So we ended up bobbing in the waist deep kids pool. One of the men did a cannon ball into it literally a foot away from my head.

We went to consider speaking to the lifeguards, but they were laughing and calling them by the name during it. They were clearly regulars and must also be the predominately group at the gym

The pool it's self is only open for swimming for normal people at odd times, and for my £50 or so a month (not inc parking). I'd only have the choice of 3 nights where there is any form of swimming for me after my 5pm work finish.

No wonder people aren't accessing regular exercise. I actually would be in the health condition group where the gp can refer me there for exercise but I wouldn't want to go back

My wife and I felt vulnerable the whole time, and live in a non street lit area not safe enough to exercise in for all the winter evenings

Ritasueandbobtoo9 · 07/02/2025 18:48

Filthy, once there was a poo right in the middle of the walkway to the swimming pool.

CurlyhairedAssassin · 07/02/2025 18:57

Haven't been to ours since well before Brexit and Covid. It was filthy enough then so god knows what it will be like now.

Original poster
girlfriend44 · 07/02/2025 19:10

Lovelysummerdays · 07/02/2025 17:13

I do think the textured tiles in swimming changing rooms cling to dirt. It’s the sort of thing you need a long handled scrubbing brush, hot water and lots of elbow grease to get off. Instead they mop it with too much cleaner. The water dries and the cleaner sets on top of the tiles looking grubby.

This was the halls and the toilets, not swept or cleaned.

OP posts:
Idonthavemytoolsmycloak · 07/02/2025 19:11

I'm a DL member and ours is absolutely spotless. The cleanliness of the pool specifically was a huge reason why I moved from a council owned gym. Cannot bear dirty wet, hairy places 🤮

Original poster
girlfriend44 · 07/02/2025 19:12

dizzydizzydizzy · 07/02/2025 18:30

I work in a leisure centre. They rely on lifeguards to do the majority of the cleaning but lifeguards are usually very young and hate cleaning and just don't see dirt. Management are usually also very young - one of ours is 22 - generally lovely people but not the most skilled at motivating the staff to clean.

As PP mentioned the textured floors can only be cleaned properly with a long-handled scrubbing brush but it is very hard work. Pressure washers are better than mops but not much.

It makes me sad. I'd love out centre to be sparkling.

What about the halls, the toilets etc.
The halls are where people do racket sports and exercise classes.

OP posts:
MelisandeLongfield · 07/02/2025 19:14

Why do you go there if it's so flithy? Nothing will change unless people vote with their feet. You don't have to go to a gym/leisure centre to get some exercise.

thrifty24 · 07/02/2025 19:18

Probably sounding ageist here but my Grandma was a cleaner most of her adult life and always said the younger generation who came up were terrible cleaners obviously not all of them but I do think there is something to that where they simply don't work as hard or put in the elbow grease like back in the day. Definitely the case in hospitals for example

Autumndayz77 · 07/02/2025 19:21

I took my son to swimming lessons at a private gym that stank of drains and damp and was filthy! Didn’t last long!

dizzydizzydizzy · 07/02/2025 19:36

girlfriend44 · 07/02/2025 19:12

What about the halls, the toilets etc.
The halls are where people do racket sports and exercise classes.

Show quote history

should be a combination of lifeguards and cleaners. As PP said, cleaners often don’t turn up or are often a bit useless.