Public shower precautions

Van Living Forum

Help Support Van Living Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Patrick46 said:
GADS!!!

All this stuff is out to kill us!! I think I'll just lock myself in the closet and never come out again!!!


....(excet to take a shower!) :D

Dont do it!!!!!..............there's Dust mites in there!!!!!!!
 
yea while on board the ship or living in the barracks when we had community showers we always wore flip flops. usually the thicker sole ones to keep you higher off the floor.
 
Anyone who doesn't at least wear flip flops into public showers is crazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzyyyyyyyyy. Let alone going in with an open foot blister. I never even touch the floor with my bare feet when drying, dressing and such.
 
I must be crazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzyyyyyyyyy!!!! I don't wear flip flops or anything else. But I only go to places I trust--99% of the time it's a Loves, Flying J or Pilot. if I wasn't sure I probably would, but then I wouldn't use a place if I wasn't sure it was safe.

Yes, they are expensive, but if you shower with a "friend" it's half price! :p
bob
 
yesican said:
Best place to get MRSA is clinics and hospitals.  Can't tell you how many home care patients I've had who contracted MRSA after surgery only to be on IV antibiotics at home for 6 weeks.  One teenager contracted MRSA after injuring his toe and spent 2 months on antibiotics that required twice a week blood draws for monitoring the antibiotics affects on the liver.  If you need to go to a clinic or hospital, cover cuts and wash your hands any chance you can when there.  I can't stress it enough!

Great advice!
-AK
 
Bob, you're very lucky. Make sure your luck does not run out.

I have to agree, the truck stops mentioned are always clean and hygenic. None-the-less, I agree with GrayWhale, I never touch the floor with my bare feet........ anywhere!

Old wornout towels made a good mat to stand on while getting dressed.

Lifey
 
akrvbob said:
I must be crazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzyyyyyyyyy!!!! I don't wear flip flops or anything else. But I only go to places I trust--99% of the time it's a Loves, Flying J or Pilot. if I wasn't sure I probably would, but then I wouldn't use a place if I wasn't sure it was safe.

Yes, they are expensive, but if you shower with a "friend" it's half price! :p
bob

Haha, that's too funny, 1/2 price.

And it doesn't matter how clean the place is for the past 100 years up until 10 minutes ago when some average guy who's got athlete's foot just walked in, bare feet and left a glob of his fungus all over the shower floor. Now you've got athlete's foot.

Then there's staph, that's just on everybody's body. While MRSA can also be carried by average, healthy people.
 
The reason I trust them is I have been there waiting for my shower and watched them scrub the showers down. They treat them like operating rooms! What's going to happen to Flying J if word gets out to truckers that taking a shower there will give you athletes foot or MRSA? They'll drive right past to a Loves or any other truck stop. It would be a disaster and they aren't going to let it happen.

I've seen some that were getting a little old looking, but I've never seen one with a spot of dirt in it.

But, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Bob
 
all I'm gonna say... F public showers, F them very much. this whole topic is freaking me out, MERSA, and HPV, and god knows what else... I'd think about it for a week after using a public shower worrying every day if I got staph or whatever else.... no just no. rinse free wash and moist towletts till I can get my own shower either out of my van or at a motel (dont you dare talk about motels being no different!) or heck a pot of stove heated water while standing on a milk crate if I must... public showers... I AINT GOIN!
 
Blue said:
rinse free wash and moist towletts till I can get my own shower either out of my van or at a motel (dont you dare talk about motels being no different!)

Sorry, but motels aren't any better than chain truck stops, and they may be worse if the cleaners are lax. :p Bob made a good point on that, as truckers do talk.
I suggest carrying a bottle of diluted bleach and spraying down the motel room shower before use. I won't make suggestions about the bed, as motel beds and pillows squick me right the h*ll out.
 
ACH!!! I TOLD YOU NOT TO TELL ME MOTELS ARE NO BETTER!!!

lol... remember I work at a cheap motel, theres one thing I can say about that... mexican housekeepers love bleach, peroid. If I do check into a motel (I get huge employee discounts) I check in early, and always check the bathroom first, if that bathroom does not smell like it has been doused in bleach I would check out (havent been dissapointed yet.) far as the beds go, pull the sheets and check them, then check under the mattress between the mattress and box springs, thats where the bedbugs hide. if there are bedbugs you'll see them there. I had to take online classes on this, and... cleanlyness has nothing to do with bedbugs, somebody walks in with them and your hotel will get them, and all hotels get them from time to time. no way around it, only difference in hotels is the way they handle the problem once their there, some cheap ass owners will still rent rooms out when they have bed bugs in them rather than close out the room for a busy weekend. watch out for that.
 
One trip with a blacklight thru a motel room will send you running out the door at most of them. Pet urine shows up, as do bugs and other nasty stuff.
Bedbugs aren't all that easy to get rid of if your gear gets infested.
 
I don't think you can get bed bugs at a flying j shower. :)

Back in the early 70's I did about 3 rounds of the USA. I would go into an airport and get a shower for 50 cents. Thanks to the MIC we can't do that.
 
Zil said:
I don't think you can get bed bugs at a flying j shower. :)

FlyingJ/Pilot have been making big efforts to make the "travel center" more attractive to everyone. Their showers are attended after each use and they scrub the daylights out of them. Check out the cart full of supplies they are required to use each time. Shower shoes are still advisable, but I seriously doubt you're going to catch anything there.

:D Tho we have a good shower in our rig, we sometimes want a "real" shower with everlasting torrents of hot water and a bit more elbow room.
We go to FlyingJ/Pilot on the "family plan"....pay for 1 and we both go together. Its fun...and we enjoy some good old back scrubbin too :D

(sorry if this sounds like theft of services or something, but its just good clean fun.)
 
akrvbob said:
The reason I trust them is I have been there waiting for my shower and watched them scrub the showers down.

Bob, there's no way that you can be there by chance for every shower where they've just cleaned the showers, every single time. And if you're going in barefoot right after they spread all of that harsh chemicals around, then you must have leather for soles or something. It just takes one time and you're screwed. And I bet most truckers already have athlete's foot, so they wouldn't care. It's the staph that I'd be most worried about. Staph is on everyone and today may be your bare feet's lucky day.
 
Took my first pilot shower today, i didnt have shower shoes, just used towels and hoped for the best. It did look very clean tho and barely used..but then its a newer one.
 
next weeks post by Dazar

"my feet rotted off... I didnt know you could get fast acting leprosy from the shower"
 
No one mentions having a good immune system. And good vascular circulation. Many young kids between 10 and 25 have a wolverine healing system that can kill off a lot. Not as good as the wolverine but pretty good.

When get older and gain weight and age it's harder for blood and fluids in your immune system to get out there to extremities. Hard to Get out there fast enough to kill invasive nasty germs.

Advice: try to keep yourself skinny. Try to do some aerobic exercise like walking fast or something
 
but wait... fat people have more white blood cells than thin people, vs a whole other group of illnesses fat people have much more resiliance... and fat guys especially older fat guys can maintain an erection twice as long as thin people (mostly because of hormonal differences) wait... why am I talking about that?
 
Top