Hygiene in Swimming Pools

ClubMan said:
I was mainly referring to people walking about etc. in the nip since ney001 and others seem to have problems with this. But people sitting down in the nip doesn't bother me personally either. The chances of some sort of contamination are miniscule I would imagine.
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Not so I'm afraid. I watched a program about this on Channel 4. The anus always contains bacteria which is transferred to underwear etc. If a body should break wind, even though it may be silent and discreet, the bacteria are multiplied by 1000s. They likened it to someone sneezing. In that case, it would do you no good to sit on the other side of the bench...it's everywhere.

This program had me paranoid for weeks and it left one of my daughters with a phobia!! She now has a very strange ritual to perform every time she uses a public lavatory!
 
"Yeah - because this obviously works in hospitals now that MRSA has been eradicated. Er, um..."


Apperantly MRSA is also the cause of alot of nurses not changing their uniform and wearing their uniform in and out of work....which is exceptionally unheygenic. I see nurses doing this all the time...in fact the catering staff of some well known hospitals are all told to change into a fresh uniform when they start their shift and change out of it before leaving. Only ever bringing their uniform out of the hospital when carrying it home to wash it. Also they are supplied with numerous uniforms.

But back to the naked sitting thing...i wouldnt consider myself to be prudish,perhaps men and wonems changing rooms differ in being at ease with nakedness, but i would feel very uncomfortable if someone stripped off completly on front of me and was parading around regardless if it is a changing room, and i would avoid any bench i seen someone sitting on bare a$$ed!! But it does make you think...whatever about just washed bums on seats...i have seen loads of people put their feet up on seats and benches to tie their runner laces...and some peoples runners are filthy dirty!!!
 
liteweight said:
This program had me paranoid for weeks and it left one of my daughters with a phobia!! She now has a very strange ritual to perform every time she uses a public lavatory!
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I'd love to hear it as I also have a strange ritual when using public toilets.

I never touch the door when exiting - I usually use a napkin that I'll have in my pocket to open the door. If no napkin, I'll wait for someone else to open the door for me - this might mean hanging around for a few extra minutes pretending to use the mirror or over drying hands etc. If nobody else around I will use my foot to open the door although this can be quite haphazard.
 
Ham Slicer said:
I never touch the door when exiting - I usually use a napkin that I'll have in my pocket to open the door. If no napkin, I'll wait for someone else to open the door for me - this might mean hanging around for a few extra minutes pretending to use the mirror or over drying hands etc. If nobody else around I will use my foot to open the door although this can be quite haphazard.
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Are you serious?? You wait for someone else to arrive or use your foot? What about when you're at home or work? Are the potential germs of colleagues/family members more acceptable to you? I'm curious.....
 
aonfocaleile said:
Are you serious?? You wait for someone else to arrive or use your foot? What about when you're at home or work? Are the potential germs of colleagues/family members more acceptable to you? I'm curious.....
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Deadly serious and I could go on. Some animal exits without washing his hands and leaves his germs all over the door handle. What do you propose?

Do you wash your hands when using the bathroom?

If not, why not?

If so, do you touch the handle when exiting?

When at home or work I open the door with some tissue and hold it open with my foot while I wash my hands.
 
I always wash my hands! (See original post) I just prefer not to think too much about some of the hygiene issues that have been discussed here such as toilet seats, benches in gyms etc. because I think that we could get far too worked up about these things. The body is surely able to cope with a certain amount of bacteria etc. I've carried a phrase that some of my college buddies used to say regularly when their hygiene standards were questioned - "worry about it when you get a pain in your stomach" with me for many years.

An earlier poster was concerned re touching the doorhandle or whatever and then preparing food, potentially with 'germs' all over your hands. I get around this by washing my hands in the kitchen immediately before I prepare food.
 
aonfocaleile said:
An earlier poster was concerned re touching the doorhandle or whatever and then preparing food, potentially with 'germs' all over your hands. I get around this by washing my hands in the kitchen immediately before I prepare food.
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What if you're not preparing food for the next three or four hours. You'll probably touch your face, your partner, kids, car etc. What if you're out and buy a sandwich - will you wash your hands then? Just interested.

As a kid I often used to drop my sweats on the ground, pick them up, bless myself and start chewing. I never got a pain in my stomach. I don't think Arnold was looking down on me either. So by your reasoning if I drop my sandwich on O'Connell Street during the week there should be no harm in blessing it and picking it up and munching away.

Excuse me if I pass on your mantra.

Believe me I haven't opened a door with my foot since I was in college many years ago. There's nearly always someone else around to open the door for me so it's no big deal to stick to the system I have. I know we can't avoid germs all the time but that doesn't mean when it's easy to avoid we shouldn't do so.
 
Here's one that will give the hygiene-freaks nightmares for weeks (although I admit, I have qualms about this myself) ......

In my gym, plenty of the mammies give their kids bananas, crisps etc. to eat after swimming as they are getting changed, while sitting on these very same benches! It keeps them quiet, mind you. :)

Rebecca
 
I don't think I'm a hygiene freak - I usually don't worry too much about germs etc but the bench thing does annoy me - may as well ask the person could you borrow their used underwear for the day! -
 
Ham Slicer said:
What if you're not preparing food for the next three or four hours. You'll probably touch your face, your partner, kids, car etc. What if you're out and buy a sandwich - will you wash your hands then? Just interested.
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Nope - I don't even think about it. And I'm almost never sick, so it hasn't affected me in any major way.

On a slightly differnt note - this happened last week in the dressing room of the gym. A mother was insistent that her child didn't set foot on the floor of the room (child was standing on a towel). Fair enough. She then combed the childs hair and dumped the hair on the ground. I challenged her on it - not because of the hygiene, but because of the pure hypocrisy of her actions.
 
My daughter always carries paper napkins with her. She also carries anti bacterial wipes. It goes like this...She enters the public loo with hand wrapped in napkin...same hand opens cubicle. Anti bacterial wipe is used on loo seat, which she then won't sit on!! Does the business and in fairness uses anti bacterial wipe on seat after her. She also refuses to touch first few sheets of toilet roll as others will have touched it while wiping their ***. Flushes all of the above. Uses fresh napkin/toilet roll to open door. Uses this to turn on taps. Uses toilet roll to turn off taps. If no paper towels, prefers to shake her hands dry. Waits for someone else to open the door (hope you two never meet in public loo HamSlicer, it'd be a Mexican stand-off), or else uses another napkin. If no more are available she'll use the sleeve of her jumper but she'll change it immediately she comes home. She's not as bad lately, some steps have been dropped. It drives me nuts when we go into town together!
 
It's not very environmentally friendly though; all this paper and wipes and chemcials etc. All of which need even more chemicals to neutralise them (on top of whatever needs to be done to treat the original waste). I bet the bugs have a right laugh. All this effort and then they mutate and become resiliant and kill you anyway.

Seriously, a lot of this cleaning thing is a bit of a cod. It's chemical/pharma companies selling us chemicals (expensively for the brand conscious or a Lidl-prices for the price-conscious) so that they can then sell the water treatment guys even more chemicals to neutralise the first set.

Not to mention the time and energy that goes into cleaning stuff that's already clean. It's just another thing to keep us busy and broke and stop us thinking about anything serious. I mean did you ever see all the gear for cleaning barbeques, special trays and sprays and all the ads with the shiny silver grills? If you ever see grills in Australia they aren't silver shiny.

I don't think I sit down on a bench in the nip anyway and this thread will probably have me watching everyone's gym behaviour from now on but as for using napkins to open doors ....

Rebecca
 
My daughter always carries paper napkins with her. She also carries anti bacterial wipes. It goes like this...She enters the public loo with hand wrapped in napkin...same hand opens cubicle. Anti bacterial wipe is used on loo seat, which she then won't sit on!! Does the business and in fairness uses anti bacterial wipe on seat after her. She also refuses to touch first few sheets of toilet roll as others will have touched it while wiping their ***. Flushes all of the above. Uses fresh napkin/toilet roll to open door. Uses this to turn on taps. Uses toilet roll to turn off taps. If no paper towels, prefers to shake her hands dry. Waits for someone else to open the door (hope you two never meet in public loo HamSlicer, it'd be a Mexican stand-off), or else uses another napkin. If no more are available she'll use the sleeve of her jumper but she'll change it immediately she comes home. She's not as bad lately, some steps have been dropped. It drives me nuts when we go into town together!
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I would worry that your daughter hasn't a mild form of OCD as this seems excessive to say the least.
 
fobs said:
I would worry that your daughter hasn't a mild form of OCD as this seems excessive to say the least.
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You wouldn't say that if you saw the state of her room!!!!

No, I have to say the documentary gave me the heebie jeebies too and I've become much more conscious when using any public convenience. I do believe however, that we're affecting children's immune systems with all this over zealous behaviour with regard to cleaning. Reports have even shown that it may be one of the reasons that so many children today have asthma.

Let that be a lesson to you and next time they want to drink from the bowl...let them.......or is that dogs???
 
fobs said:
I would worry that your daughter hasn't a mild form of OCD as this seems excessive to say the least.
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It's more likely to be a phase.

When I used to live with my grandparents years ago I used to spend hours worrying about things like making sandwiches etc. I was my hands but the knife handle isn't clean. I wash the knife but the tap isn't clean. How do I get the butter if the fridge door isn't clean, lid off the butter etc. and it just went round and round.

I'm almost better now!
 
liteweight said:
My daughter always carries paper napkins with her. She also carries anti bacterial wipes .. It drives me nuts when we go into town together!
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What about door handles in shops, merchandise in shops, food in a sandwich shop ??? Does she not freak out over the possibilities and hidden horrors ?

You have to draw the line somewhere and trust that your body has developed enough defences over time to cope with normal human existence.
 
TarfHead said:
What about door handles in shops, merchandise in shops, food in a sandwich shop ??? Does she not freak out over the possibilities and hidden horrors ?

You have to draw the line somewhere and trust that your body has developed enough defences over time to cope with normal human existence.
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No she has absolutely no problem anywhere else. She would have a problem with a bare a$$ on a gym bench though I'm sure. Neither does she do this at home and has been known (on occasion) to clean the bathrooms in the house. It definitely stems from watching this Channel 4 documentary.
 
Speaking of Channel4 both myself and the kids loved watching Kim and Aggie in "How clean is your house". The state of the toilets there was amazing. The immune system of the people using them must have been very high.

One woman, putting a pair of stirrups covered in horsesh** into the dishwasher, along with her dirty dishes and cutlery was something I found hilarious. Warped sense of humour I suppose.


Murt
 
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