I’m so dirty I should be dead!

I’m with MOnica and others. Shall we form a Mingers Club?
But one thing does puzzle me - how does my cutlery drawer get so many crumbs in it when it’s under the hob rather than a work surface?

After my Mother died I lived with my Grandparents from aged 3 to 7 years. They had no bathroom and no hot water and an outside loo. We had a tin bath and I had a bath and hair wash once a week in front of the coal fire in the dining room surrounded by the clothes horses with towels on for privacy and to stop draughts. We were never ill! No colds, coughs or tummy bugs. Perhaps today we are just too clean and do have a chance to build up immunity to germs etc. My grandmother lived till she was 98!

The less gadgets the better, spend more time cleaning them than they save,

Luckily I don't have a knife block and I do clean my cutlery tray as bread crumbs fall into it, but generally I am far from spotless.

I am a great believer that a bit of dirt does us no harm... It helps build our immune systems. The problem with children and allergies nowadays is because patents over do it with antibacterial stuff. Children's immune systems don't have a chance to strengthen....

I saw this quiz and wondered too how I’ve managed to stay alive for 78 years when I am such a slut ........

Good grief - the mind boggles. Consider myself extremely lucky to have survived 71 years in spite of all this fungal grot.

I have just brown off from reading this to clean my cutlery drawer. I don’t know how it gets all those crumbs.
I have never worried about my knife block. I wipe it down occasionally.
As many of you have said, nobody has ever got food poisoning in this house.
I ignore Best Before dates and have many items in my cupboards which are still fine.

I agree with you Monica, better things to do at this stage in our lives!!!!!

How we have ever survived this long I have no idea! I agree with Monica Until such times as we all take ill due to my unsanitary knife block I will carry on as I've always done That is to ignore the latest hygiene scare. I'm now 70 and touch wood have never had anyone in my family come down with food poisoning. As an ex nurse I am a bit OCD when it comes to cleaning anyway but this is a step too far.

Jallima1108, there does seem to be evidence that some Australians (especially fair skinned people) are now deficient in Vitamin D due to people becoming so much more careful of sun exposure but it does not appear to be related to the increase in allergies. We are all now so careful of children with sunscreen, sun protective clothing at the beach and wide brimmed hats whenever the kids go out in the sun in summer. We all know it is necessary but it has become such a palaver to get a bunch of (often reluctant) kids all wearing their rashies (UV protective swimming gear), all creamed up and hats on just to to play in the sand and splash in the water.

Being of the generation that used to sunbake (such an accurate description!) marinating in baby oil we have certainly changed our habits. These days with changes in the ozone layer the Ozzie sun really, really burns; it is now so much fiercer than any of us oldies remember. I really notice the difference in the European sun, it just seems so gentle in comparison.
Seem to have digressed a bit from cleanliness to allergies to sun screening. ?

Totally in agreement with Monica, and Baggs.

However, as I write I am laid up with nasty gut bug. Couldn't have written it yesterday. I wonder where that came from?

Never did any of this in the 60s/70s growing up -- didn't kill me then and won't do now either -- life's far too short -- agree with Monica

Over cleaning just another addiction.

Due to my being a paragon of virtue, I strenuously avoid it.

Clean enough is good enough, and your own germs are really not the threat that germs from other places are.

Haven't seen the test but am pretty sure I'd fail it having read some of the comments above. I liked the OP's heading and like her I have absolutely no idea how I am still alive or how our kids made it to adulthood. As my mom used to say, "You have to eat a bit of dirt before you die!" I always assumed she meant that kept your immune system strong. In my house important areas of hygiene are maintained but otherwise life is too short to obsess about such things.

Monica I wish Id written that! I agree complely!

Oh gawd....I am hopeless at cleaning. The only thing I am fastidious about is the cassette from my toilet (I live on a boat). I use half a bottle of Disinfectant and rinse it until water is clear when I empty it....

I was horrified to read about mould in cutlery blocks, so I took the knives out of my 15 year old knife block, shone a torch into each section and it's perfectly clean. Phew. Where did that rumour come from?

However I am always surprised how dirty the cutlery draw gets. The cutlery is always clean when put in, it's only open for the amount of time it takes to take out what I want, it's under the work surface, so how does it get in there?

The lice, fleas, bed bugs and worms that have long befriended me appear to have no problem with my personal hygiene.

I'm feeling almost saintly because I cleaned the cutlery drawer this morning. I then got a bit carried away and cleaned the condiment 'thingies' on the inside of the fridge door. Feeling virtuous ?

The other saying of DM's which contradicts the one in my post above was 'We eat a peck of dirt before we die'.

Somewhere in between the two sayings would seem to be the ideal.

There is such a thing as too clean. And our apparent obsession with cleanliness and germs is doing no one any favours, in my view. I even heard that some school children weren’t allowed to touch the snow...ridiculous. To be so terrified of ‘dirt’ is almost pathological in itself.

Remember the old saying 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness'?

Grandma2213 where do those mysterious bits in the cutlery drawer come from if it only has clean cutlery put into it?

And Apricity I wonder if the high rate of allergies in Australian children is also due to the 'Slip Slop Slap' policy and that children probably don't get enough Vitamin D to build up their immune systems?

Did the op get to the question in The Times about how often people washed jeans? Evidently some people never wash their designer jeans. They put them in the freezer. I'm not normally a freakerout but that did freak me out.

Some people equate uber-cleanliness with morality. If they clean everything more than their neighbour, then their logic says that they are a better person. That extends to the fad that you must regularly detox your gut - to some, clean insides mean clean-living, a principle probably fostered by a mother who pushed toilet-training too hard. I daresay psychiatrists have some technical terms for both conditions,
Sellers of cleaning products, inside and out, are happy to take advantage of them.

Another one with M0nica on this question.

I recall years ago when DCs were small we visited relatives, both of whom were scientists. Their home was/is always immaculate, no doubt due in part to the fact that as she gave up paid employment when they married.

Whose kids got gastro enteritis? Not ours....