Britain's Bathroom Habits: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Everyone wants their bathroom to be in pristine condition, clean and comfortable without any unsightly dirt or other nasties. But keeping it that way can be quite the task.

But who (or where) works the hardest to keep their bathrooms looking their best and being their cleanest, and what areas need to up their bathroom cleaning game? A recent survey of the general public looked into the good and bad habits of people's bathroom cleaning routines to reveal what parts of our bathrooms get the most attention, and what parts definitely need some more love.

The Toilet

The privvy, khazi, loo, lav, whatever you refer to it as it usually springs to mind instantly when you think about the cleanliness of a bathroom. Thankfully though, half us clean our toilets at least once a week or every other day, with a fairly decent 27% of people claiming to give the bowl a good scrub daily.

However, some of the answers gathered were a touch more extreme with 8.1% of people claiming to clean their loos after every use, and to add Yin to the Yang, 3 people reported that they NEVER clean their toilet! Think about that for a minute! (unless you're eating your dinner)

The Bath

Keeping your bathtub sparkling and clean can sometimes be a task in itself, and it would be all to easy to forgo scrubbing the bath if you have a shower bath. Despite the work required to keep it looking at it's best, it seems that the majority of us are on the ball with keeping our baths clean. More than a third of responders claimed to clean theirs every other day with 75% saying they clean theirs at least once a week! 

1 in 10 said they scrub the tub once a fortnight but 6 people said they never clean it! Here's hoping they don't also live with the 3 people that never clean their toilet!

Northern Ireland and the South West of England tend to clean their baths more often than those in the north of England and Scotland, but it's the Welsh that takes home the gold with nearly a quarter claiming to clean their bath after every use!

The Shower

It could be because of the flowing water giving a sense of some sort of self-cleaning action while we're using it, but it seems the shower doesn't get the same TLC as the rest of our bathrooms. Every 2 to 4 weeks seems to be the cleaning interval for about a third of us, with a quarter making it a weekly job on the cleaning sheet. On the extremes, 1 in 10 people wiped their showering space down after every use, with just 2 people saying they never do it.

Regionally, the Welsh have the cleaned showers with 24% of Welsh respondents saying their cubicle was freshened up after every use. Interestingly, Northern Ireland seems to be less concerned with cleaning their shower as they are the bath or toilet with around 60% cleaning it between every other day and once a month.

Shower Screens

Shower screens aren't a cleaning job that everyone has to worry about but it can play a big part in the overall presentation of your bathroom. With this in mind, it would make sense that keeping your shower seen looking it's best would be high up on the cleaning jobs list.

Over half of us reportedly clean our shower screens every week, with a quarter giving it a polish every other day or so and one in ten of us cleaning the shower screen after every use.

You might be wondering "who are these people!?" and the answer is mainly central England, 15% of those surveyed there wipe their shower screen down after every single use. For the majority of us it's a weekly task, but for 2.4% of Welsh and 1.5% surveyed in the South West, its something they don't really bother with.

The Shower Curtain

When my fiancée and I moved into our first place it had a shower bath in the bathroom with a shower curtain, and I must say we were a bit guilty of neglecting to keep up with cleaning it. It appears we're not alone though with 15 respondents saying they never bother to clean their shower curtain. Thankfully most of us clean once a week or at least once a month, with some super scrubbers cleaning it every day of the year!

Across the regions of the UK, Northern Irelanders tend to their shower curtains every day, but most other places in the UK leave it for about a week or so.

The Bathroom Basin

The part of the bathroom that sees more action than most is the humble basin. Because of this it should be no surprise that a healthy 80% of us give our basins a clean at least once a week, with a quarter of those claiming it's a daily occurrence. The cleanest basins in all the land can be located in Northern Ireland (and by the looks of things, the cleanest bathrooms altogether) with 16.7% claiming to clean it down after every use and 27.8% cleaning theirs every day.

So there you have it, the clean (and not so clean) bathroom habits of the United Kingdom!