I have succumbed to posting on AIBU!

I agree about the cloths that are used in cafes! I know it isn't foolproof, but I'm always pleased when I see staff using fresh paper roll to wipe tables - I notice that Pret and M & S do it. I insist that DGC wash their hands when they arrive home from school. It's probably too late for them, but it might just help us avoid some of their school bugs. I've been known to put the hot water and Dettol in the basin for their use!

I was coming into a supermarket when I started to have an really good sneezing fit, the type where your pelvic floor exercises come in handy. Anyway I grabbed my tissues and just continued. This woman went mad at me, said I should stay away when I had a cold. It wasn't a cold just allergies that I have that cause these sneezing fits and I told so. Usually take hay fever tablets all year round but hadn't for a few days, hence the sneezing.

The only thing I am paranoid about with germs are outside catering vans when only one person does all. Takes money handles the rolls or buns.Money is so full of germs, I can't eat anything from these establishments however hungry I am or however lovely the smells they emit.

I'm all in favour of sensible hygiene (washing hands after going to the loo, etc) but this obsession with the use of wipes and hand gel is something I can't understand.

Fermor has just confirmed that hot air dryers are not a good thing.
Years ago I read an article that said they just blew the germs around. Never used one since.

I believe in moderation in all things. Yes, I try to be clean but one cannot be obsessed.

Obviously, I am very careful indeed about hygiene if I visit someone in hospital, go near young children or anyone I know to have an allergy but, usually, I just live life and hope for the best.

NanaMcGeek, you are spot on, allergies are completely different to infections (bacteria or virus) so no amount cleanliness or dirtyness will have any effect on an allergy. The girl who died from eating a sandwich had a serious allergy to sesame seeds and she sadly died from a reaction to eating the seeds as the ingredients of the sandwich were not listed. Nothing to do with hygiene would have altered this, neither being obsessively clean nor filthy, the result would have been the same. I feel for the devastated family.

I'm not obsessive about hygiene and cleaning, our house is 'livably' clean. Our kids grew up with pets, dust and dirt and were very rarely ill. A woman I once worked with cleaned her house from top to bottom twice a day and wiped every surface with bleach - you could smell it as you entered the house. But her children were constantly taking time off school because of stomach upsets and allergies.

My Gran also used to say "^We must all eat a peck of dirt before we die^" When I asked what a 'peck' was I was told it's about 2 gallons, so I've probably still got some way to go yet!

I agree that hand washing is important, and I do carry hand gel with me because so many public loos don't have soap dispensers that work. But sanitising your home and worrying about touching door handles and shopping trolleys is just adding unnecessary stress to your life. Germs and bacteria are everywhere we just need to learn to live with them and develop a natural immunity.

Was out in the garden recently with a friend who remarked on the fabulous apples on our tree. I immediately picked two and handed one to her, then bit into mine. She was horrified because I hadnt washed the apple, despite the fact it had only been on a tree in the back garden and I had already explained we are entirely organic. It had never crossed my mind to wash fruit from my garden unless its actually gritty, however, I always wash shop and supermarket fruit in case of pesticides or handling by staff with diseases. The only tummy bugs I can ever remember the family having were caught from other people.

Yesterday I heard a dad talking to his little girl who was about 4 saying,'you've just touched the handle on the supermarket trolley,so don't put your hands ANYWHERE near you face'
Poor little girl talk about setting her up for phobia or obsessive behaviour!

I agree Sleepygran - if SIL wants to antibac wipe aeroplane seats and tables and every surface in every hotel and take disposable slippers to walk on hotel room carpets which then get thrown away at the end of the stay.....
What is that going to teach my DGS? ?

I have so often come home from a train journey with a cold or other bug that I am now quite uncharacteristically particular about using gel or wipes on my hands when I have used the loo and when I've touched the doors on my way to and from the loo. In recent years (touch wood) I haven't had any viruses after train journeys.

I don't know how I have lived so long! I never thought about supermarket trolley handles
I wash my hands after using the lavatory, before prepping food & when obviously dirty! My house is cleaned once a week and then surfaces only wiped as required. I do use a kitchen cloth but it soaks in a mild bleach solution overnight: my only regular cleaning rule! Any fish/meat contaminated surfaces (boards) go in the dishwasher. Don't always remember to rinse fruit!

DD used to get cross with a flatmate who was obsessed with constantly wiping every visible surface anywhere with a range of anti-bacterial wipes, but never cleaned the cooker, or moved anything on the worktop to clean under or around it and never ever noticed dirt and crumbs on the floor.

With you 100% Phoenix

M0nica - that is SIL too! Despite his OCD attitude to germs, he drops crumbs everywhere as he never uses a plate to eat bread etc. and never cleans the sink with cif after putting greasy stuff in the dishwasher - (arranged in size order ?) and never sweeps up crumbs or vacuums...... People are certainly strange ?

I think we have been cleverly manipulated into thinking that clean is no longer enough.
They must be laughing all the way to the bank!

Well, I live in anti-bacterial wipe free home and have every intention of staying that way.

It's all very well to say that germs don't cause allergies, but do all the chemicals we use harm our immune systems, causing allergies? When I was young I didn't know one person who had asthma or hay-fever. I know dozens now, included my two grandchildren who have a Mum who runs riot with the cleaning sprays. Babies are surrounded from birth by chemicals in nappies, wipes, feeding bottles etc. as well as cleaning products. I also hate all the air-fresheners, which make me wheezy when I'm in contact with them.
My five children kept me too busy to be constantly wiping and washing, and they have all grown up strong and healthy. I mainly use soap and water for cleaning and at 79 I rarely have even a cold or cough, and take no medication. I wash my hands before meals or handling food, and after dirty jobs, that's all. It works for me!

When we were children we often bought sweets on our way home from school. It we dropped one on the pavement we'd pick it up, inspect it for visible dirt (little black specks) - if it looked clean we'd eat it. Still alive.
I try to remember to wash hands after shopping due to hearing that trolley handles can be dirty but don't always do this. We need to build up some immunity don't we? Without going too far either way.

greengran, I have had allergies most of my life and I am 75. Most of mine are medication and skin related. My mother was not hygiene obsessed.

The hygiene theory of allergies has been shown to be incorrect in recent years. However, allergies have been associated with the rise of air pollution and, in particular diesel particulates in the air. They have also been associated with changes in intestinal biome caused by different food and eating patterns.

I would add my grandmother suffered from severe asthma, in the end it was the severe damage it had done to her lungs that made her prone to pneumonia and then made it difficult for her to survive that led to her death.

Until she was 50 she lived in Bermondsey at a time of coal fires and regular London smogs. She then moved a few miles further our, but still close to the Thames and, as I spent part of my childhood in the same area, I can remember the thick smogs that permeated the whole house and could last not just, days, but weeks.

I was at school with children with asthma and hay fever. Sometimes just described as 'summer colds'

MOnica I grew up in Liverpool, and remember how dirty the air could be, especially on a still day. My Mum used to complain about the smuts on her washing! We have different kinds of pollution now, especially, as you say, from vehicles. I don’t argue with you that some people suffered with allergies, years ago. I’m convinced, though, that the combination of being ‘too clean’, and the invisible pollution of all the chemicals in our lives, is having a bad effect on us.

M0nica there was a lot of pollution from coal and coke in the recent past especially in cities and consequently a lot of lung disease too. The smogs were horrible! Sometimes we forget that there was other illness! That said it does seem that more children, not living in areas of obviously high air pollution, have asthma / exzema. I do think indiscriminate use of chemicals in household items, toiltries etc & some blander weaning approaches etc. has contributed in some way to the problem.

When I was a child , we had a huge crescent shaped puddle about 20ft by 6ft) outside our house, we used to love to paddle in it in our wellies and sail boats etc.
I now realise that the puddle formed because the rainwater drain was blocked, but we survived.