Mandy PhillipsYou may be wondering if you can wash dishes in the bathroom for a number of reasons. Perhaps you live in a dorm or tiny house without a kitchenette, but there is an accessible bathroom sink. Or your kitchen may be undergoing renovation, and you don’t have access to a kitchen sink.
Regardless of your reasons or situation, if you need to know whether you can wash dishes in the bathroom, you’re in the right place.
Is It Safe to Wash Your Dishes in the Bathroom?
You might think that cleaning dishes in the bathroom sink, bathtub, or shower is a completely safe activity. But in fact, the biggest germ and bug population in the house is around the bathroom.
Unless you deep clean your bathroom on a regular basis, it wouldn’t be the most sanitary place to do your dishes.
Reasons Why the Bathroom Isn’t the Best Place to Wash Dishes
Think about everything that you do in your bathtub – washing your dirty feet or shaving. Now, you don’t want to wash your pans and cups there, would you?
But besides that, there are several reasons why your bathroom isn’t the ideal place to bring and wash your dishes.
The Bathroom Tap Handle is Seldom Clean, Often Not Sterile
Can you even recall when was the last time you gave your bathroom tap handle a spray of disinfectant and a good wipe? Probably not, and that means that your bathroom tap handle is most likely a place for germs and bacteria to congregate.
Although kitchen tap handles can also have pathogens, those in your bathroom are arguably worse.
If you wash your dishes in the bathroom sink, you are likely to transfer germs from the tap handle to your dishes since you are going to touch the bathroom tap handle somehow.
The Bathroom Sink Could Be a Home of Germs
It’s not just the bathroom tap handle that’s a real problem. The sink could also be a breeding ground for germs. Despite how nice and clean the bathroom sink looks, there are likely to be harmful bugs lurking on its surface.
Imagine the number and diversity of bacteria and germs that could contaminate your dishes from the bathroom sink. In addition, the bathroom sink is often located near the toilet, which is a breeding ground for all sorts of contaminants and other bugs.
The Shower Is Still Not a Great Idea
The shower seems like a good idea to wash your dishes in, but it’s also a likely breeding ground for bacteria similar to the bathroom sink. Remember that the shower is often damp, making it ideal for mold and mildew to develop.
In addition, you might end up dropping your soap, sponge, and other washing items on the ground as you try to wash dishes in the shower. And the bathroom floor is among the most conducive places for bacteria to multiply, second only to the toilet seat.
How to Disinfect Your Bathroom Before Washing Dishes
Yes, your bathroom isn’t the cleanest place for you to wash dishes, but it’s most likely because you don’t remember the last time you’ve given your bathroom some deep cleaning.
If your bathroom is the only place you can wash dishes, make sure you clean and disinfect it first. In addition to traditional cleaning methods, such as wiping and scrubbing bathroom surfaces, disinfection also helps in removing disease-causing bugs and bacteria that are not visible to the naked eye.
The bathroom sink is the best place to start cleaning and disinfecting so you have a germ-free space for washing the dishes in the bathroom. Here’s how to start.
- Spray a disinfectant over the sink. You can spray any disinfectant bathroom cleaner like Clorox or Lysol or a bleach solution over your bathroom sink. Leave the solution to sit for at least five minutes to kill the germs, then rinse and wipe the surface clean.
- Disinfect the faucets and handles. Your bathroom faucet could be a hiding place for microorganisms, so make sure that you disinfect it as well, including the handles and other hard-to-reach areas.
- Lastly, disinfect the toilet. Since the toilet is the main source of germs in the bathroom, you don’t want to leave it uncleaned. Disinfect the surface the same way you did the bathroom sink but supplement it with a toilet cleaner regularly as well to maintain its cleanliness.
Other Steps to Deep-Clean the Bathroom:
- Degerm the bathroom vent
- Spray the bathroom walls and ceiling with an all-purpose cleaner
- Brush and scrub the tile grout and refresh dingy grout if necessary
- Clean the shower curtain or doors
- Descale bathroom fixtures: showerheads, faucets, drains
Lastly, don’t forget to keep your bathroom cleaning tools clean as well. That includes your toilet brush which could easily become a breeding ground for germs and bacteria. You can clean your toilet brush by soaking it in soapy water with bleach for a couple of minutes and remember to dry it before storing it away.
