Confessions of a germ avoidant!

[kaseyb (Supermom!)]

I'm truly not obsessed with germ avoidance as this thread title insinuates, but I'm thinking I'm not the only one who takes special precautions in public to try and avoid nasties. Just this morning I heard an "expert" say that the poles people hold onto inside subway cars are laden with multiple people's nasal secretions, fecal matters, etc. (yuck)

 

I've a few interesting habits that I once felt wierd doing, but I've noticed quite a few others do the same types of things so I'm no longer uncomfortable admitting the methods behind my madness.

[moonstar]

We've always used alcohol antiseptic wipes to wipe grocery

cart handles during the flu season. And always washed our

hands on returning from grocery shopping.

Also check lids on jars in the grocery store. When we lived

in southern Fla. I can't tell you how many times I've seen

somone open a jar, stick their finger in it to taste it. Ugh.

I agree with you about public bathroom door handles. What good is it to wash your hands and have to use the door handle to open the door when someone else hasn't washed their hands.

 

Also, a lot of people do, but I do not put our toothbrushes

in the ceramic toothbrush holders built on the wall in home

bathrooms. Why? When the toilet is flushed, mist sprays 5'

in all directions.

 

If you're obsessed with germs, I guess I am too. I would

rather think that we are trying to keep as healthy as possible.

 

 

 

 

[kaseyb (Supermom!)]

Waiting said: "I would rather think that we are trying to keep as healthy as possible."

 

Exactly. From what I've been reading lately such measures are not unreasonable at all.

 

I used to think I was one of the few with concerns about restroom door knobs, but then I started noticing a few things. Sometimes I've seen, upon leaving a public restroom, a few paper towels wadded up and thrown on the floor near the door. Or I've seen a trash can interestingly placed next to the exit door rather than over near the sink. Ummmm......

 

 

[Guest Guest]

Tea..

 

start dressing 1950-1960's ... wear pretty gloves.

[jillg]

I've been caught... ....I'm one of those who tosses the paper towel in the corner if there is no trash can handy. No way I'm going to touch a handle without a towel!

 

One of the ickiest things I saw was at a Fred Meyer once..There was a long mirror directly across from the bathroom stalls. While waiting for my DD, I saw a woman come out of a stall, go right to the mirror and she starting picking her teeth, with her fingernail....I just hope she didn't use the hand she wiped with!(Then she walked out without washing her hands!!!)

[Linda]

i use my feet to flush the toliet ... also do the other things mention... when i get home .. i wash all fruit and veggies .. also wipe down all the can goods .. etc. learnt this all from my grandmother.. i have a DD and when she was little i held her off the potty for her to go till she was tall enough to go stooping over the toliet without sitting on it.

my siter in law works at a nursing home, and they don't have any water right now so she has been coming to our home to take her shower before going into work and after she leaves i go in and clean the bahtroom with bleach and lysol. not say9ing she is germy, but where she works and having no running water...

i have thought of starting to wear gloves, like they use to do.

[Guest Guest]

Dateline did an hour on this subject just last week. Some of the interesting things:

 

The two cleanest places in a ladies restroom are the toilet seat (we don't spread the germies with our hinies they said) and the restroom door handle (prolly because most of us open it with a towel). The filthiest places are the sink, floor, and stall handles. Seat covers don't help, and women are not "hovercraft".

 

What really surprised me was that they said that men's rooms, though looking and smelling significantly worse than ladies rooms, are really cleaner of the nasty's, because men don't spend so much time in there.

 

They did petri jar samples from people who washed their hands with regular soap, and antibacterial soap. The results were that there was not enough difference to warrant the price difference. Far more women wash than men.

 

They also said that eating lunch in a toilet stall would be cleaner than eating at the average workers desk!

 

At my job, they have the restroom doors set up correctly. You pull open the door open when arriving, then push it when leaving. I don't know why more places don't set the doors up that way. However, with flu season here, we should wash our hands BEFORE and AFTER using the facilities. Remember, those delicate tissue areas are a point of entry for germies.

 

I went to Costco yesterday and bought a bunch of bleach wipes to keep at my desk. I'm sure someone uses my desk once in awhile in my absence, and I'll be working harder at keeping my desk, puter and phone clean, both at home and at work.

 

Push the elevator buttons with your elbow. At least there is one good thing about that ID tag I have to wear around my neck.....it opens the doors for me!

[Kygal]

here some bathrooms in more "fancier" places have a sterile plastic cover on the toilet seats and all you have to do is step on a button on the floor and the old one dissapears into the wall, and a cleean one comes back. there is a button on the floor to flush the toilet, i guess they got tired of cleaning footprints off of everything BUT the floor. lol. the motion sensor taps, and motion sensor hand towels, and push doors that you can "kick" open. lol if a building has to have automatic doors to get in to the building, why not have automatic door into the bathroom? a lot of bathrooms here do not even have doors, but an "s" shaped corridor into it so that you have to actually walk into the bathroom to see in there. i ALWAYS have a bottle of waterless hand sanitizer on my, i get them 2 for a dollar at the dollar store. they are cheap, and they work. but because i use the cheap ones they tend to dry out your hands if you use it very often, and it does not smell as nice as the expensive ones, but it is something we use a lot of, so the cheap price is a good thing. just have a small bottle of handlotion handy as well.

 

we have a second hand van, and when we went to pick it up the steering wheel was sticky so we stopped at canadian tire to buy a steering wheen cover and dash wipes. to this day i wash my hands after leaving the van every time. i did scrub down the entire van a couple weeks ago. (it is so big i can use a standard mop to mop the lanolium in the van. lol) it is a gmc vandura.

 

 

 

when we move out of this house, we will...what am i saying we for, pat wont help...lol i will clean and disinfect this whole apartment, then as soon as that is done, i will clean and disinfect the entire house befiore i unpack. i saw the house before it was fixed up, and i know that the people living there were a mom and 2 sons, both sons doing drugs and taking advantage of the mom. i give her wipes and tel her if you have to sit on the seat, wipe it first with this.

 

i dont shake hands, but my inlaws being of another culture like to kiss cheeks. i am just happy that they are more paranoid about germs than me! lol they are nurses and know all about germs. well, i am rambling, i hope i at least made you smile.