Friday 19 September 2008

OverRated: Toilet Brushes

Reading Peachy a couple of weeks ago, her piece on Lunadiesophobia referred to the disgusting phenomena of the toilet brush.

"The plumbing system tops it. The hundreds of times I've had to brave the ladies to escape the bored to tears monotony and obey my pressed on bladder, I have gagged and had to stuff my sleeve in my mouth and up my nose because there is always a floater in either one of the two loos. And some people have seemingly tried to get rid of them with the brown stained loo brushes - on perhaps several occasions - but have clearly failed and left the sticky shit clinging to the brushes and the brushes rotting in the corners of the bathrooms."

I couldn't have put it better than that.

I also recall a coffee morning when my children were part of a regular mother/toddler group that met at each other's houses weekly.

The gathered offspring were all about four and had disappeared off to the host's child's bedroom upstairs. And it had all gone horribly quiet.

I went off to investigate and discovered them gathered around the toilet, just as one of them had definitely removed the brush from a position very close to its mouth...

Ewwwwwwwww!

My toilet brush is there to clean the U bend with limescale remover, not persuade floaters to move along, but I still bleach it regularly just in case someone else uses it for that purpose.

Celebrity cleaner, Aggie, definitely advises not to have one at all. She says it is far better to don a pair of long sleeved rubber gloves and a disposable cloth to clean that area of the lavatory and then throw it all away afterwards. Sadly, I have enough trouble getting regular non-latex rubber gloves, let alone ones with sleeves that come up to my armpits. Therefore, the toilet brush has to stay.

But it is on sufferance.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

i put mine in a bowl filled with water+chlorox, and i change the water weekly

PS identity is: delightedslave, probably used the wrong password!

Kevin Musgrove said...

It would seem to be a waste of non-latex, arm-length rubber gloves...

Anonymous said...

Ugh. Yes. It's odd how some people live, innit?

Ms Scarlet said...

What I hate is when the brush gets coated in soggy toilet paper from the bowl after inappropriate usage . . . ugh . . .
Sx

Alex said...

That'll teach me to read your blog just before I eat. And now I can't get Brad Pitt out of my head from that scene in fight club ... LOL

Riff Dog said...

Didn't the toilet brush have the federally required warning label, "Not to be used orally?" Or maybe the toddlers just read it and ignored it, thinking that rule didn't apply to them!

Uppity toddlers . . .

BenefitScroungingScum said...

Boots do great latex free disposable gloves, they come in packs of 10 for about £2 I think ;)
BG x

Kevin Musgrove said...

When I first moved into my house I had to redecorate top to bottom (everything was in Direct Works Magnolia that hadn't been cleaned in a decade). That was how I discovered that I'm allergic to non-turpentine paint thinners, which meant that if I wanted to keep the skin on my hands I had to wear protective gloves.

Which is how I know that the young girls in Boots think that middle-aged men buying latex gloves are bigger perverts than young men buying KY jelly.