how often do you....?

[tostaky]

• change your kitchen sponge?
• change your kitchen towel?
• clean inside your dishwasher?

My kitchen sponge is driving me insane at the moment... i keep smelling it and after a week it smells foul already. should i stop smelling it?

kitchen towel,twice a week

dishwasher, once every four year (that was well needed!!!)

The sterilising sponge thing - does it just go in on its own? Or in water? I think this is something I should do...

God I'm a lazy bitch!

Pootles, most sponges are very easy going & will happily go in by themselves. I have found that brushes are far less obliging & prickly & will need a damn good talking to, before they can be persuaded to submit to a clean & bleach. Sorry, couldn't resist!

Sponge: whenever it starts getting smelly. I rinse it every day and use seperate ones for dishes and worktops.

Tea towels: once a week in the washing machine.

Dishwasher: it was cleaned before we moved in. I've been here nine months and not cleaned it yet but I've been considering the idea as it smells funny.

oh ok... so i need to change my sponge more often then!!!

dishwasher... i did not mean the filter or running it on empty/with cleaner.
i meant actually, going in with a sponge and clean all the sides (especially the sides ofthe door) and the bit under the door at the bottom of the dishwasher.
Mine was quite grubby and i couldnt hold it anymore and gave it a good scrub a few days ago.

Dish cloth gets washed every day, as does tea towels

Kitchen and bathroom floor mopped every 2 days

Bath towels and hand towel 2-3 days or when are grubby/smelly/foisty if before

Bathroom cleaned weekly but wipe it round every morning, I wash the shower curtain once a month in the washing machine

Washing machine cleaned monthly

dreamsofsteaming Phew, glad there's someone else thinking that!

I'd genuinely like to think that I've got better things to do than scrub the corner behind the microwave!!

Whilst I try to have good hygine etc I am amazed that people wash tea towels EVERY DAY. We tend to have a few on the go at once and only use them for drying clean things.... so I'm not sure there's any point for us washing them more frequently! Plus, not having children yet, we only put the washing machine on a couple of times a week.

Do people put towels/ tea towels etc on seperate washes? I tend to do them seperate to normal clothes washes as they are the only things I wash on high temperature. So every couple of weeks I'll do a towel/tea towel kind of wash......

I think we live in a society obsessed with cleaning and anti-bacterial-single-use-disposable-cleaning-products......

Why don't you like people drying hands on it Rainbow? Do you have seperate hand drying towel?
Em, because it's a tea towel not a hand towel? It's just not hygienic to use the same thing to dry your dishes and your hands, and for this reason I NEVER touch anyone else's tea towel.I occasionally work as a supply teacher, and when in staff rooms, I tend to dry up my cup with kitchen towel or Blue Roll, rather than use the tea towel. If I helped dry up in someone else's house, I would probably do the same.
My downstairs loo is very near my kitchen, so I use the basin in there for hand washing, as I don't like washing hands in the sink, although I will do it if I absolutely have to.
Tostaky, I do what you did with your dishwasher every few months, although I tend to wipe over the top and door of it whenever I clean the surfaces. Amazing how grimy they get, isn't it?
CEDR, I always do towels and tea towels together, as I like to do them on a 60 degree wash, and I do most other stuff on 40 or 50.
Bathrooms: once a week.
Vacuum: once a week for upstairs; usually twice a week for downstairs.
Dust: very rarely.
Mop: once a week, but should be every day or every other day really.
Towel change: once a week.
Bed linen change: once a fortnight; weekly if it's a hot summer.

there are a lot of people spending a lot of money on cloths and tea towels and washing powder i'm thinking
i fall into the lazy bitch category here.
sponges/cloths as and when the smell gets the better of me - i would wash them or bleach them many times before throwing them away though
tea towels, probably get through half a dozen per week i guess but we dont use them much for actually drying stuff

Sponge - every 3-4 days
Tea towels - use probably 4-5 per day
Dishwasher - every month

brilliant.

sponge - replace approx monthly
teatowels - every couple of weeks, unless there is a particular incident that makes it required sooner. that does not include people drying hands on it, or it falling on the floor, or even a wipe to get cooking food off (not raw meat tho).

i never imagined that people would wash it more often tbh.

pretty much none of you would come here, but plenty would, and I'm fine with that.

kitchen sponge: After use, rinse it out, squeeze out the water, put a squirt of WUL on it and squeeze it so it is well foamed, then leave it to dry. The WUL will kill bacteria and mould so it will not go smelly. This really is true. You can do the same with face flannels and bath foam if you are in a place where washing and drying are difficult, such as camping or in hospital.

Next time you use it, when you squeeze it out in hot water, there will be no traces of grime or grease since the extra WUL will make them wash away.

Tea towels, bleurgh, unhygenic. Never use them.

Kitchen towel: as soon as it stops looking fresh and clean.

I have previously used those centre-pull paper-towel dispensers that go on the wall, and think they are so convenient, I would like another.

Sponge - when smelly, maybe monthly or so

Teatowel - twice a week because it gets damp and smelly otherwise. It does fall on the floor sometimes. I use it for drying food (eg potatoes for jackets after) and a few dishes (most are in dishwasher or drip dry).

Dishwasher - whenever I think about it - in theory monthly but in practice twice a year. I just run it with a cup vinegar to remove the limescale (we have very hard water).

I class myself as doing a lot of laundry (1 or 2 loads a day, but we do use cloth nappies) but I can't imagine how much would be generated by using 4 or 5 teatowels a day!

I wash towels, sheets, dishcloths, underwear & nappies all at 60 degrees (but my DS has had a couple of infections in his eczema, so I'm a bit paranoid about that).

Don't use sponges as they go smelly too quickly, but washing up cloths and tea towels and hand towels go into machine every 2 days or so (just thrown in machine and on with next wash, very occasionally do separate hotter wash).

Bleurgh at drying hands on tea towels.

No dishwasher, but DH showers daily

hopefully

I can't believe people use kitchen roll for drying up, what a waste.

I use dishcloths and a stainless steel scourer for washing pots, I have separate ones for wiping down. I bleach the dishcloths when they look like they need it or when I bleach the sink. The scourers get chucked if tatty or if DH has cleaned up scrambled egg with them.

I don't tend to dry pots unless it's an emergency so Tea Towels get used for drying hands (which are obviously freshly washed and therefore clean), taking stuff out of the oven, or drying veg/fruit etc. I usually have a few on the go and chuck a couple in the wash everyday.

I have never cleaned the inside of the dishwasher, I believe it is a con.
The old dirty water goes down a separate pipe to where the clean water comes out, the dirt can't come back up, so it can never be like washing your dishes in a dirty sink, unless the filter is full of crap, but I always rinse stuff before handwashing/dishwashing anyway so mine never is.
I wipe the edges/front of the dishwasher when I feel the urge.

Sponge - when it needs changing maybe twice a week -it gets washed in hot soapy water several times a day.

Dishwasher - don't have one.

Tea Towels - We probably get through 2/3 a day, they get thrown straight into the washer and do in with the next load.

notso what constitutes a dish drying emergency? Imminent arrival of mil?

No china mugs left for my tea of course, MIL gets tradesmans mugs as thats all they have at their house

but more often no room on the lovely-to-look-at-but-hugely-impractical round draining board DH insisted on!

:)

I buy the value range cheapest ones 12p for entire week.
new sponge every 2 days
old sponge used to wipe plug holes etc
then thrown away

Dishcloths - thrown in dishwasher every couple of days on hottest wash
Tea towels - changed every 2 days
hand towels - weekly

Floor cloths - use old dishcloth and throw