Things that annoy you about other people's housekeeping

[chumbler]

Recently stayed with a friend, in the week we were there the hand towel in kitchen wasn't washed, there's no hand towel in the bathroom (just their body towels???) They ran out of handwash for about 4 days in the bathroom do had to keep washing my hands downstairs and ran out of loo roll!!!

Now obviously these things never happen in my home and I am vigilant about it (wash hand towel everyday, hand towels, soap and loo roll always available). But I wondered if I do anything that could potentially annoy guests? What bugs you when you stay with others?

rudeelf I think I'm a recovering OCD person if theres such a thing . Is it normal to wash hands if you touch doors in someone elses house, or if their hands brush yours passing a cup or something? I do that with everyone except my kids husband and friends. I was at my peak from 12 yr old uo to my early 20s then calmed down. I used to hide and wash hands, my dad would hear the water running and scream "you better not be washing your hands again, what did the gp say?"

but when I'm bad I know becayuse my hands are cracked, sometimes seeping blood, like eczema hands not normal is it?

shoes on or off is a cultural thing isn't it? also practical. by historical accounts in the UK many people had stone floors in cottages, no tiles maybe a rug if they could afford it. but it was too cold to be without shoes?, think dickens and you'll know what scenes I'm thinking off. The rich in medieval times had stone floors too like in their castles? I don't recall tiles floors, but huge rugs and roaring fires yes, still need shoes more practical.

In Victorian era things changed tiles on floors rugs, maybe even carpets, so no need for shoes in terms of cold and dirt, but still people held on to them.

in eastern cultures, African no shoes policy is normal, a lot is to do with respect and no outside dirt inside.

I don't know anything but shoes off, that's how I feel at home. if I had a friend who wore shoes inside id still take mine off leave socks on.

Why no separate hand towel in the kitchen and in the main bathroom? Really don't get this. With the bathroom when I visit people and they give me a guest big towel there's rarely any space in the bathroom to hang this so I keep it in the guest bedroom with me and it's just a pain to have to take it to the loo with me everytime!

If you only use tea towels for hand wiping why not just do away with tea towels and have a normal towel in the kitchen? If you use them for hand wiping and dish wiping you need separate ones that can't easily get mixed up - that's not OCD it's just basic hygiene.

rudeelf I think I'm a recovering OCD person if theres such a thing

You may be an OCD sufferer. You are not OCD.

OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder. You are not a disorder. You may have a disorder but you cannot be a disorder.

Do you know what really bugs me? That people are welcoming you into their homes as guests, and you come online and nitpick over ridiculous things! Don't like taking your shoes off? Stay home. Don't like their pets? Stay home. Unless you're walking into a house that is absolutely filthy and the people who live there are living in squalor - give it a rest! And if that is the case, maybe you should be having a discussion about how best to help them.
I really do feel sorry for these people who are probably under the impression that you are lovely friends or members of their family. How about just stay in your own homes with your teatowels and your perfect bathrooms and leave them alone, spare them the truth about how two-faced you really are.

Oh, and to the people who complain about pets in the home? My dog is probably cleaner than the lot of you, and he also visits people's homes without being judgemental and spiteful.

ah ok Rudeelf I understand my grammar is terrible, in my defence I don't recall grammar lessons in my schooling. Some how I made it to uni doing English Lit, I guess that uni had low standards lol

I use tea towels for wiping my hands all the time. But again, I have a dishwasher so they're not used for dishes.

I also do all the clothes in a cold wash, but I tumble dry everything so I assume that kills the bugs.

I agree with it being revolting to use tea towel in kitchen.I always put a hand towel out for visitors staying in the bathroom and change downstairs loo one regularly.I do have a very picky friend who uses single use fluffy white flannels for her downstairs loo!! Bit OTT I think.

It's a funny thing about the tea towel. I have a friend who refuses to have a tea towel in her house and only ever uses kitchen roll to dry things because she says that tea towels are unhygienic. But...the weird thing is that her house is filthy. Properly filthy to the extent that her children are currently in foster care as she was deemed incapable of providing a suitable living space for them. Yet she will come to my house (which is clean enough to offend some MNers and dirty enough to offend other MNers) and lecture me on my supposedly poor kitchen hygiene because I use a clean tea towel to dry dishes

I am not suggesting that everyone who dislikes tea towels is like my friend btw. Just pondering how everyone probably has got something that makes their skin crawl, even if they have habits that make other people's skin crawl. Hope that makes sense!

Katarz no that's not strictly normal. I am a little ott with hand washing but not so much that my hands are cracked.

I hate being asked to take my shoes off if the floor/carpets aren't particularly clean. When I use the downstairs loo I have to cast about looking for a clean hand towel, but it's missing so I decided to use kitchen paper but guess what? I'm faced with an empty cardboard roll! And the state of the sink - dropped toothpaste and a gloopy mess under the bar of soap, yuck. I'm too diplomatic/cowardly to complain so I don't stay anymore.

This thread is batshit

I don't think I've ever stayed somewhere where the hygiene standards haven't measured up to my "expectations" but judging by a lot of this my flat wouldn't be up to a lot of yours!

• no hand towel in bathroom, just big towel
• use tea towel to dry hands if washing hands in kitchen
• shoes fine to stay on. or take off, I couldn't care less which.
• central heating is never really on, but that's not because I'm cheap but because I don't like it - I get hot very easily.
• 2 cats allowed to go everywhere. I am very stubborn about this to be honest. It is their home as well as ours and frankly I don't really give a stuff if guests find them distasteful - I find other people's children a PITA and I don't insist they're shut in another room when I visit. They're white cats. They're hairy. You will get hair on you no matter how much I hoover. So no, I won't be keeping them away or shutting them in another room. Genuine allergies an exception of course. They also walk on the table and worktops and I find it hard to give a stuff to be honest - way more important things to worry about and doesn't seem to have done me any harm in 25+ years of living with animals.

I do however have a bin in the bathroom and I do feed my guests - I am a massive feeder.

My dog is probably cleaner than the lot of you, and he also visits people's homes without being judgemental and spiteful.

Yes. This.

Animal haters not welcome in my home! Just as well really

I really, really hate when someone puts a wooden cutting board in the sink. Drives me crazy, I tell you.

My best friend's house is messy. They don't wash up unless it's needed, they don't wipe the kitchen surfaces, they have a tea towel out for months without washing it, and her partner literally throws clothes everywhere when he can't find what he needs. They have a cleaner come once a week but because they do literally nothing, it doesn't really touch the sides.

I'm pretty sure that she doesn't wash the sheets between guests - once there was period blood that wasn't mine in the bed!! I love her, and I'd never ever say anything, but it does freak me out. I realise this is probably because I am borderline OCD and easily upset about such things, and thus my problem not hers.

Couple of things I'm not getting. I've seen several mentions of people going in about hand drying on tea towels being disgusting and then also saying they always have towels in the bathroom. Why are people connecting bathrooms and kitchens? Any hand drying that occurs in the kitchen is after washing/cleaning or hand washing after handling food? So what does it have to do with bathrooms?

Also why is it basic hygiene to use separate towels for dishes/pots and hands? Both items - the dish and the pot - have just been in the same water. Both are clean as each other. Where's the problem?

I don't understand why drying hands on tea towels is dirtier than drying pots on tea towels.
Doing the drying up, the towel, the pot and your hands are in contact. Why does removing the pot from the equation make it less hygienic?

I am very pleased to not invite many of you to my humble home - we are clean and occasionally tidy, but we certainly don't live in a sterile environment

The thing about not drying your hand on a tea towel is that it was taught as rule no.1 in Home Economics in my time. It was just drummed into us. Maybe it's a generational thing and not seen as important to those who grew up with dishwashers.

I'm offended on behalf of my pets. If you don't like animals, don't go and stay with animal lovers!

I forgot to mention that on top of the loo cistern there is such a thick blanket of dust that you could probably weave it into a small sweater or something, maybe weave your own hand towel while you're there. Even my dear late husband used to cringe at the sight of it - he said that if a bloke like him finds it cruddy then it really is bad as most men aren't as fussy as women.

Theres rarely a hand towel in my bathroom because I only own a couple. But there is a huge pile of clean face cloths. Fine for hand drying and are just used once and put straight in the laundry. Much more hygenic than a shared towel

Not so much housekeeping but my mum has very small towels.

I like a big towel to wrap myself in when I have a shower - I think the technical term is a "bath sheet". A so-called bath towel is too small!

I also struggle because of different recycling rules. I really don't know where to put the rubbish in my mum's house, and vice versa!

I do have locks on my bathroom and upstairs loo doors but we never use them. We don't have a lock on the one downstairs.