<p>I do have my own pet peeve about sharing bathrooms as a house guest, so maybe my relatives will post on this thread…I want my own bathroom when I stay over and I don’t like other people going in and out of “my bathroom.” Bless my relatives (especially my SIL), they used to clean out one for us and would tell their kids to stay out. It is one of the reasons I stay at a hotel when visiting people.</p>
<p>Without going into details, when a member of our family visits, its so stressful, my mother gets ill. So to avoid the ensuing anxiety, I rent them a room. We start dreading the visit months before the event.</p>
<p>I’m shuddering at the thought of driving around in an SUV with a portable potty full of urine and feces. Lovely!</p>
<p>It would be awful to have a car accident with it onboard.</p>
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<p>Not sure if that’s ignorance or pathology at work. Germaphobes are their own special kind of crazy/rude and do more harm than good to the environment and our health.</p>
<p>oldfort, she’d probably have to burn the car! :D</p>
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So I have heard. I don’t buy it. I guess that’s why so many people get sick in Mexico, even locals, and we never had stomach virus while we lived there for 2 years. H used baking soda and vinegar (his own mixture) to clean all vegetables and we had water filter in our apartment. You would think the locals would have been immuned. We’ve had to take many colleagues to emergency room. Call us stupid and ignorant.</p>
<p>My pet peeve about bathroom doesn’t have as much to do with germs and such (they are my relatives and very clean people). I just like my privacy.</p>
<p>OF, you wouldn’t stay with us then if we were family. We only have one bathroom so guests have to share with the rest of us :D</p>
<p>OF–big difference between germaphobic behavior and washing vegetables before eating.</p>
<p>It is a phobic when you don’t do it yourself. It is normal if it is something you do. Again, I am at a point that I don’t really care how people classify it.</p>
<p>roman - I would have stayed at a hotel, no offense.</p>
<p>I work for a non-profit that hosts a lot of informational events. What kills me is people’s failure to RSVP. Once I was coordinating an event with refreshments, and about 30 people RSVPd that they were coming. Actual attendance was nearly 80. Thank heavens I have a tendency to over-buy and this wasn’t a sit-down affair. We also have sit-down events with assigned seating. We always have to have at least one extra table set up for those who “forgot” to RSVP, and one extra seat at each table for those who “brought an extra person, you don’t mind, do you?” But then we end up with half-empty tables due to no-shows. Really, folks, how hard is it to click “reply” on an email and RSVP?</p>
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<p>Irrelevant to my observation.</p>
<p>Oldfort, I would stay in a hotel, too. We went to visit a beloved family member last Thanksgiving. Incredibly gracious hosts, lovely home. We chose to stay in a local hotel because we like to be unintrusive guests and we also like our privacy. I’m totally with you on this one.</p>
<p>“It is a phobic when you don’t do it yourself. It is normal if it is something you do.”</p>
<p>No, it’s phobic if it doesn’t actually bear a relationship to a risk, and/or if the level of precaution is so high that it interferes with other functions in daily life (hours a day spent washing the hands, etc.). </p>
<p>Kids do not get sick from using public toilets in restaurants. This is not a disease vector. Going to significant lengths to avoid a nonexistent risk does suggest a phobia. On the other hand, thousands of people do get sick and even die every year from contaminated produce, and in the US, not just in Mexico. Washing vegetables is a smart hygienic practice recommended by the CDC. I am often careless about this (I like to taste everything right from the basket at the farmer’s market), but I still view it as a wise step and in no way phobic.</p>
<p>^^^that definition works in the real life, but not here.</p>
<p>I think I read some where that it is advisable to keep tooth brush away from the toilet area because when you flush the toilet a lot of germ can get on the tooth brush. Is that good germ or bad? Maybe if we get enough of that germ then we’ll just become immune to it. Isn’t that what people are saying here? Or is there good germ, which we should be exposed to, and there is bad germ, and we need to be careful of? You know, I can’t tell what’s good germ and what’s bad germ, not with my untrained eye, so I opt to treat them all the same. Equal treatment and opportunity here.</p>
<p>Killing the beneficial bacterial is harmful. Not going overboard with antibacterials is the place to start. From Tufts - </p>
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<p>oldfort, a person who chooses to stay in a hotel because they prefer not to share a bathroom for privacy reasons is one thing. (You did say that you will stay at houses where you can have your own bathroom.) A person who drives around with a portable potty in the back of their car and refuses to let their children use the toilet at the houses of friends is a nut.</p>
<p>I don’t have any medical training, so I wouldn’t know if it’s true or not. But our kids grew up in a very clean home, my kids were not allowed to eat anything they dropped on the floor. Both of them (knock on wood) grew up with very few colds, streps, pink eyes…They do not have any allergies, except with very mild hay fever during the season. We could have just been lucky.</p>
<p>"^^^that definition works in the real life, but not here. "</p>
<p>Somebody here called you phobic for washing vegetables and using a water filter in MEXICO? That person* really* likes to live on the edge.</p>
<p>“I think I read some where that it is advisable to keep tooth brush away from the toilet area because when you flush the toilet a lot of germ can get on the tooth brush.”</p>
<p>If you read something like this, I think you can’t go wrong asking your doctor whether it has merit. But if the adaptation has zero cost (like keeping the toothbrush in the cupboard instead of on the counter), then do whatever makes you happy. You definitely can’t kill beneficial bacteria by doing that.</p>