To report this cleaner?

[queensonia]

My daughter has just got a job in a pub restaurant. Part of her job is cleaning and laundry and she has been trailing the regular (senior) cleaner to learn the ropes. She came home today horrified, because after watching the other woman scrub the toilet bowls and urinals with a micro-fibre cloth, she then chucked the dirty cloth into the washing machine along with all the restaurant's tea-towels and other kitchen cloths as well as all the other cleaning cloths that she'd been cleaning the basins and furniture with. She said it would be OK at 90 degrees but my daughter isn't convinced and neither am I. We certainly wouldn't do this at home, and you'd expect a restaurant to have higher standards of hygiene. My daughter also realised that this woman has been using the same rubber gloves that have been down the toilet every day for the entire week (and presumably before that as well) without ever washing or disinfecting them. This woman has worked there for years and has apparently always done this. My daughter wants to bring this to somebody's attention, but knows it will cause trouble. She says that the guy who runs the pub seems pretty clueless about domestic matters and probably wouldn't care anyway. We looked on the Food Standards website to see what the official guidelines are and the idea of washing toilet cloths and tea-towels together hasn't even occurred to them, because they have nothing to say on the subject. On the days when she works on her own, my daughter's plan is to use disposable cleaning wipes for the toilets (which she'd have to buy herself because the pub doesn't use them). Should she just keep her mouth shut? Is anybody else disgusted by this or are we over-reacting?

No we don’t want anyone to lose their job ! We just want to make sure cloths are being washed hygienically so no restaurant customers get sick from E Coli etc. if you all think that’s fine and Google AI thinks it’s fine then we’ll stop worrying. On the food safety course my daughter went on they were very hot on washing different sorts of kitchen cloths separately to avoid cross contamination, so we both thought toilet cloths would be a problem too. We don’t eat at this restaurant but maybe you do. Enjoy !

What do you think washing machines do, OP?

So according to Google AI .... it's the tea towels that are the problem 🤣

So when you put tea towels in with clothes, do the clothes come out covered in bits of food and grease?

I worked in hotels in the 80s and this was common practice then. No reason to believe things have changed, sadly.
On the upside, commercial laundries wash sheets and towels on very high temperatures, so there's that. 🤷

I get where you are coming from I wouldn't wash my cleaning cloths that I use for work with anything else. But reporting it isn't really ok as they aren't doing anything wrong.

My mum used to say about her neighbour
She thinks she is lady muck because she's buying her council house but she washes her knickers with her tea towels.

Yes so do I - in my own home. Have you ever cleaned the men’s toilet in a pub though? You might not want that anywhere near your own laundry

I put my cloths on a 15 mins quick wash first to rinse pee and poo off before adding capsules! And with towels etc! 😂

Oh OP. This happens every where 😭 even companies who are on it won’t pick up cleaners doing this.

its a crap thanks less job, and you’d really “report” someone who her employer is happy with? Come on, be better than that.

Bacteria tend to be invisible to the naked eye

You expect hygiene to be better in hotels?? I don’t.

I’ve seen countless episodes of Dispatches, Panorama etc where they go undercover in hotels and the cleaners use the same flannel to clean the bog, then the cups and saucers, then does the same in the next room, then the next room. Same flannel, different toilets, different cups. It’s rank.

I think if your daughter has high standards of cleanliness then working in hospitality is probably not the job for her. I also wouldn’t want my DD to use her own money to buy wipes to clean strangers shit off a toilet.

Ex-cleaner here. I anyways use disposable jcloths from a roll to clean toilets. And throw in the bin

Report is probably the wrong word. My mistake. My daughter just wants to know if she should mention it to the kitchen staff

Isn't there just? People are always dying to report somebody for something.

No she shouldn’t mention it. Companies/ pubs/ restaurants/ family run businesses don’t take “mentions” from young people as part of their decision making process.

anyway. What do you think will happen apart from the woman being sacked? No one cares about cleaners or people in hospitality. They’ll get rid of her without thought if you are causing them trouble

90 degress kills all germs. Also think carefully before reporting someone who’s likely on minimum wages and relying on this job.

It's not much help but I think you'll find this, and worse, is common practice in hotels and eateries. I've worked in high end hotels and the cups in the rooms are wiped out with the same cloth that's used for all the bathrooms on that floor. In fact it's not even a cloth, it's one of the guest's used towels. That's why I always take disposable cups to my hotel room.

It doesn't sound very appealing. But I don't know what the actual rules and regulations are for this. Maybe a 90 wash is deemed safe for everything?
Either way it's your daughter's job so it's up to her if she wants to say something or leave or take things further.

Sorry, I assumed based on your ridiculous OP that you don't know basic science.

So when you put clothes in the wash do all the bacteria mix up and come back out on the clothes?

Thank you !

Do many of those tend to survive a 90 Celsius wash, agitation, detergent and rinsing repeatedly?

In case you're wondering - no, they do not. It takes 3 minutes at 71 Celsius and 10 at 65. So a standard washing machine at 90 for however long the cycle takes to run will be fine.

I’ve done this exact job in the past, and we had two separate cleaning caddies: one for the pub toilets and another one for general areas.
Also different colour cloths (blue for toilets, green for general areas) with separate laundry baskets for each which would then get washed on alternate days.
The washing of the cloths together with tea towels etc wouldn’t be my ideal, but on a 90° wash, it’s probably ok.
The glove thing I do find pretty grim though. Disposable gloves were always my go-to and my boss had no problem buying them because liked to use them in the kitchen as well for certain things. I’d bin the first pair of gloves after doing the loos and put new ones on for general areas.
Maybe your DD can suggest disposable gloves?

I don’t want her to be sacked ! Just to change the way she does the laundry

Nothing will probably happen. But yeah even premier inn keep our bathroom cloths separate to the room cloths and that's not even food related.

Nor would I.
But at a 60 degree or less I wouldn’t be happy.