Should My Roommate Cease Cleaning Her Toothbrush at the Kitchen Basin?

The Complainant: Her Argument

I listen to Gina gargling and spitting from my room. I have a instinctive reaction to it.

Raquel has lived with Gina for two years, after they both experienced breakups and needed a new place to reside. She’s fun and considerate, but what annoys her at home is her propensity to perform oral hygiene around the house.

Gina has ADHD and is often juggling multiple tasks at once. Often she’ll leave her keychain in the door, which Raquel is concerned about, or misplace where she put her toothbrush in the morning.

Raquel will come home and see that Gina has left it on the side of the kitchen counter after using it, which Raquel finds unhygienic, because the kitchen is for food preparation, not for oral hygiene routines. It’s where produce get washed and glasses are washed. It isn't meant to be where Raquel glances and spots a bubbly trail of paste sliding towards the plughole.

In the bathroom, she displays another bad habit – she hydrates straight from the faucet while brushing her teeth. Rarely, not twice, but multiple times a brushing period to clear her mouth.

She leans over, draws water straight from the faucet, moves it around her mouth and spits it. I can hear the entire process from my room, and it causes a physical reaction. I lie there and recoil. Wouldn't it be better to just use a cup?

Raquel doesn't know if her mouth is contacting the faucet, but I doesn't want to know. It's the identical tap I uses when I cleans my face and when she refills her water bottle.

Raquel believes it's not me fussy. It relates to hygiene, and understanding that common areas require shared standards. Brushing your teeth should be confined to the bathroom sink, and done without converting the tap into a shared drinking fountain.

Gina has promised she will attempt to stop, but every time I asks, she pauses for about a week and then carries on again.

Living with someone with ADHD is challenging at the best of times, but sometimes Raquel believes she uses it as an excuse. Raquel is not perfect, but if someone asks her to change something, she will try to consider it. Gina could try a little harder.

Gina's Side: Her Perspective

Coping with ADHD is difficult, and anyway, the kitchen is not some untouchable food-only zone.

Gina states that Raquel is exaggerating and ignoring the context. Gina sometimes cleans my teeth in the kitchen basin, drinks from the bathroom tap and leaves my belongings out of place, but this is just a part of living with a brain like mine.

Gina live with the condition, and that means becoming sidetracked easily. In the morning before leaving, I will clean her teeth at the same time as wearing her shoes, or making her lunch in the kitchen because she is juggling tasks.

The kitchen sink has running water and disposal just like the bathroom basin, and it all goes in the same pipes. It’s not, as she believes, some sacred food-only zone.

I rinses the sink afterwards – she is not leaving saliva lingering around. And, in fact, the kitchen basin probably gets sanitized more frequently than the bathroom sink. I also does not do this every day. There’s only signs if I leaves her toothbrush on the counter, which I shouldn’t do but her mind forgets to return it occasionally.

With the taps, lots of people consume water from them. I was raised doing it. Her sibling and I would often brush their teeth like this. To Gina, it’s commonplace to rinse your mouth out by sipping from the faucet. Using a cup each time seems like extra admin.

Gina doesn't put her whole mouth around the tap, I just sort of positions, or angles the stream towards her and collects it. The way she pictures it, it’s like I is a cat with a saucer, lapping it clean.

I prefers to rinse properly, so I will take around five chugs, which might sound excessive, but it means my teeth feel clean.

Bathrooms are not sterile laboratories, and germs are everywhere. Unless Raquel is sterilizing the tap each day, we are equally exposed to bacteria in the bathroom.

Living with ADHD is difficult. Additionally, I might mention things she does that irritate me: everyone has annoyances, but Gina accepts them because we share a home.

I cannot promise that I will change. She has attempted not to walk around brushing her teeth, but she keeps forgetting.

The Jury

Must She Stop Ignoring Raquel’s Complaints Away?

Several believe that Raquel should realise that she and Gina already share bacteria just by living together. Drinking from the tap isn’t unsanitary – even if Gina drank on it – because the water is on the interior of the plumbing.

However it seems as if Gina believes her condition gives her a excuse. She should acknowledge her discomfort and attempt to change her behaviour. Also, rinsing after brushing your teeth removes the fluoride – you should just expel.

Some readers suggest that her discomfort at what she sees as harmless habits is about beyond toothbrushing. If she alters her ways, she will soon find fault with something else.

It seems as if this living arrangement has reached its limit. Gina is correct that in shared spaces we must make adjustments, but she is refusing to accommodate a valid request from her flatmate.

It's less about cleanliness than about consideration of limits. Using from the tap is fine, if there’s no direct mouth contact. But placing a brush on the kitchen counter is gross – period.

Should Raquel can learn to work with her needs, Gina can show willingness to adapt. Also, not washing after cleaning my teeth means Gina will retain the advantages of the toothpaste and address multiple issues in one.

Now You Be the Judge

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