For those who change their linens weekly - Poll Added!

amother

Eggplant

Mon, Oct 03 2022, 12:41 pm

amother RosePink wrote:

Honestly I can't imagine not changing linens every week - that just seems like basic hygiene.

That said I don't wash the duvet cover every week because fabric that lies on TOP of you - at least in terms of how I think - gets less filthy than something that people lay DIRECTLY on. That is assuming that one uses basic cleanliness getting into bed like not having filthy feet or wearing dirty clothes, shoes etc. Also I have markers so that my quilts are always facing the same way so I don't have the end that covers feet changed to the end by the face.

I have had the misfortune of seeing a sheet that wasn't changed for awhile and it isn't a pretty sight as it turns yellowish just from normal body fluids - not dirt. Yes obviously it takes a bit of time for you to see it but just because you don't see it, doesn't mean that it isn't filthy.

I will chalk this up to different standard of hygiene like not having soap in the bathroom; having communal hand towels and not feeling that washing hands is important.

Wrong. We have soap in bathroom and kitchen. We wash our hands all the time. There’s no correlation. We just don’t change the linen weekly.

watergirl

Mon, Oct 03 2022, 12:43 pm

amother RosePink wrote:

Please humor me. Who changes your linen?

amother

RosePink

Mon, Oct 03 2022, 12:43 pm

amother Eggplant wrote:

Wrong. We have soap in bathroom and kitchen. We wash our hands all the time. There’s no correlation. We just don’t change the linen weekly.

I didn't claim that there was a direct correlation so that if you didn't change your sheets weekly you also didn't do any of the other poor hygienic choices or vice versa - only that on imamother I learned that there are people who don't follow what I consider to be basic elements of hygiene.

watergirl

Mon, Oct 03 2022, 12:51 pm

amother RosePink wrote:

I will chalk this up to different standard of hygiene like not having soap in the bathroom; having communal hand towels and not feeling that washing hands is important.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here regarding communal hand towels. Are you saying that a communal hand towel is as unhygienic as not washing hands after using the bathroom?

keym

Mon, Oct 03 2022, 12:52 pm

watergirl wrote:

Please humor me. Who changes your linen?

Its more than just who changes the linen.

I had a cleaning lady 3 hours a week. She was doing bathrooms, vacuuming, washing floors. It freed up some of my energy to do linen washing every 10days-2 weeks. (I remove linen in the morning, wash, and put it right back on beds clean before bed).
My cleaning lady left a few weeks ago. Now, my energy is focused on bathrooms and kitchen floors, and linen just moves much lower down on my priority list.

Chayalle

Mon, Oct 03 2022, 12:58 pm

amother RosePink wrote:

Um, I don't lay directly on my linen. I wear pj's.
As such I don't see the difference between sheet and duvet cover. (you could sell me on pillow case)

I don't see linen changing on a biweekly basis vs. weekly, to be like people who don't have soap in the bathrooms and don't consider handwashing important.

What kind of towels do you have in your home, if I may ask?

(I have communal towels, but they get changed/washed frequently. Especially if we have guests/non-family-members using them - then the whole bathroom gets wiped down - in addition to its regular cleaning of course.)

amother

RosePink

Mon, Oct 03 2022, 1:00 pm

watergirl wrote:

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here regarding communal hand towels. Are you saying that a communal hand towel is as unhygienic as not washing hands after using the bathroom?

Yes - of course a communal hand towel is unhygienic. Who knows what actually went on with that towel. I NEVER wipe my hands on a cloth towel that is in someone's bathroom. If necessary I shake y hands and then blot with toilet paper for the dampness/

There should either be disposable towels or a stack of inexpensive cloth towels in a basket or on the counter. I bought a load of cheap white washcloths from amazon and they are perfect.

amother

Eggplant

Mon, Oct 03 2022, 1:03 pm

amother RosePink wrote:

I hear you. I think it’s how we grew up. I didn’t grow up with cleaning help and my mom changed the linen every other week but she was home and lived in a house with laundry. I work BH full time and don’t have laundry in my apartment. In terms of time and resources, I have a lot less. Aiming to change linens more often is not on my radar and I don’t feel my life is currently lacking or would improve if I changed it more often

watergirl

Mon, Oct 03 2022, 1:05 pm

amother RosePink wrote:

Ok.

So who changes your linen?

Reality

Mon, Oct 03 2022, 1:14 pm

watergirl wrote:

I would be more interested to see a poll so we can see out of those who change their linens weekly, who does it themselves vs. who has their cleaning help do it for them.

I am willing to bet money most of the people who change their linens weekly do not change them. They have it changed for them; it would be more accurate to say they have it changed, not they change it.

Once you have to add this to the list of chores you do yourself, I believe most (not all) people put this at the bottom of the list.

I am the one in my house changing my linen, so I do it when I need to. But I teach my kids how to do their own linen and laundry in general so when my kids need to... they can do it with some privacy if you know what I mean.

I have zero cleaning help and wash my linen almost every week. I let plenty of things slide but for me, the best feeling is getting into bed Friday night with clean sheets.

I use flat sheets instead of duvets so it makes making the beds a much easier job. It's also my DH's job to make the beds in our room, my older kids do their rooms and I help the younger kids.

amother

Banana

Mon, Oct 03 2022, 1:42 pm

My mother changed them weekly even when she had to wash them by boiling them in a cauldron on top of the stove and stir them with a sawed-off broomstick. You're supposed to change your linens for Shabbos, so that's what we do. When she couldn't afford enough linens to change everything weekly, she put on a new top sheet and pillowcase and took the old top sheet and put it down as a bottom sheet. Fitted sheets were first invented only in 1959 and didn't become popular right away, so Mom had only flat sheets right through the 1960s and even early 1970s, though by then B"H she could afford enough linens to go around. Given what I just said, it should be clear that Mom did the work herself.

I change linens weekly. You have to make the bed anyway, so why not make it up with fresh sheets? IDK, maybe if I had ten kids, I'd change linens less often, but what I think I'd do is simply wash a couple of sets every day so that by Friday they'd all be washed and ready to use. OTOH if I had to shlep to a laundromat blocks away, maybe not. Also, if I had ten kids, unless I had quintuplets, the oldest would presumably be at least ten or twelve years old, which would mean that four or five kids would already be making their own beds. My kids were making their own beds by the time they were five or six, possibly even younger. I wasn't looking for military perfection at that age, just a basic skill that would hopefully improve over time.

Even if a person bathes right before bed every night of the week, bedding is treated overnight to a hail of sweat, hair, skin cells and other things that are better not mentioned and that nourish dust mites.

amother

Eggplant

Mon, Oct 03 2022, 1:47 pm

amother Banana wrote:

I hear how your mom endured hardships to achieve this goal. I’ve never learned to change my linen for shabbos but since it would require leaving several hours early from
Work on erev shabbos to get that done, I wouldn’t even if it was something I was taught

nicole81

Mon, Oct 03 2022, 1:53 pm

amother Birch wrote:

And who washes all those hand towels daily?

We go through 20-40 washcloths a day and do a load at least 4 times a week. I don't understand what's so difficult. We have a small pail in each bathroom. It takes 5 min to collect them and throw into our machine. Two min to throw them into the dryer, and about 8 min to fold and put away. My husband puts it up half the time before leaving the house in the morning. It's funny when I get alerts during the days from my Samsung app that the washer is finished, I know there's less to do when I get home 😁

But then again, I don't understand what's so hard about doing the beds either. Doesn't take much time when you teach your kids to do it themselves. If a mother is doing ten beds herself, there's something wrong imo.