You be the judge: should my housemate stop brushing her teeth at the kitchen sink?

1 hour ago 2

The prosecution: Raquel

I can hear her swishing and spitting from my room. I have a visceral reaction to it

I’ve lived with Gina for two years, after we both went through breakups and needed a new place to live. She’s fun and kind, but what annoys me at home is her tendency to brush her teeth around the house. She’ll do it in the kitchen sink sometimes, if she’s running out the door.

Gina has ADHD and is always doing three tasks at once. She will leave her keys in the door, which I worry about, or forget where she put her toothbrush in the morning. I’ll come home and see that she has left it on the side of the kitchen counter after using it, which I find gross, because the kitchen is for cooking, not for spitting. It’s where vegetables get washed and cups are rinsed. It should not be where I look down and see a foam trail of toothpaste sliding towards the plughole.

In the bathroom, Gina has another bad habit – she drinks straight from the tap while brushing her teeth. Not once, not twice, but four or five times a session to rinse out her mouth. She leans over, sucks water directly from the faucet, swishes it around her mouth and spits. I can hear the whole symphony from my room, and I have a visceral reaction to it. I lie there and recoil. Why not just use a cup?

I don’t know if her mouth is touching the tap, but I don’t want to know. That’s the same tap I use when I wash my face and when I fill up my water bottle.

I don’t think this is me being precious. It’s about hygiene, and recognising that shared spaces require shared standards. Brushing your teeth should be confined to the bathroom sink, and done without turning the tap into a communal drinking fountain.

Gina has said she will try to stop, but every time I ask, 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 I feel she uses it as an excuse. I’m not perfect, but if someone asks me to change something about myself, I do try to take that on board. Gina could try a bit harder.

The defence: Gina

Living with ADHD is difficult, and anyway, the kitchen is not some sacred food-only zone

Raquel is exaggerating and missing the context. I sometimes brush my teeth in the kitchen sink, drink from the bathroom tap and leave my stuff lying around, but that’s just a part of having a brain like mine. I live with ADHD, and that means getting distracted easily.

In the morning before heading out, I will brush my teeth at the same time as putting on my shoes, or making my lunch in the kitchen because I’m multitasking. The kitchen sink has running water and drains just like the bathroom sink, and it all ends up in the same pipes. It’s not, as Raquel thinks, some sacred food-only zone.

I rinse the sink afterwards – I’m not leaving spit floating around. And, if anything, the kitchen sink probably gets cleaned more often than the bathroom. I also don’t do this every day. There’s only evidence if I leave my toothbrush on the side, which I shouldn’t do but my brain forgets to put it back sometimes.

With the taps, lots of people drink from them. I grew up doing it. My brother and I would always brush our teeth like this. To me, it’s normal to rinse your mouth out by drinking from the tap. Filling up a cup every time feels like unnecessary admin. I don’t put my whole mouth around the tap, I just sort of hover, or tilt the stream towards me and catch it. The way Raquel imagines it, it’s like I’m a cat with a saucer, licking it clean. I like to rinse properly, so I do 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 bleaching the tap daily, we’re both coming into contact with germs in the bathroom.

Living with ADHD is hard. Plus, I could list things Raquel does that annoy me: everyone has bad habits, but I accept them because we share a home. I can’t promise that I will change. I have tried not to walk around brushing my teeth, but I keep forgetting.

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The jury of Guardian readers

Should Gina stop brushing Raquel’s complaints aside?

Raquel should realise that she and Gina already share germs just by sharing a house. Drinking from the tap isn’t unhygienic – even if Gina sucked on it – because the water is on the inside of the pipe. But it sounds as if Gina thinks her ADHD gives her a free pass. She should respect Raquel’s discomfort and try to change her behaviour. Also, rinsing after brushing your teeth washes away the fluoride – you should just spit.
Mark, 64

It seems as if Raquel’s distaste at what Gina sees as her harmless quirks is about more than toothbrushing. If Gina changes her ways, Raquel will soon find fault with something else. It sounds as if this house-share has run its course.
Caroline, 60

Gina is right that in shared spaces we must make accommodations, but she is refusing to accommodate a reasonable preference from her flatmate. This is less about hygiene than about mutual respect of boundaries.
Molly, 26

Drinking from the tap is fine, if there’s no direct mouth contact. But leaving a toothbrush on the kitchen sink is gross – end of. I don’t have ADHD, but I feel that Gina is using it as an excuse.
Thomas, 30

If Raquel can learn to work with Gina’s ADHD, Gina can show willingness to adapt. Also, not rinsing after brushing her teeth means Gina will keep the benefits of her toothpaste and solve two problems in one.Marianne, 36