PLEASE! for the sake of basic hygiene and manners

amother

Seashell

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 9:06 pm

If you're a host, can you please offer separate paper towels to each guest or separate hand towels to each person you host? Sometimes I want to bring, but it would insult the host. Also please don't stick your own fork or spoon into the serving platter, even if you just touch your piece. It's disgusting. And can everyone wash their hands with soap before eating? If you're a host, please keep liquid soap in the kitchen, I don't understand how people don't have soap in their kitchens. How do you wash your hands before preparing the food and cooking?

amother

Jetblack

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 9:10 pm

You are right.
How about people Cleaning after their dogs. Brooklyn is loaded with dog p---. It is disgusting and not nice that someone has to step into dog p--- with brand new shoes.
I have a neighbor, I don't know who though, somehow we have exploded dirty diapers in middle of the street, so when we have to cross the street you have to be careful not to step in it.
Am I OCD or what?

amother

Indigo

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 9:17 pm

amother wrote:

If you're a host, can you please offer separate paper towels to each guest or separate hand towels to each person you host? Sometimes I want to bring, but it would insult the host. Also please don't stick your own fork or spoon into the serving bowl it's disgusting. And can everyone wash their hands with soap before eating? If you're a host, please keep liquid soap in the kitchen, I don't understand how people don't have soap in their kitchens. How do you wash your hands before preparing the food and cooking?

With all due respect, you sound rather ungrateful as a guest. These people cooked and hosted you over Yom Tov and you repay their efforts by putting them down and airing their bad points in a public forum.

amother

Tangerine

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 9:17 pm

amother wrote:

If you're a host, can you please offer separate paper towels to each guest or separate hand towels to each person you host? Sometimes I want to bring, but it would insult the host. Also please don't stick your own fork or spoon into the serving bowl it's disgusting. And can everyone wash their hands with soap before eating? If you're a host, please keep liquid soap in the kitchen, I don't understand how people don't have soap in their kitchens. How do you wash your hands before preparing the food and cooking?

How about don't eat out if you are such a stickler for hygiene? Either appreciate your hosts or decide that you prefer to eat at home. You don't have to eat out.

And no, it's not basic hygiene that each person needs a separate towel to dry their clean hands on. It's basic hygiene to offer a fresh clean towel, which I'm sure most people do. And most people are not washing their hands with soap before eating when they've just come with clean hands from home. Why on earth do you need liquid soap in the kitchen when eating out?

amother

Burgundy

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 9:25 pm

amother wrote:

MRSA is one disease that is spread by not giving guests separate towels to dry their hands. When eveyone washes at once without soap you are creating prime conditions to transmit this infection which is resistant to drugs.

amother

Ginger

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 9:30 pm

Op, separate towels is a bit over the top, tbh.
washing hands with soap? Ok, but again, if people wash without soap it’s not unheard of and doesn’t mean your host isn’t clean.
Sticking used utensils into serving dishes is a no no tho.

amother

Ginger

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 9:31 pm

amother wrote:

Absolutely not. I literally have nightmares of p** after walking down some streets in Brooklyn. It’s positively, appetite-robbingly revolting.

amother

Burgundy

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 9:42 pm

amother wrote:

Not using soap means your host is not practicing basic hygiene. I know it is done in the community, but it spreads germs and is unsanitary.

amother

Apricot

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 9:46 pm

amother wrote:

I put out disposable hand towels. I can’t use towels at others’ houses. I use napkins to dry my hands.

amother

Apricot

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 9:46 pm

amother wrote:

If you're a host, can you please offer separate paper towels to each guest or separate hand towels to each person you host? Sometimes I want to bring, but it would insult the host. Also please don't stick your own fork or spoon into the serving bowl it's disgusting. And can everyone wash their hands with soap before eating? If you're a host, please keep liquid soap in the kitchen, I don't understand how people don't have soap in their kitchens. How do you wash your hands before preparing the food and cooking?

Um how about keeping soap in the bathroom. Don’t even get me started.

1091

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 10:33 pm

amother wrote:

We stockpiled washcloths and I put out one per guest in a basket for everyone to dry their hands. I cannot stand drying my hands after washing on a towel that is already damp.

There are times I would bring my own towel when I went away for shabbos because I knew the one in the bathroom would be wet.

So yes, I hear what OP is saying.

amother

Lemon

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 10:51 pm

amother wrote:

I think that’s a harsh overreaction on your part. She’s not airing their bad points in public, she hasn’t named them.

amother

Lemon

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 10:57 pm

amother wrote:

Not using soap means your host is not practicing basic hygiene. I know it is done in the community, but it spreads germs and is unsanitary.

I can top all that OP said. I was at someone’s sukkah for a meal and one of the guests had the most atrocious lack of manners I felt like vomiting. She talks with her mouth full and wide open, leans over into the personal space of whomever she’s addressing, spitting food in the face of whomever she’s talking to or sitting next to, doesn’t use a napkin, food all over her mouth, grabs all the main common dishes and got them filthy because her hands were full of mustard, etc. I don’t know how to tactfully tell the hostess that I don’t want to accept any more invitations to her house if that woman will be there which she often is. Yuch.

amother

Khaki

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 11:02 pm

amother wrote:

What does this have to do with the OP?

amother

Cerulean

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 11:03 pm

Honestly people (op, and the recent thread about the OP who's mother in law wasn't sanitary enough):
Chill out. Are people getting sick? The fear of the germs seems to be much stronger than the actual reality of contaminating someone with some horrible illness. Yes, hosts should do basic things like wash their hands before cutting up salad veggies. Are they scrubbing under their finger nails like you would? Don't look! Is it gross to pick out a pepper from the salad in the kitchen when no one is looking? I don't know, most hosts probably do it and nothing horrible happens. (obviously not talking about a host that has a cold/flu/something else). Kids eat off the floor all the time. People eat things a day or two past expiration. People forget to wash their hands. A lot. And more people than not are walking around perfectly healthy. It would be a different story if you were getting food poisoning or catching a cold from the host--but none of you are saying that, just that you are grossed out. So the solution to that is DON'T LOOK. If you need to bring your own towel, you are boarder line OCD. Germs don't hurt in the vast majority of cases, they build your immune system. Basic hygiene is showering every day or so, washing with soap after using the bathroom, rinsing produce/hands before prep, and not sneezing on your friends, and not leaving your house filthy (notice I did not say spic and span).

amother

Rose

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 11:05 pm

amother wrote:

If you're a host, can you please offer separate paper towels to each guest or separate hand towels to each person you host? Sometimes I want to bring, but it would insult the host. Also please don't stick your own fork or spoon into the serving bowl it's disgusting. And can everyone wash their hands with soap before eating? If you're a host, please keep liquid soap in the kitchen, I don't understand how people don't have soap in their kitchens. How do you wash your hands before preparing the food and cooking?

I would only eat at someones house if I wouldn’t mind drying my hands on their towels. Once you have an issue with someones kitchen towels, you really shouldn’t agree to be their guests.

seeker

Tue, Oct 02 2018, 11:25 pm

I dunno about separate paper towels - I think of it as a nice touch but above basic. However I do not understand the lack of soap. If it was one family then I would not even mention it in a public forum but I have seen numerous homes without soap by the bathroom sink, and the dish soap is in a large family-size regular bottle so I assume I'm the only one bothering to use that for my hands every time they need washing. I just don't get why otherwise normal, healthy people are living this way.