A kitchen thing that bugs me is my wife is a microbiologist and she puts the scrubbies for dishes in a bowl - this catches the water draining out of them and it sits in the dark, warm bottom where of course it grows bacteria. That means what is used to clean things is loaded with bacteria. Dry things don't grow bacteria. Many people do not change things like wash clothes often enough - they smell funky!

my husband likes to leave ours in a container with lots of soapy water. I don't know the facts, but after a while it does get a little slimy feeling to me. he also is cheap where he should not be like using them for a month. took care of the problem by turning the hot water up a ways - no kids, and washing and rinsing in as warm as we can handle which is fairly hot. i don't use dishwashers because they leave little bits on them sooner or later. and i checked, they are not sanitary. but using super hot water for everything does take care of any strange ideas we might have. i don't think i have any, but who knows? lol

My spouse leaves soap in the wash/dish cloth - anything other than clean is dirty - whether it is soap or not. I want to dry the cast iron with a clean wash cloth - don't care for the taste of soap especially. Hot water and good drying goes a long way towards sanitary. Cleaning the drain filter in the dishwasher regularly keeps the bits off the dishes (and rinsing them first).

nope dream, i know at some point it begins to deposit stuff no matter what you do. and apparently the world is divided into 2 camps, you must have the dishwasher to steralize, it is clean even with the bits. and i must have it to dry all my dishes. so 40 years out, we still don't own one, i think i will try the single drawer one, less places for stuff to hide. i know it would make life better, hubby can not get control of dish washing, so if i am not up to it, he has to wash to cook. and it always takes an hour for the 2 of us?

Luckily that is my wife's dept. (dishwasher). As I get older and busier I use the DW more. It is a rare occurrence to have DW crud on the dishes - then she does a thorough cleaning of the DW and it is resolved for a couple more months it seems

The biggest bathroom annoyance between me and my partner? My partner...

i think that is a little past us layne.

Not replacing the toilet roll. It takes all of a minute, yet for 40 years, a new roll will be left under the toilet roll dispenser. If I mention it, I'm accused of nagging. Drives me to distraction.

@midnightrose, After 40 years, either leave him. kill him or just realize you're the one who is the TP roll changer in the household.

My DH has often left just ONE paper towel on our vertical holder so he doesn't have to change it. A couple of weeks ago he placed a new roll on the counter right next to the holder, yet still wouldn't mount it. I solved the problem... the holder is tucked away now, and he doesn't have to worry again about actually mounting the paper towel roll ON the holder! He's never said a word about it.

He also had a 'thing' against replacing oven mitts back in the drawer after using them. So I started tucking them away in another cabinet whenever he left one out. Pretty soon there were no more in the drawer. When he asked, I said I didn't know where they could be. He eventually found them, and he hasn't left them out ever since!! I guess I'll have to do the same thing with the pot holders....

silent passive aggressive never works with mine.

Midnight, have you asked why? 28 years of asking why, finally he tellls me, in a great moment of insight, his fingers are too big to get it in. I shut up and just put it in now. sometimes, they just don't pay enough attn to what is going on. now we keep it in the top drawer, no problems.

The fact that when he cleans it he expects an award

If you gave him a "reward" would he clean it more often? Simple training technique.

And remember, no matter how good the soap smells do not leave the bathroom smelling your fingers.

Kind of like taking the garbage out, eh?

@Brittany Penrose, yes, my husband does that. I usually just say, “Thanks,” and fume quietly because if I start rattling off the innumerable things I do without announcing it to the world, he thinks It’s a competition. Easier to lead by example and give him some positive feedback. Maybe he will catch on eventually...I can hope! But couples do often fall into the pattern that one person maintains the household while the other “helps” or “pitches in.” It should be a shared responsibility. Equal back pats all around.

I recently read a funny essay about (specifically heterosexual) marriage dynamics. It mentioned the tendency men have to assume things just get done by someone, somewhere, somehow, when they are not looking. The author called it “marriage blinders.”

I have been in roommate situations - or job sites for that matter (more recently) where they seemed to think someone's stereo typical mother worked. I explained that sure wasn't my role and they needed to pick up their crap or move on if they couldn't clean up their messes. My last roommate in college - I just stopped doing the dishes after four times in a row - I would wash what I needed. When it was time to move out he asked for help because there were some many dirty dishes; I told him mine were clean. Don't get mad - or enable the behavior, go on strike.

hi mom5, i agree, pet hair is easier to get out. and if mine were anywhere within 4 ft, it would be stuffed full too. easier to have one and deal with that.

You'll have to forgive me, but most of these posts are about simply annoying things. My post is direly embarrassing, but I'm going to post it because it's a true health hazard issue, along with being a GREAT annoyance. My fiance had a hemorrhagic stroke and I had to clean his house for his return home. It was a bachelor pad, for sure, and he didn't have a cleaning service, if you know what I mean. While he was in the hospital for three weeks post stroke, I cut back my work hours and cleaned his home to the degree a person with a previous brain shunt should have. I cleaned and sanitized every wall, floor, surface, appliance and piece of furniture. It was done in a timely fashion, because docs couldn't predict when he'd be coming home, and was very expensive and exhausting. The only three things I refused to touch: his overly moldy, tiny, three piece master bath; the kitchen floor that was covered in cooking grease (he was an Atkins dieter who fried everything uncovered) and general dirt; and the main bath toilet. All were beyond my stomach's abilities. When he came home from the hospital, I immediately gave him a honey do list, of which the top three chores were the aforementioned nasties. Well, it's been five years since his stroke and the kitchen floor's never been completely cleaned , the master bath remains completely untouched (and more moldy), and the main bath toilet (which is directly adjacent to the dining area of the kitchen) was cleaned, but still remains a huge problem.

The problem: every time he goes to the bathroom, he spatters and makes an unstomachable stench that permeates every room of the house. E.V.E.R.Y. T.I.M.E. He spatters to the point that it gets on the seat, under the seat, under the rim...everywhere, and he doesn't clean up after himself. He refuses to see a gastro doc and refuses to change his diet (ie- add fiber) as the GP has suggested. He is lax, to put it mildly, on courtesy flushes (mind you, this is the only usable bathroom in the house), and has to be strongly told to turn on the bathroom exhaust fan BEFORE he starts and to light matches/candles post event. I won't even get into the arguments we have had over his lack of hand washing. If you follow him in the bathroom, you are usually greeted by a V of spatter on the rear of the toilet seat (which he insists on wiping up with dry toilet tissue, not the Lysol wipes I supply him with, so I get stuck having to sanitize it myself) and a stench you can barely stomach. I have told this almost senior citizen man how unsanitary his habits are and have shown him how to clean up after himself, especially on the toilet seat and under the rim, where it builds up quickly, but he puts a halfhearted effort into it, if any at all, so- again, I have to do it. His bathroom habits are so bad that I've begged him to never go to the bathroom at anyone else's home, to save me severe embarrassment. I'm so happy you asked this question, because I've never been able to vent on this subject, except to the doctor. It's been great to vent anonymously on this forum. So...forgive me for the gross subject matter, but it's been great to unload! Thank you!!

i'd unload that guy.

aneternaloptimst - the health hazard is his diet - that same smell is pretty much in all truck stop bathrooms - you can tell what they eat by the god awful smell. It is animal products and little green stuff or fruit. It smells like something died in there becasue that is what they eat - dead things. Anyone can argue all they want but try going plant based and notice the difference. My LDL is below 60 - couldn't get a heart attack/stroke if I tried.

We have given up so much that is sacred for a consumer based growth economy (the good life) - a big one is our health from an endless buffet of bad food and every labor saving device imaginable. This is the source of our economic crippling health care crisis - it's almost like there is no such thing as free lunch. Many look forward to their golden years of oxygen tanks and scooters because of their diet and lack of exercise - AT MY EXPENSE via higher health insurance rates.

"You want your cake and to eat it too but then the cake turns around and eats you." Good health is not a mystery and it results in a nicer bathroom/society for everyone. if you don't respect and maintain your own body why would you respect or maintain anything else?

WHY ????? Are you still with this guy ??????

oh I so wish I hadn't read that

I agree with Judy. Anyone in his right mind and physically able who refuses to clean up after his own bodily functions should not expect a loved one to do it for him! He needs to take responsibility, or hire a housekeeper to come in every day for as long as THEY can stand it, and get paid enough! Optimist, by cleaning up his gross messes, aren't you enabling his own failure to do so?

I googled this:

"Enabling is “removing the natural consequences to the addict of his or her behavior.” Professionals warn against enabling because evidence has shown that an addict experiencing the damaging consequences of his addiction on his life has the most powerful incentive to change."

Wow. After this entry, my issues seem so petty.... Thanks Optimist! LOL

Our economy not only enables it encourages bad habits and sloth and goodness knows we are beginning to experience the logical consequences of our actions. Time for an intervention - like addiction, our condition will take care of its self if we don't do something about it on our own volition. The house keeper - earth, will just quit, then we will know what we were taking for granted. The best way to clean up messes is to first stop making them. May as well start at home.

To mickey2525 and dreamdoctor: I realize my cleaning up after him IS enabling (and he takes full, knowing advantage of it), but I can't bear to use the facilities without knowing they're clean and sanitary. I can't even bear to sit fully on the seat, lest I happen to touch the back of the toilet seat, or touch the interior of the toilet lid if I haven't sanitized them first. I've tried, sooooo many times, to have him change his diet and get him to the gastro doc, but all it ever does is spark arguments- no changes. I've a TBI, and can't stand a bad argument, so I'm stuck with it all. It's still absolutely mindboggling to me, how a grown man could possibly be happy with bodily/hygiene habits like that, AND argue vehemently in defense of keeping them that way.

We're looking into renovating the tiny master bath, and I'm intensely researching toilets with ease of cleaning (ie- wall mounted,, rimless interiors, water inlet locations within bowl, etc). I never thought that I'd ever have to spend one moment doing that. Sorry to have shared my bathroom woes with my fiancé on Houzz; I know it was hard for folks to hear.

aneternaloptimist, are you sure this is the only problem with your fiance you have, or WILL have? If he is doing that with full acknowledgement that it's uber-gross and argues against change, I'd be concerned that over time there will be other issues that he'll refuse to address/correct (and there's always going to be more). If you really think this is the man you need to marry, I strongly suggest pre-marital counseling. I so wish I had....

Love does NOT solve everything when one partner arrogantly believes himself to be 'more entitled' than the other. Marriage does not fix problems, maturity does not come with matching wedding rings.

What you'll be needing: Separate bathrooms (marriage-saver), a housekeeper (sanity-saver) and more love, patience and prayers than you ever thought you had (still not a cure-all). And don't forget the pre-nup!

An old adage that's still true: "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Choose your bicycle wisely, you'll have to live with it for the rest of your life!

I don't quite get the logic of getting married to live unhappily ever after. If you are not living together now, he seems very happy with the way he lives and you don't like his way of living. Who is going to be unhappy first if you get married? Sounds like you will be a constant "nagfest" and he will do even more to irritate you. I had a good man for about 7 years, but not to marry. Our living habits were different, but we loved each other. It was okay not share spaces, just share good times. We would have both been unhappy living together or attacking each other's way we live in our own home. I would have had the nagfest for sure! Yes, counseling is badly needed, sooner the better. Good luck to both of you.

Cookic, well said! I wish I'd been so wise but was blinded by love, and I thought any issues would be settled by marriage and maturity. Oops.

aneternaloptimist - as Dear Abby would say - "if he won't go to counseling with you then go by yourself" - you DESPERATELY need to figure out why you will put up with this - the therapy is cheap compared to a life time of being chained to that. This was a lesson I first learned reading Thidwick The Big Hearted Moose as a child (when philosophy should be gently taught) - it took many years to figure out the implications of its message - the prenup is a necessity - he will fight tooth an claw against it which is why you must have it, so you can dump the load and move on easily when you've had enough.

Your description of him is like that of stepping in gum on hot pavement - it never should have been there in the first place but once you've stepped in it you will be hard pressed to get it off.

Run!

@aneteraptimist, At this point I think you're just pulling all of our legs.........or you are a very NEEDY person. Like I asked before, "Why are you still with him"? Anyone who puts up with what you tell us you are, deserves what they get.

@judy, I assumed from the get-go that this was just a weird, gross joke. Someone taking the pizz, as they say. I was surprised that the posts stayed up.

Makes you wonder about people, eh?

@P M, So true.........but you have to feel sorry for people who have so little else in their life.

I get the feeling none of you has experienced the horror of a truck stop bathroom - even if they are cleaned regularly the air reeks of bad diets. I can only wonder what the state of their bathroom at home is - probably not all them train wrecks but I'm sure they are out there. I've see college student bathrooms (male and female) that look like they have never seen a cleaning product - not since the last time it came to get the deposit back anyway.

dreamdoctor, that is too true. I had a female tenant attending University here, always acted like she was better than those around her. I doubt she cleaned her bathroom once during her 2-year stay. When she moved out, she left the bathroom filthy with mold growing everywhere.

I tell interns/students I talk to (architecture and design) that when they interview to be sure to visit the bathroom - it is symbolic of the whole organization. If it was consciously designed and If there are newspaper and magazine wracks in the stalls that is a good sign.

dreamdoctor

I hope you are correct and you never have a heart attack or stroke, I thought just like you a few months ago.

I am a 57 year old female and have had very low cholesterol and very low blood pressure all of my life. (Last physical - Combined HDL/LDL was 101, blood pressure 114/62)

I went to the doctors 4 times in 5 weeks between January 28th and March 8th. I had nausea, fatigue and pain in both forearms. They said I had the flu on the first visit. The nausea subsided, but I kept going back because I still had fatigue and this weird arm pain. On March 8th I went to see a rhumatologist about the arm pain and was told that most likely it was tendonitis that developed while suffering from the flu. 8 hours later I woke up with the feeling that the bones in my forearms were on fire. I called 911 and was transported to the hospital. I had a 99% block in the widow maker.

No one thought heart attack. I am too young, my blood pressure and cholesterol too low. I am moderately overweight, but not obese. I am moderately active. Only high risk factor was stress.

Found out after the heart attack that 50% of heart attack victims have normal cholesterol.

Jennifer - yow! Glad you dodged the bullet. 99%! I've got a physical in the next couple weeks. I will ask specifically if there is a way to check that. Most people these days are unhealthy and die from the "good life". I have my vices but they are few and far between - I figured out they salve the perceived symptoms of want but end up making me feel bad in the long run. I eat little refined flour and sugar and lots of veggies, fruit and some high quality oils - the plumber's friend of cardiovascular health. Not much of anything in my diet to clog things up and much to keep it clean but I will ask. Thank you and best wishes.

dreamdoctor - the cardiologist was suprised that no one ever recommended annual EKGs for me given the family history of heart disease. He said that a base line should have been done about age 35 and annuals after 40. (mom, dad, sister all had/have heart disease). My other 4 siblings have now all had checkups and EKGs - everything looks good, but they will be getting annual EKGs to monitor their heart function. I am the youngest of 6.

Sadly, heart attack is still looked at as a male disease and the symptoms typically looked for are the symptoms that men get. Many women never experiece chest pain or the feeling of an elephant sitting on their chest. They often get night sweats (as do men), but we pass those off as menopause. We get more bilateral arm pain where men usually have pain just in the left arm. This is why more women die from their first heart attack than men. We have not learned to associate women's symptoms to heart attack risk.

Keep healthy! Ask for an annual EKG if it is age appropriate.

Jennifer - I will do that. I do work out every day and went vegan about five years ago - I seriously wonder if I want to live to be a hundred. My family is pretty long lived but that is not the same as quality. Hopefully not putting sludge in my engine will keep me up and running until I fall over and die. Death does not bother me - it is the dying slowly part - like watching a bathroom slowly go from clean to unusable for lack of regular maintenance. Good health and clean bathrooms are not a mystery just like a good design process - hasn't ever really changed - you just have to do the work. The saying I live by, The hard way is the easy way."

I copyright registered my first "book" about a week ago - the title is "The cause of, and solution to, all of your problems. You open it up and there is a reflective surface, along with some pithy sayings on the inside cover.

Jennifer Hogan (and Dream Doctor):

Your symptoms are CLASSIC signs of heart attack IN A WOMAN!! If I were you, I'd go back and sue every freaking doctor that MISdiagnosed and MIStreated me for those symptoms. If you pick up any cardiologist's rag, hell, even a Reader's Digest, you can find a list of women's heart attack symptoms easily and, UNsurprising news- yours are ALL on the list.

A lot of folks are saying, "But I don't like to sue" or "How could they know?" or "I can't afford the lawyer." Take into consideration that nearly every heart attack, especially one of your longevity, causes heart muscle damage and that will come back to bite you in the future. All those doctors just shortchanged your heart, AND YOU, out of quality future health. Don't take doctors' refusals to acknowledge that women can have separate symptoms of cardiovascular disease and heart attack from men. There have been enough public campaigns to identify women's symptoms of heart attack (ie- Red Dress, Go Red For Women) so, if a doctor DOESN'T know the symptoms he's chosen to ignore them. I'm actually surprised you didn't get the first med prescribed for millions of women with fatigue- an antidepressant!! Try that with a man, and you'll get major flack but, with women, it's standard operating procedure. We need more female docs and more medical schools that educate about and differentiate disease symptoms in men and women.

And, by the way, you should've been given a stress test, NOT just an EKG. ANYONE who's had heart problems (heart attack, angina, etc) needs a baseline stress test, to see what damage has been done, and what's going on. And don't let the cardiologist tell you that he sees what he expected to see in a person who's had a heart attack. Ask them what actual, specific damage you have and how to avoid further damage. If they don't tell you, move on. Best of luck in the future and with your heart.

Take control of your health - healthcare is driven by profit - (most) doctors are driven by passion for health but directed by the insurance companies - they have become the equivalent of oil change technicians.

There is a phenomenon called a fat berg - people pour grease/saturated fats down the drain and it solidifies into something that clogs up the system - same as with saturated fats and our blood circulation system. These fat bergs have to be cut up with high pressure heated jets of water - they are that hard. Several people I know are working on heart attacks - way beyond slightly overweight and a heavily animal product diet. It is an addiction to comfort food - saturated fat and salt. These things are very heavily advertised and encouraged becasue they are profitable and grow the economy - at the expense of your health and ultimately life. Unhealthy diets are harder to quit than cigarettes because few publicly acknowledge how deadly it is and excess consumption drives the economy. I've quit both. The growth economy is not to be messed with regardless of the consequences.

The consumer is treated like a goose being prepared to make pate' - market force fed to the point of sickness - then the diseased liver/body is "harvested" by the health care and big pharm industries to make more money off of you. I am not going to be that. I was encouraged by "Beyond meat" and thought about investing in them - read the rda and ingredients - the reason they taste/feel like meat is the saturated fat from coconut oil - same results as any other saturated fat. Once again good health is not a mystery - it is just not profitable. Take control.

Bad diets make for bad bathroom experiences.

@aneternaloptimist, Yes I'm one of those people who opposes filing frivalous lawsuits. We must take resposibity for ourselves. Sorry that this lady had a bad experience, but she should have demanded the tests even if insurance didn't pay without a DX. In my experience, doctors often request too many tests. Now back to the bathroom issues.

judygilpin: If you truly believe in taking responsibility for ourselves, then the doctors should take their training and post grad learning hours seriously, and take responsibility for misdiagnosing her not once, but multiple times. None of them should've missed her diagnosis and they caused her to go on for over a month with painful, life threatening heart attack symptoms. If any of them had bothered to do an EKG, they would've immediately seen her quandary. They're extremely lucky she didn't die, with 99% blockage.

The patient is NEVER responsible for ordering their own tests to come up with their own diagnoses. That's the doctor's job and they get paid handsomely to do it properly. And she had the perfect, non frivolous reason to sue- the damage done to her heart due to multiple misdiagnoses, and the complete ignoring of her symptoms. Tendonitis in your forearms developed while having the flu???? Come on! They couldn't even come up with anything but a lame excuse for a (mis)diagnosis.

@aneternaloptimist, Have you ever thought that you are just hearing one side of the story?? BTW, I just ordered my own lipid profile as I was curious if my change of diet worked. I had the lab send a copy of the results to my doctor, and guess what, my insurance paid.

He leaves the vanity top looking like a post-Katrina disaster zone. How much water does one need to brush one’s teeth, and shouldn’t it be more in your mouth than all over the room?

I’m going to install a wet-dry shop vac just for him.

We should all leave as small a footprint as possible no matter where we are.

jpp, I need one of those vacs in my kitchen after my DH gets done with it!!

Dream Doc, glad you are taking care of your health, but there are no guarantees in life. My brother was like you, never smoked, no drinking, ate right, exercised....and at 54, died of cancer.

If nothing else they have really weird idea of what bathroom annoyances are. Did they find their partner in the bathroom having an affair? That would top my list of annoying habits for sure.