Cleaning the loo - Talk me through how you do it

[pippahooper]

Serious question. How do you clean your loo? I just squirt bleach round the rim then clean outside from top to bottom then a scrub inside with the brush and flush. But yesterday at our playgroup at the end of the day we came to clean up and i said i'd help this other Mum clean the toilets (nice of me i thought!). Anyway i watched her in amazement as she went inside hands on (with gloves on thankfully) and proper hands on clean inside down the u bend and under the rim. She did the outside first then bleached the inside before doing the hands on inside clean. Oh and she then flushed and left more bleach down there. Very thorough clean i thought. Just wondering how everyone else cleans the loo now?

I wonder if that's true, that limescale really is less hygienic than smooth porcelain.

I can highly recommend dropping a denture cleaning tablet into the loo last thing and leaving it overnight. Takes all the stains off. I didn't believe it would work but try it, it really does. Then no need for hands down the U bend!

Surely it only really matters how hygienic the inside of your loo is if you put your hands down there....

This page tries very hard but fails to show that limescale is unhygienic. A skin irritant or not great for beauty, perhaps, but no germ evidence prevented.

Vivacia there's no such thing as "a flushable wipe". It may say they flushable on the packet, but they're not!

livegreen.recyclebank.com/because-you-asked-can-i-really-flush-flushable-wipes-down-the-toilet

Ooh no wipes clog the drains something awful. They get mixed up with congealed fat from kitchen drains and make massive lumps of clog.

I know 80s I put them in the bin, DP flushes the flushable wipes.

Well, it's unsightly, as I stated, and it's doing you no harm ragged so I'm going to continue cleaning below the water line.

Years ago, as part of some litigation, I obtained a piece of research from a well known cleaning products manufacturer about loo cleaning products and "housewives' loo cleaning habits" (their words not mine - obviously nobody other than a "housewife" would dream of cleaning a loo, would they?). Basically, it said that loos have some of the cleanest surfaces in the house because they are shiny porcelain which is usually wet, so very little (including bacteria) adheres to them. You obviously need to get rid of any skidders, and have a good go and areas where urine may pool - behind/under the seat etc., but otherwise, don't worry too much.

The conclusion of the report was "but ha ha ha, these silly housewives are really paranoid about how dirty their lovely clean loos are, so let's play on this paranoia and sell them lots of over-kill cleaning products that are totally unnecessary."

There were even surface swab results from different surfaces around the house. Bacteria count on the kitchen surfaces and tooth brushes significantly higher than anywhere on the loo....

i don't like limescale either, just wondered about the science, is it actually a hygiene hazard (apparently not).

I haven't researched porcelain vs limescale. I just know that there's a reason surfaces in kitchens and surgeries are smooth.

I like it how we all have slightly different ways of loo cleaning. My Mum taught me how to clean the bathroom when i was 15 i think and i pretty much do it the same way still.

How long does everyone leave the bleach/cleaner inside for? When i said i flush it, i like to leave it for half hour before i flush it for some reason.

Parazone Bleach Blocks in the cistern dissolve limescale from inside the cistern, the pan, and even the waterways round the rim. You don't believe me so take a photo inside the cistern the day you drop in the first one, and the day you drop in the second and the third ones, about a month to six weeks apart.