The Complainant: Her Argument
I listen to her gargling and expectorating from my room. It gives me a visceral reaction to it.
She has lived with Gina for 24 months, after they both went through separations and required a different home to live. Gina is entertaining and considerate, but what irritates Raquel at home is Gina’s tendency to brush her teeth around the house.
She has ADHD and is often doing three tasks at once. She tends to misplace her keys in the door, which Raquel worries about, or forget where she put her brush in the morning.
I will come home and see that Gina has placed it on the side of the kitchen worktop after using it, which Raquel considers gross, because the kitchen is for cooking, not for oral hygiene routines. It’s where produce get cleaned and cups are rinsed. It isn't meant to be where I looks down and sees a foam trail of paste dripping towards the plughole.
There, Gina displays a further undesirable practice – she hydrates directly from the faucet while brushing her teeth. Rarely, not twice, but repeatedly a brushing period to clean her mouth.
She leans over, sucks water straight from the faucet, swishes it around her mouth and expels it. Raquel can listen to the noisy routine from the bedroom, and it triggers a physical response. I rest there and recoil. Wouldn't it be better to just use a cup?
Raquel is uncertain if her mouth is touching the tap, but she prefers not to know. It's the identical tap I employs when she cleans her face and when I fills up her water bottle.
I believes it's not me fussy. It concerns hygiene, and understanding that shared spaces require mutual respect. Brushing your teeth should be restricted to the bathroom sink, and done without turning the faucet into a shared water source.
She has said that she'll try to cease, but every time I asks, she pauses for about a week and then carries on again.
Residing with someone with ADHD is difficult at the easiest moments, but at times Raquel feels she relies on it as an justification. Raquel is not perfect, but if someone asks her to change something, I does attempt to consider it. Gina could try a bit harder.
Gina's Side: Gina's View
Coping with ADHD is difficult, and anyway, the kitchen is not some untouchable exclusive zone.
Gina argues that Raquel is overstating and ignoring the full picture. She occasionally brushes my teeth in the kitchen basin, drinks from the bathroom faucet and forgets her belongings lying around, but that’s just typical for living with a brain like hers.
I live with ADHD, and that means getting distracted easily. In the morning before heading out, I will clean her teeth at the simultaneously as wearing her shoes, or preparing my lunch in the kitchen because I is juggling tasks.
The kitchen basin has water flow and drains just like the bathroom basin, and it everything goes in the same plumbing. It’s not, as she believes, some hallowed food-only zone.
I cleans the sink afterwards – she isn't leaving saliva lingering around. And, in fact, the kitchen sink likely gets cleaned more frequently than the bathroom. Gina also does not do this every day. There’s only evidence if Gina leaves my toothbrush on the side, which I ought not to do but her mind forgets to return it occasionally.
With the taps, lots of people drink from them. I was raised practicing this. My brother and Gina would often clean our teeth like this. To me, it’s commonplace to clean your mouth out by drinking from the tap. Filling up a glass each time seems like unnecessary admin.
I doesn't put her entire mouth around the tap, she just kind of positions, or tilts the flow towards her and catches it. The way she pictures it, it’s like Gina am a feline with a bowl, licking it clean.
Gina prefers to clean thoroughly, so she will take around multiple rinses, which might sound too much, but it means her teeth are clean.
Bathrooms are not aseptic environments, and germs are all around. Unless she is sterilizing the faucet each day, we are equally exposed to germs in the bathroom.
Living with the condition is difficult. Additionally, I could list things Raquel practices that annoy me: everyone has annoyances, but Gina tolerates them because they share a home.
Gina can’t guarantee that she will change. She has attempted not to move about cleaning my teeth, but I continues forgetting.
Reader Views
Ought She Stop Brushing Her Concerns Away?
Several argue that Raquel should understand that housemates already share germs just by living together. Sipping from the faucet is not unhygienic – although Gina drank on it – because the liquid is on the inside of the plumbing.
However it sounds as if she thinks her condition gives her a free pass. Gina should acknowledge Raquel’s discomfort and try to change her behaviour. Additionally, rinsing after brushing your teeth washes away the fluoride – you should just spit.
Others note that Raquel’s distaste at what she sees as harmless habits is about beyond toothbrushing. If she changes her routines, Raquel will quickly find fault with something else.
It seems as if this house-share has reached its limit. Gina is right that in shared spaces we must make accommodations, but Gina is refusing to accommodate a valid request from her roommate.
It's less about hygiene 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 unacceptable – period.
If she can learn to adapt to Gina’s ADHD, she can show willingness to change. Moreover, not rinsing after cleaning her teeth means Gina will keep the advantages of the toothpaste and solve multiple issues in one.
Your Turn to Decide
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