Posts by Emily Mitchell80

All five. Honestly, I wouldn't even be chiming in here if I hadn't read about girls doing their makeup in public restrooms (somewhere I wouldn't even dare to put on lipstick) without knowing how to wash their hands properly. Maybe those girls find it gross to touch the soap dispenser handle because someone just wiped their butt and then immediately touched the lever—just like I would. My take? Your hands are cleaner after washing them in a public restroom than if you don't, but once you've washed them, you’re mostly just dealing with your own germs rather than everyone else's.
Even if you do wash your hands in a restroom, how long can you go without touching anything before they aren't "clean" anymore? Within a few minutes, you'll be grabbing something else, like a shop door, and you might need to wash them all over again.
Bacteria spreads via your hands IF YOU DON'T WASH THEM; basically, you touch stuff and then touch yourself, transferring everything. Personally, I wash my hands, and I do it more than enough.
Look, I get that people disagree with me. It was obvious from the jump that we weren't on the same page (and it's not just about handwashing), so why not debate it? Maybe someone can actually convince me I'm wrong.
If a coffee shop doesn't care about hygiene, you're going to get sick regardless of whether you washed your hands or not. Those kinds of places usually have storage rooms crawling with cockroaches that scurry over the juices and the fruit displays at the counter; in that scenario, my hands are the least of your worries.
I'm starting to lose interest in this argument since I feel like I'm just repeating myself.
I took the light rail to work this morning, touched a bunch of things along the way, and made sure to wash my hands in the restroom before walking into my office. It's just a habit. 😉

I’m not touching anything in a public restroom until I get back home. When you're out in the city, you're constantly touching stuff—there's no avoiding it. You touch door handles, subway railings, bus seats... it's constant. BUT ONCE I GET HOME, I WASH MY HANDS THOROUGHLY!!! And yeah, like someone else pointed out, I make sure not to touch my face or whatever when I'm out in public, regardless of whether I used a restroom or not.
Look, I agree with your point that people need to wash their hands, but you have to understand that I can't even stand the thought of touching a faucet or anything like that.
I don't have the energy to keep repeating myself. If you want to wash your hands after using the restroom, fine. BUT you absolutely must wash them the second you walk through your front door.

😂
I’m not doing anything out of the ordinary; like I said, I just walk out.
You wash your hands, turn off the faucet, and grab the door handle—and don't even try telling me there's always a paper towel available to touch the handle or the tap. After all that, your hands are dirty again, yet you actually think they're clean. Or maybe you use your elbow to turn off the water (as if your elbow isn't part of your body or something).
For the record, I’ve never dealt with warts, fungus, or any other infection, which is plenty of proof enough for me that my routine works. If it didn't, I would have picked up something nasty by now on the subway, the bus, grocery store carts, or in elevators...
When someone walks out of a restroom and grabs the handle with their bare hands—hands they just used to wipe themselves—it doesn't even cross my mind to touch that handle right after them and then wash my hands there (unless the sink is sensor-operated like in some shopping malls or fancy coffee shops). That's it. If you want to go around touching everything, be my guest. You can pick up all sorts of germs riding the bus, hitting the stop button, or pushing a cart at Target... do you use a paper towel to touch the cart every single time, or do you disinfect it first?
Of course not. That’s why when I get home, I scrub my hands thoroughly, especially between my fingers. Again, I haven't caught anything, and I’m constantly riding the bus, taking the subway, pushing carts through the store, and hitting buttons in elevators...

Look, there are strict health codes for bathrooms just like there are for kitchens, and don't go assuming businesses are just ignoring them. The fines are massive, so it’s way cheaper for them to just pour some bleach in the toilet and scrub it down than to deal with a citation. If you're in a public restroom at a cafe or a restaurant, it doesn't automatically mean it's filthy—that's usually just our perception because we have no idea who was in there before us. Plus, if a bathroom smells, it might just be old plumbing issues rather than actual dirtiness, even if our brains immediately jump to "this place is gross."

Hey Carol Scott98, no hard feelings! 🙂
I’m not offended at all; we’re just having a debate, right? 😕
Look, I didn't come here to pick fights with anyone. I just wanted to see what other people do for hygiene or how they view things. Nobody has to agree with my take or my habits—I’m definitely not looking for validation here.
If you want to wash your hands, go for it. If you don't, that's on you.
It’s so rare that I even use a public restroom when I'm out that those few times I skip washing up aren't going to ruin my health. Besides, half the time there’s no soap, or the water is barely a trickle from the faucet... what am I supposed to do, cry because I didn't wash my hands?
As for glassware in cafes—I worked as a waitress at several coffee shops and once at a restaurant during college. Glasses are supposed to be washed in high-temp machines to disinfect them. Any cafe that doesn't use a machine is basically a breeding ground for bacteria. Health inspectors are pretty strict about this; they'll take swabs of everything from lemon slicers to utensils, and if they find any residue, the place gets shut down immediately! In restaurants, they’re even stricter—there can't be anything else on a bread cutting board. Period. I heard of one place getting closed down just for leaving jam residue behind!
Don't stress about the glass. If you see one that doesn't look perfectly clean, just ask for another one!

Anonymous said:Alright, I think this might be a bit of an overreaction. 😁
It’s actually been proven that water from a toilet can spray several feet—I don't know the exact measurement right now, but enough to reach a toothbrush sitting on the sink. So, maybe consider giving the seat a quick wipe with some disinfectant after you use it (and even before if you weren't the last one in there, obviously 😁). 😁

I don't see why you think it's excessive. If you don't disinfect the seat at home after a neighbor or a friend uses it, then it's pretty much the same situation as sitting down on a toilet in a Starbucks or a restaurant where a complete stranger was just sitting there.
My restroom and my bathroom are separate rooms and I always keep the doors closed, so that specific concern doesn't really apply to my setup.

Chloe Gomez6 said:😕Whatever. I just wash my hands, use my elbow to turn the faucet, and kick the door open.🤷

So, what do you do when you’re stuck? You’re facing a massive door that’s way too heavy to nudge open with your elbow, and of course, there isn't a single paper towel in sight—not even in the restroom to grab a scrap to hold onto. At that point, you’ve basically got no choice: you just have to grab the handle with your bare hands and deal with it.
So you're saying you'll just wash your hands of the whole thing? Do you honestly think your hands are clean if you touched the faucet and turned off the water right after someone else used their hands to wipe their ass?Look, I won't get bogged down in all the tiny details, but I really need you to grasp what I'm actually asking here.
So, am I really the only one who actually disinfects their cutting board after guests leave? Seriously?
I’ve got the impression that everyone here is acting overly sensitive about hygiene. Does nobody actually disinfect the toilet seat after a guest, a friend, or even a neighbor sits on it with their sweaty backside? Especially with this heatwave hitting us right now. To me, it seems like common sense.

I’m big on washing my hands, but I was honestly surprised to hear people talking about skipping it after using the restroom. To be honest, when I’m at a cafe or a restaurant, I almost never wash my hands. It sounds gross, but I can’t stand the thought of touching the faucet or the soap dispenser—even if it's just a pump—or the door handle. I can't stop thinking about how the person right before me used those exact same surfaces with their dirty hands, and then I’m supposed to touch them and pretend my hands are "clean" afterward? That logic just doesn't track for me. It's a bit of a twisted way to look at it, sure, but I'd much rather have hands that are dirty from my own body than hands that have touched a public faucet, soap pump, or door handle that a total stranger just gripped. If you know what I mean! And
My favorite thing is being able to grab a paper towel to pull the door handle so I don't have to touch anything else on my way out.
There isn't really a perfect solution here; maybe the best bet is just holding it until you get home.

As for sitting on the toilet seat, I won't even sit down at my own house if someone who isn't a member of my household—like a friend, a neighbor, or my brother's buddy—has used it. And don't even get me started on putting layers of toilet paper over the seat just to avoid contact!
Whenever a guest uses my bathroom, I make it a point to spray the seat with disinfectant once they're done. I know some people might find it excessive, but to me, it's just the right thing to do.