Using a plate or bowl when eating yes or no?

[Colango]

We had a very bad ant infestation earlier this year, took weeks to get rid of them. We have pets and hard flooring, and I like to keep the floors clean.

Coming down in the morning to tread with bare feet on someone else’s gob crumbs gives me the ick but even more so, I don’t want the ants back

Members of my family seem to be allergic to using plates or bowls to eat food from? Or sitting at a table to eat? Is this normal?

DH is terrible for eating without a plate and it makes a mess. He brushes his fingers together over the floor too to get crumbs off them. I would do this over a sink or a bin if I did not have a plate, not just straight onto the floor in the house? Am I the weirdo?

I asked DH he said he doesn’t want to do extra washing up, but the kids are wandering around eating food as well. I hoovered after dinner then he let them have toast and all of them stood in the middle of the kitchen and created a carpet of crumbs - which I trod in and then I have a foot covered in toast crumbs from someone else’s mouth. Yes I made him sweep it up but we have a kitchen island with chairs they could have sat on to eat, then it can be cleaned off the worktop?

USE A PLATE? or perhaps I have PMT 😒

Mine is like this, it drives me absolutely insane. Thinks that 'wiping up' (when he does it which is rarely) is just wiping things off the table or worktops on to the floor. Which of course he never hoovers or sweeps.

I also wear bare feet in the house and am forever treading on bits in the kitchen, makes me rageful

Same here. DH eats his toast standing up next to the toaster. We've had mice in the past and I worry we'll get them again from all the food on the floor.

When I eat I like to sit down at a table and eat off a plate, seems like the civilised thing to do. Obviously there are exceptions out at a festival for example but I do notice lots of people do eat, on the hoof outside (which could be fair enough depending on their circumstances) or even at home. In the morning I make breakfast and put it on a plate for my DH but he will lift the toast out and wonder about eating it leaving crumbs everywhere.

similar here. Drives me fucking insane

"Dearest, there were ants all over your pyjamas/ whatever when I tidied the bedroom earlier, I think they've all gone now". Make him itch. It will help him focus.

Tell them to use a bloody plate and refuse to hoover up the crumbs, once they start sticking to their feet they will wisen up xx

You're not unreasonable for wanting them to wipe up properly instead of scooping crumbs onto the floor. But you are being unreasonable for thinking they all come out of their mouths. Gob crumbs? Unless they are actively spitting everywhere, it's just normal crumbs that fall off toast.

They don’t care about gob foot crumbs at all. It’s just me!

ok glad I am not going insane alone. I also notice a lot of people who don’t use plates or cutlery, don’t sit at a table or don’t sit at the table to eat properly. My own family is included despite nagging and trying to teach them, no we are picking food up off its plate and milling around feeding insects and rodents with it

This is why I live alone. So I don’t have to put up with this bs. I would murder the lot of them.

I was brought up to always use a plate. And to clean up after myself. Crumbs on the floor get spread everywhere. Maybe enforcing a rule that anyone caught eating standing up and/or not using a plate has to hoover the entire house will focus everyone’s attention?

Mine wouldnt, he wouldnt care. And he wears slippers so he wouldnt notice.

He wouldnt care about ants either unfortunately or rather than just do the simple thing and clean up properly would get some expensive technological anti ant device to solve the problem.

DH is always eating without a plate & goes full Kevin The Teenager when I mention it. I don’t want to clean up after an adult… He also gets butter everywhere, and brown sauce globs.

Oh, I thought this was going to be a debate about what types of food people used a bowl rather than a plate for! (Though in our house, it's much more fork vs spoon -- DH uses spoons for things I would automatically use a fork for, and for some reason this causes me deep, inner annoyance...)

Yes, of course people should use a plate or a bowl to eat from, and sit at a table while they do so, in a house prone to ant infestations.

But they are out of your mouth to some degree? It’s the action of biting into the toast that causes it to get crumbs everywhere so some of it will have your spit on it. Then it’s going over people’s feet.

And yeah he also encourages the kids (some of our kids are my step kids) to talk with their mouths full as he thinks meal times is ‘a family social activity’ which I do not disagree entirely, but food does get spat about, I politely ask the kids to chew nicely or not speak with a whole mouth of food when speaking to me but most of the time I eat mine and get up and leave them to it. He knows why I leave sometimes and I don’t want to give the kids a complex about their gross table manners whilst gently trying to get them to be more mindful of others around them. At least we have progress with cutlery being used.

I notice other people children can be this way. If we see family it’s a table full of DC who were baby led weaned and never learned any proper table manners and still using their fingers to eat age 10+, spitting food around and leaving a huge mess behind for the waiting staff to clean up

Serve all his food on the floor, he might get the message.

Tell him, its fine, the time he's saved washing up he can use to hoover the floors

Do they just wander around eating finger foods?

We sit to eat and use plates or bowls, but I also sweep my kitchen daily because I grew up with that as a chore and then did restaurant work when a teen.

For ants, I use a little bit of peppermint oil in my homemade cleaning spray. They don't like it, I don't know if it disrupts their scent trails or what.

Yes they wander around eating without a plate all the time because he thinks washing up is more hassle and he might say he sweeps up, but by this time everyone has skipped away with crumbs all over them spreading it to all the other rooms already

DH the other day was eating a CRUMBLE topped pie on the sofa out of his hands, he kept stopping eating every few moments to brushing all the crumbs onto the floor from his T-shirt and do the finger on finger brushing thing (when you rub them together and I get a visceral ick).

I just said ‘we have plates in the kitchen?’

He looked at me like I was insane and said ‘oh I didn’t know it would be this messy’

to which I responded ‘it’s a crumble pie? I assume it’s in the name?’

My DP will eat over the skin if I tell him to get a plate... gross but fine... then the sink is full of crumbs as he doesn't waste the water to rinse it!
Kids are much better since I explained why we get mice..

Give them a day or two each when they have to hoover each week. Would mean you're not always doing it, and hopefully make them realise that the crumbs don't vanish magically.

Tell them if they use a plate every time and drop no crumbs they won't need to hoover.

The crumbs from the crumble being brushed on the floor, eek.

"oh I didn’t know it would be this messy’"

Oh, sure he did. He just didn't care. I'd laugh then zip tie the hand vac to him.

With multiple people wandering around leaving food trails, you're lucky you don't have worse things than ants. Give each one who does that a daily task of hoovering and mopping.

As they aren’t house trained sufficiently to use a plate perhaps suggest a sheet of kitchen roll if extra washing up is the reason

We always use plates and I've never allowed the children (now adults) to wander around eating! Your DH sounds like an arse to be honest, he's a grown man not a teenager! And I would definitely tell the children that talking with their mouth full is extremely bad manners and gross 🤮

I would make them hoover every single time they make crumbs on the floor - they'll soon get fed up and start using a plate!

We use denby pasta bowls for spag bol , chilli & rice , curry & rice , anything that has a sauce like base with either rice or pasta . Less mess that way .

I can’t imagine not using a plate.

Good grief, they’d hate my house. Not only is all food eaten off a plate, but whilst sat at the dining table.