changing toilet brushes?

[picc]

Just a quick question.
My mum has just told me I should be buying cheap toilet brushes and chucking them every 3 months.
Can't really see DH agreeing with this from a landfill point of view, but wondered what eveyone else does.
Isn't it enough to just soak them in bleach? She said as soon as they look a bit brown, they should be binned.

I don't know but I am interested in toilet brush etiquette. So you shove the brush down the loo, then what?

I won't have them in the house at all...they are unnecessary and a health hazard...just use toilet cleaner and disposable cloths (for the bin not down the loo)

I know we shouldn't use them at all (@scurryfunge) but I buy v cheap ones (£2 from Tesco) and change them every 3 months.

Disgusting things, make me heave. Only thing that works without sticking your hands in though. 49p at Wilkinsons, buy 8 and thats 2 loos for the whole year. £3.92

:) i'd never thought about the etiquette until today!

oh god! i can't believe i'm asking this... but anyway...
so do you find you can get underneath the rim okay with a cloth? and clean the actual bowl where the water sits okay?

i'd really never thought about this, and can't really believe i am now. but i've had the same brushes for... erm.. years!

what exactly am i harbouring in my loo??

I change them every month, buy tesco value 50p worth. I think it embarrasses visitors if you do not have them.

oh no! i didn't know you weren't supposed to use them...

feel very slovenly and unclean now!

that's my main worry. all that plastic.
am veering towards cloths, i think.

but also take the point about visitors sometimes searching for something to use....

I use the disposable brushes with the bleach impregnated on the paper heads. I don't like the idea of some dirty fecal-infested brush sitting in reach of my kids....

It isn't eco-friendly, but when it comes to toilet hygiene and potty training boys, I don't really care...

Mine's not within reach of my children; I keep it on a high shelf with the bleach (which is another thing I feel guilty about using...)

Oh no, something else to worry about.

Stop worrying Picc, just carry on as you have been.

WE have loo brushes that have been around for years. They are fine; children are fine. What's the problem?

:) okay... point taken, mitochondria

(you a microbiologist, by any chance??) (i mean from your name....)

I have spent the day examining my toilet brushes (yes i do need to get out more)... and have decided one of them probably needs to be chucked, but in general, i'll carry on leaving them in bleach and re-using.

i tend to use cloths as well anyway, so will carry on doing that, but maybe wash rather than dispose of...

i thought about this, and decided that i re-use faeces-covered nappies (after soaking/ washing!), so surely i can re-use a bleach-soaked toilet brush??

(just in case anyone cares!!)

but thanks for all the help and comments. has been very useful.

picc - no, I'm a biology teacher.

I've had the same brushes for years, too. I use plenty of bleach and tell the children not to mess with them.

As long as you only use the brush for cleaning the toilet.....

Or you could take my husband's approach and just leave the poo-streaks on the bowl for somebody else to deal with.

Ditched my loo brushes years ago when it dawned on me how yucky they are... I use disinfectant and a scouring sponge to get under the rim, round the bowl etc.

Just thought I'd try to find out how many germs are on toilet brushes, and found this!

www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/Consumer-Mobiles-39harbour-more-bugs.6442105.jp

Good job I don't use a mobile phone very often....

The thing is, the brown is not poo! It's rust from the metal bristles.

How funny! This prompted a whole, weeks-long discussion with our family recently.

Points of view varied between buy cheap ones and change every few months (IKEA ones got rated) and my mother, who has had the same one for 20 years and swears by bleach.

I prefer the "buy cheap and throw" only as I have a DH who leaves prodigious marks daily, and I really, really can't clean the loo every day(or afford Toilet Duck pads). Yes, I have trouble squaring it with being green.

The discussion then moved onto changing your toilet seat every 6 months on the grounds that it too harbours germs...

The way I use the brush is: I put bleach all round the bowl first, leave it for a few mins or half an hour or whatever, then come back and brush the bowl and under the water, so i don't think it ever comes into contact with poo.

I'm not squeamish about the toilet or poo germs, so I prefer just to use a cloth too, my use of loo brushes is fairly recent.

Next question though, do you have a rim block or anything in your loo to clean every time you flush? I don't atm because I am too cheap to bother but I am wondering if I should?