Don’t want to go into too many boring medical details, but we’re currently experiencing a pinkeye epidemic at this end, and I wondered if any of you Doper medical types had any hints beyond the usual–we’ve already got the “boil all the bedding, spray bathroom with Lysol, don’t share towels” part.
And here I thought all those ad campaigns about staph on bathroom surfaces were just Madison Avenue hype to sell more soap. My bad. 
My kids just had a bout with pinkeye about a month ago. The doctor just prescribed the same eyedrops we always use for it but didn’t give me any specific instructions on washing linens or anything. It’s my understanding that pinkeye can be caught anywhere at anytime… playing in the park, shopping carts, toys, etc. It is in the air. I don’t think there’s anything you can do to prevent it except wash your hands frequently to prevent spreading.
Maybe I’m wrong and you do need to disinfect everything. My kids have had pinkeye twice… the first time my daughter caught it from my niece and the second time it was just in the air and my daughter caught it, my son didn’t and neither did I. I didn’t do anything except put the eye drops in the eyes twice a day.
We evidently are having a major outbreak, 3 people in the family with related staph problems. We discovered during our fact-finding session (Monday morning quarterbacking) that the person whose chore it was to clean the bathroom has been cleaning the sink for the last year or so by just getting a dirty washcloth out of the hamper and wiping up all the toothpaste, hair, etc., and then tossing the washcloth back into the hamper (instead of using paper towels like she was supposed to). Evidently wet dirty terrycloth is an excellent incubator for staph germs, and normal laundering won’t kill them. The person who does the laundry did not know that the person who cleans the bathroom was doing this, or else she would have put a stop to it, PDQ. “If the paper towels were up too high, you should have said something, we would have found somewhere else to keep them…”
You may find it easier to simply use white linens/towels for the duration of the problem. These can be washed in hot watter with clorine bleach, which is quite effective, and is much more convenient than boiling
Be aware, however, that bleach tends to chew up detergents, too. Since I have to wear a white jacket and am exposed to countless pathogens and bodilt fluids from my patients, I’ve always done a double wash – once with detergent for clean, once with bleach for sanitation. It’s really no bother and I have the spiffiest whites in the hopital