Anyone got people in your house self isolating - tips please?

[Rinsefirst]

DP currently trying to get back from North Italy and will have to self isolate immediately upon return. Just trying to get organised for the fortnight ahead. I have two students who will overlap with the quarantine and a sick puppy.

Surely if he has to self isolate, you all will have to, as you will be in contact with someone who may have the virus. If I was your visiting students, I’d want to be informed now so I could make other arrangements.

Yes, you need to arrange for the students to leave if your husband is having to self isolate. Defeats the object of ISOLATION otherwise. You too if there is somewhere else you can go really.

This does really make me wonder if people don’t Really understand what self isolating means.

This is the official guidance

www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-advice/

Are the students your children coming home for holidays? They'll have to stay away.

Have you made arrangements with work etc for your own isolation?

Was talking about this in school today- teacher knew someone in Israel doing this. On arrival home he did the following:
He is confined to a room, not allowed out apart from using the toilet - luckily they have two so he is only using one of them. Wife put a mattress in there for him. He only leaves room to use toilet. Talks to them through the door. Or I guess it would be possible to have door open for conversation but keep the suggest amount of distance.
All food left outside for him to pick up.
Any tissue to be doubled bagged.
Not sure what happens w sheets/ towels but I imagine it would be possible to leave sheets til after the quarantine and towels could be soaked in bleach.
And plates/cups put into a bucket of hot water with washing up liquid.

As others have said surely you will both have to self isolate.

If one of us has to self isolate we're both going to have to as we don't have a separate room and nowhere else to go. Surely that would be the same for a lot of people.

Ideally you’ll have a massive house with a fully-stocked granny annexe that he can take himself off to for a couple of weeks. Failing that... a bedroom with an en-suite or easy bathroom access with kitchen roll and disinfectant spray for the door handles, taps, soap dispenser etc. Bedsheets and towels in a 90 degree wash. He stays in there with no direct contact with anyone else. Students stay away.

You're not supposed to touch pets when in self isolation and so you should really make arrangements for someone else to have the puppy if you are not going to confine your DH to one room

My eldest son is in self-isolation here in our home (he was on a weekend visit from uni). It’s a great deal harder than you think & is already getting to both of us after just 24 hrs. NHS advice as of yesterday was that family members can continue as normal - which doesn’t make sense to me.

He has his own bathroom but I am relying on him to anti-bac all surfaces & door handles in his room. I have boil-washed (ie 95 degree wash) all his towels & bed linen & intend to do the same with his pjs etc. He bagged it all up & then I have put in the machine wearing rubber gloves (which I also wash with soap). As regards meals: all his crockery & cutlery is apparently considered safe if run through a dishwasher.

It’s depressing. I leave his food, meds etc by his closed bedroom door. We’re chatting via FaceTime to try & limit physical contact time but he’s already feeling down & I’m dreading the next 9-14 days. It’s bloody awful to see your child in pain & being ill & knowing that you cannot give them a hug.

You're not supposed to touch pets when in self isolation

I haven't heard about that before. If DH and I have to self isolate we'll still have to feed the cat so that's not going to work.

Its in the guidelines. You should get someone else to take care of your animals

We don't have anyone else so we'll just have to get on with it.

The guidelines are all very well but won't work for everyone. We don't have a spare room, second bathroom, anywhere else to go, anyone to take the cat so I presume we're screwed.

It does say what to do about sharing a bathroom though.
Do you not have a separate room at all, no sofa or even a kitchen that you could put an air bed down?

PinkSparklyPussyCat you're not the only ones. No spare room, no second bathroom, nobody to take the cat. Our DS is disabled and we share the workload, including staggered bedtimes so that each of us can get some sleep. We've decided that if one of us goes down with Covid-19, then we'll treat it like a pox-party and cross-infect each other as quickly as possible. It's inevitable that we will all catch it, so we might as well get it over with as quickly as possible

No, nothing. The bedroom comes off the hall and to get to the kitchen and bathroom you have to walk through the living room so there's no way around it. Yes one of us could sleep in the living room but we'd still come into contact when the other one needed the kitchen or bathroom.

EggysMom we'll be the same! The guidelines are great but don't help everyone.

Why no contact with pets?

I was wondering that, I haven't heard it mentioned before. He'll be self isolating with us - he can't get out of the garden so he won't be spreading anything if that's the worry!

The formatting probably won't work, but this is a c+p from the NHS site about what self-isolation means:

What does self-isolating mean?

If you have been told to self-isolate, you need to stay indoors and avoid contact with other people for 14 days.

It is important to follow the advice for the whole period, even if you do not have any symptoms.

Do
stay at home
separate yourself from other people – for example, try not to be in the same room as other people at the same time
only allow people who live with you to stay
stay in a well-ventilated room with a window that can be opened
ask friends, family members or delivery services to carry out errands for you, such as getting groceries, medicines or other shopping
make sure you tell delivery drivers to leave items outside for collection if you order online
clean toilets and bathrooms regularly
think about a bathroom rota if a separate bathroom is not available, with the isolated person using the facilities last, before thoroughly cleaning the bathroom themselves
use separate towels from anyone else in the household
wash crockery and utensils thoroughly with soap and water; dishwashers may be used to clean crockery and cutlery
stay away from your pets – if unavoidable, wash your hands before and after contact

Don't
do not invite visitors to your home or allow visitors to enter
do not go to work, school or public areas
do not use public transport like buses, trains, tubes or taxis
do not share dishes, drinking glasses, cups, eating utensils, towels, bedding or other items with other people in your home

It says on the self isolation guidance not to touch pets. I'm guessing the virus can survive on them.

We talked about this today and as neither of us have been anywhere and have spent every day together for a week, if one of us has it we both do so we wouldn't isolate from each other.

Most of that is doable apart from not being in separate rooms, staying away from pets (I still don’t understand why, is it because they could catch and spread it?) and not sharing bedding. We have our own towels, mugs and glasses but cutlery would be tricky as we’ve only got one set (well 2 if you include the cat’s cutlery set) so we’d just have to keep track of who was using what.

We could isolate ourselves from each other - me, DH and DS2 who still lives at home - one on each floor, and thankfully each floor has a bathroom (although downstairs it's only a toilet so we'd have to share one bathroom for showering). We'd also have to decide who stays downstairs, as that's where the kitchen is! And it would be very difficult to know what to do with the two cats!

i'd be considering a commode chair for those with no second br.'s. along with a rota (quarantined person last and cleaning up).

Well done to all those self isolating and about to do it. It will save the lives of elderly and sick and the vulnerable.
To the OP, you need to get the students to stay somewhere else and your DH should isolate from you as much as possible