Mundane Hygiene Question

[NotQuiteLouisRiel]

I've recently started using washable dish cloths (used sponges before). How often do you wash yours? Ours seem to get washed when I realise they stink (whoops) or whenever they get used anywhere other than the worktops, dishes, or kitchen table (i.e. whenever DS2 gets ahold of one and starts using it to scrub the cats etc).

Do other people wash them every day or something?

I use those disposable cloths on a roll and when I've used them once I put them in the washing machine; you can use them again and again

I'm a professional slattern but I do know that dishcloths are germ magnets

Kim & Aggie recommend once a week, on a 60 degree wash

I don?t let them sit wet overnight as they can breed germs. I pop a little bleach and water in the sink and leave them to soak overnight in that. My last dull job of each day! In the morning obv. very careful to wring and rinse out the bleach.
Just to state the obvious, be careful with bleach as bleach mixed with other types of cleaning stuff can produce chlorine gas - poisonous - so never combine and always rinse out your cloths before soaking to avoid this. You know if it happening as your kitchen starts to smell like a swimming pool

I tend to drape mine over the tap, so they're dry in the morning. (DH helpfully leaves them balled up, grrr).

I'm a slattern (family now immune from disease through exposure to the dirt in our house) but I always bung them in the washing machine when it is running and also put them in the dishwasher when it is run (dishwasher makes them a bit grey but they do have a long wash at 65 or 70 C.

I soak ours in a little stardrops every other day..and wash with all the tea towels etc once a week.

but..I personally can't bear the thought of bleach going anywhere near my kitchen sink/ dishcloths! surely the smell/ taste lingers forever..

Once a week. I have 5, and they go through stages of use. First wiping children, then worktops and table, then cooker, then floor. I work my way through them during the week, until they all end up as "floor", dh shouts at me 'cos there's nothing to wipe up with and then I wash them all at 95 degrees.

I swish mine out in a very weak bleach solution when I tidy the kitchen before bed & then make sure that they hang out to dry overnight & are not sitting in a festering damp pile!

Hang to dry every night. Then wash once a week with rest of laundry at 40 degrees. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

I'm glad to hear other people use them on the floor once in a while (and then wash afterwards). DH is very judgemental about that, very annoyingly.

Why?

Dunno. Guess he thinks washing them doesn't fix them? Ok, we only wash at 40, but they dry thoroughly afterwards.

(I did get a bit icked out at a friend's place, a while back, when she used the den floor for changing nappies, and the kitchen cloth for wiping up mess on that floor (not poo, but still!), and then used the kitchen cloth as a kitchen cloth again. Ack.)

I sling the current one in the machine every time I put a wash on, but often demote one from sink to floor and get a clean one out for the sink.
Have loads though - dear old Tchibo-obsessed mum and gran bought me about 20 between them.

I bought a bunch (wanted washable, also wanted to reduce use of kitchen roll), but all different kinds. I think I like the spongy ones best, but they go all hard and weird when dry, so maybe not ... and they look like they won't stand that many washes, anyway ... any preferences for these?

Yep - it does seem to be only me destroying the planet with the boil wash. Odd, as I'm actually a bit of a slattern when it comes to housework.

I can't bear the spongey ones when they go stiff and dry, or j-cloths (always so damp and slimy) so have microfibre cloths - not great for dishwashing (have green scrubby things for this) but fantastic for wiping surfaces, mopping spills etc. They're these but are so huge you can cut each one into 4 and get bits the size of a face flannel.
Actually you could just use cheap face flannels...

Yeah, I have the green scrubbies for the scrubbing (duh). Will look into microfibre. I have some knitted ones (machine knitted, with stripes), but I think they're dusters really.

I am a completely clueless slattern, with a cleaner, so really really clueless about these things.