Brushing teeth in kitchen sink...

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I'm sharing a house with a few other students, and an Asian couple recently moved in. They have a habit of brushing their teeth in the kitchen sink.

I've had a few other Asian housemates who did this occasionally, but these guys do it routinely. Do you think this is appropriate? Should I say something?

 

In some cultures the bathroom is not used for oral hygene. Perhaps an open ended discussion to listen to both sides is in order....

 

If you start peeing in the kitchen sink, that should solve the problem...

 

Tell them to stop spitting in your sink! It might be cultural or whatever and it might be acceptable in their culture. However, they now live in a society where it's not acceptable to go around spitting in the kitchen sink...especially not in a shared household so they'll just have to bloody well deal with it!

 

Why would it be unacceptable to spit in the sink -- I'll admit I had Silvery's reaction at first as well -- seriously, you put cups and utencils that have saliva all over them in the sink why would spitting be worse? As long as they clean up afterwards ... who cares.

I've been in bathrooms (especially during my college days) that I would NOT want to brush my teeth in -- some I didn't even want to ... sit down in.

 

While not something I'd do, I don't quite see why there's a massive shout about it...

I've lived with people who have done much worse and made a communal kitchen hell to use. Including KEEPING the sinks full of filthy dishes and cutlery constantly. Using the microwave for storage and getting angry when people used it to actually cook food.

I'm pretty much in the habit of rinsing down a sink before filling it with water anyway, so maybe it's just me.

 

At least they're not throwing full slices of pizza, paper plates, garbage and dirty towels in there (I've had it happen!). I've had tons of bad roomates, and a little spit in the sink is something you shouldn't worry too much about. I'd take them over the smelly guy who showers once a month and doesn't wash his clothes, or the skanky girl who brings home a different guy every week, leaves a mess everywhere and throws her bra off wherever it lands. The 'borrower' who takes your stuff without asking and forgets to put it back. Etc.

I don't see a problem with it. I don't know what society you're in right now, but I believe in every man's right to spit in his sink! They live there too, I'm assuming, so it's only fair to accommodate their habits as much as they accommodate yours. I'd say if it really is truly bothering you and you feel like you're going to throttle them if they don't stop brushing their teeth in the sink... turn your head the other way and say a prayer that you don't feel the urge to retch every time they open their mouth (at least they brush!) An open ended conversation might help, but it might just cause them to feel unwelcome if simply brushing their teeth annoys you. Which would probably lead to a more uncomfortable living situation than you have now.

In the end, you know what kind of people they are better than us; if you think they'll listen and heed your word, go for it, if they're the type that would take offense and then dislike you; I'd say hold your tongue.

 

When you have a sink full of dirty dishes you clean it with hot water. When you brush your teeth most people just use cold. To me, that's the difference. There was a nasty outbreak of TB a few years ago that was mainly spread through things like spitting

 

It seems a bit odd, but I don't see what the big deal is. Depends if they are good house mates in all other respects, or whether this is the final straw in a long list of complaints.

 

... why is the bathroom sink any differnet from the Kitchen sink? in the Kitchen sink, most people use a bowl for washing dishes, in the bathroom sink, you use the sink itself to wash your face - if your worried about disease, your more likely to get it from the latter.

 

It must just be me but I always rinse the sink out with hot water after it's been used. Must just be me being neurotic!

 

Using a kitchen sink to brush your teeth sounds perfectly normal to me. It's not our fault you're not civilized enough to understand that in more populated countries people are sometimes in a hurry, and don't have the spare bathrooms.

 

My initial response was one of disgust. But as several people have pointed out, the bacteria in one's mouth can't be much worse than the nasty rotten food on dishes. One's mouth is also held to the rim of a cup, which is then washed in the sink. I guess it is a question of quantity. A visiting lecturer (dentist) once told us that the dirtiest part of the body was the mouth.

That's how it worked when I was growing up. However, as we rarely had guests, and I never went over to other peoples' places, I'm not sure what is 'normal'. That's why I am asking here. Apparently there is quite an even split.

Good point. And urination is a far more urgent act than brushing one's teeth.

It's a couple, so they usually go to bed at the same time. One occupies the bathroom, the other uses the kitchen. Which is strange, since we have a second bathroom.

What bothers me is that they are smokers, and have a godawful amount of phlegm. They hack, cough and spit a lot.

Yep, that's what worries me. If I'm washing dishes in there, I'm using hot water and detergent, so it's not such a big deal. However, if I want to leave food in the sink to defrost *shudder*.

 

Anyone who considers the kitchen sink a hygienic place to store or prepare food you plan to eat clearly doesn't care much about hygiene, so can hardly complain about a few toothpaste dregs.

 

I always use some sort of strainer when washing vegetables; and when thawing something out, I either leave it simply in the fridge or in a bowl of water. Perhaps this is why people seem to disagree so much: do the people who find it disgusting frequently have their food come into direct contact with the inside surfaces of the sink?

I come from a household which always had eight or more people living in it; 90% of the time the sink was full to the brim with dishes anyway. Mostly because it only took one day to become that full...

 

The kitchen sink would be a hygienic place to prepare food if animals did not see fit to spit into it, or at least cleaned it after doing so.

 

It's going a little far to degrade them as 'animals' (disregarding the biological truth of the claim). The kitchen sink would only be a hygenic place to clean food if, like Silvery, you wash it out with hot water every time you use it to prep meat or put a dirty dish/utensil in it. Smokers with lots of phlegm aren't very pleasant to hear or see when they spit, but they still must do it. Are they not even rinsing out the sink after they spew their mucus into it? Or are they rinsing it out with water and simply not 'cleaning' it with hot water and soap?

If they're not rinsing it out, then it's not the kitchen sink that is your problem, it's their hygiene in general and not rinsing out the bathroom sink would be just as bad.

Brushing one's teeth in the sink makes it no more 'filthy' than putting dishes in the sink. The spit with which we spit, comes from the same place as the spit which we put onto our utensils.

 

I don't think it's quantity at all. I think it's other uses of the sink. I mean, what do you use the sink for? Storing dirty dishes that, by definition, will be washed before they're used again? Filling a large pot with water that's about to be boiled (and only the bottom of the pot comes in contact with the sink itself)? I generally don't eat out of the kitchen sink, nor prepare food in it that won't be cooked before being eaten, so I don't know why spitting in it would be a problem.

That being said, if you have the bathrooms to spare, I do find it odd that they prefer the kitchen. Don't you generally want to see what you're doing when you brush your teeth?