Ok, now everybody does it, but it appears that the standard behavior for people when leaving a public restroom is to use a paper towel to open the door, so much so that now the janitors put a wastepaper basket just to catch these towels
Yet when I was younger I dont remember this happening as much
So – did this have a specific time period that it began? Or were people doing it ‘back inthe day’ – and if so, why dont architechs finally rig things so that people dont have to touch the doorhandles on the way out?
I do it but only started recently. And of course, only in public restrooms. I think it’s a good trend overall since door handles are a commonly “Shared” item.
I sometimes do it. Basically it depends on how much I trust the previous users of the place to have washed their hands, and how convenient it is based on the layout.
I’ve seen a couple of guys here at work do it in our work bathroom. Can’t recall ever seeing it more than 5 years ago or so.
Not sure if it is from the same place, but I remember being surprised relatively recently at hearing about guys using their elbow to flush the urinal. I think that was in one of those Everything I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten books. Well, maybe not all that recently, but certainly well past kindergarten for me!
In the culinary world, one common “procedure” for hand washing is to use a paper towel to turn off the tap. (Turn on, wash, dry, turn off w/ towel.) I can only speculate that this led to the habit of using a towel to open the door. Example (PDF).
As an architecture student, a simple solution to this issue is to design a bathroom with no user-operable doors, just a dog leg at the entrance for privacy. However, this solution comes at the expense of space (and money) which is generally more of a concern then mysophobia (not to mention the issues of air quality and noise). Motion activated doors might also work, but they too cost more then a simple door.
I do it, after observing guys come out of stalls and not wash their hands. I even read somewhere that if there’s no trash can next to the door you should drop your paper towel there as a hint. A Chilis I was in Saturday night actually had bathroom door that you push to exit, that works too.
As far as when I started hearing about it and doing it, I’d say 10 years ago or so.
IIRC it was taught as SOP to youngins during health indoctrination back in the 50s and 60s - so at least that long. I definitely recall seeing a hygeine education film from that era that taught exactly this procedure. Use your paper towel to dry your hands, then to turn off the faucet and tehn to open the door as you exited. I will attempt to find it for those who will immediately cry “cite!”.
Considering how many non-hand-washing people then go on to immediately press the elevator button or open another nearby doorway with a still-germy hand, towel-users are perhaps well-meaning but missing the point. You pick up germs from everywhere, but bathroom door handles just stick out in your mind because you see someone go from a stall to right out the door.
I work in a hospital and deal with many patients with severely suppressed immune systems, so I wash my hands frequently, use alcohol-based hand sanitizer now and then (with no added antibacterial agents) during the day, and avoid touching my face to cut out a lot of opportunities for infections to take hold.
It’s not just an issue of other people not washing their hands. Flushing a toilet will kick a bunch of germ-laden moisture up into the air of the room. So I assume every surface is covered in toilet germs.
I work in engineering environments, and I see this regularly. Anecdotally, I have noticed that the people who do it the most are foreign born. Indian and Iranian, moreso.
A lot of public facilities solve the problem by eliminating the doors. Entrance and exit are via a hallway that dodges around a privacy wall (a switchback, sort of).
My dad was doing it in the fifties and kept it up until he died, and not from anything he caught from a door handle, thank you. I’ve only seen it at work in the last year. And that’s the only non-dad sighting I’ve had.