Preferences for washing clothing

Should FDH do their laundry separately or together with the household in general?


Please comment.

"i never minded either way... after all, the clothes are being cleaned...."


You may like to reconsider though for hygiene reasons. I've had nipple thrush a few times already and had to have my clothes washed separately to the rest of the family. All of my visitors wash theirs separately too.

Shouldn't any fungus (causing thrush) or bacteria be killed off in the wash? In any case I would think those are special circumstances. I don't see how washing our clothes with our helper's is unhygienic. My clothes are washed with my kids's clothes. How are the helper's clothes any different?


I'm with cara. I don't care either way but our helper washes her clothes separately.

Cara and axptguy38, I did a quick search of a few articles regarding washing clothes in washing machine:-


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The thing is, to kill off bacteria, you need to add bleach or you have to use hot water, not cold or warm. Unless all of your clothes can withstand "hot" water or can be bleached, I would assume that you have different settings for different kinds of clothes? These different settings are almost always lower than the standard "hot water" which can cause bacteria to spread. I have wool cycle, handwash, delicate cycle etc on my washing machine. For me, anyway, I'd rather that she washes her clothes in the machine in the settings suitable for her (same as my guests) and I wash mine in the settings suitable for my family.


For example, I know that with thrush, I disinfected ALL my clothes - woollen or not so I wouldn't pass on to other family members. My undergarments never get washed with theirs out of habit. And almost all the time my clothings with bleach go in first before my children's.


Great that you don't mind though but I don't think I can. I would think that most helpers do not wish to wash their clothings with our stained clothes/undergarments too.

This is a rather minor and personal matter, and depending on in which country/household you were raised, you probably have different habit/preference. Just to give an example, in my Chinese college, it's not considered appropriate to laundry panties/bras in the school laundry rooms (there were notices to that effect in the laundry rooms); those were supposed to be handwashed. That made me quite surprised when I saw everybody was laundrying their underwears in the public washers in my U.S.graduate school. A lot if not most Chinese people think it not hygiene to wash underwears together with outer garments (which may cause bacteria from outer garments to pass on to underwears and cause disease), and not appropriate to laundry ones' underwears in public washers as that may cause bacteria to pass from one person to another. There is truth in that those bacteria/fungi do NOT necessarily get killed by washing. For example, doctors often say some bacteria/fungi responsible for certain common female infection can be cleaned from clothes only by boiling the clothes.


All a long way to say to the OP that this is something you should feel free to stipulate what makes you comfortable, and whichever way you go does not make you a better or worse employer.

It depends on you if you want to mix your helpers clothes together with yours..But for me as a helper even my boss told me to wash together with their clothes but I will not attempt to mix with them..I washed it seperately..My previous boss she asked me if I have any clothes to wash, then shes the one get it in my room and mix together with them..I told her no need coz I will wash it seperately but then she continue and load in washing machine.But in my mind I want to washed it seperately..

Thanks for all the comments.