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The Prosecution: Her Argument

It's audible her gargling and expectorating from my room. It gives me a visceral reaction to it.

She has lived with Gina for two years, after they each experienced breakups and required a new place to reside. She’s fun and considerate, but what irritates Raquel at home is her tendency to clean her teeth around the house.

Gina has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and is frequently doing several things at once. Often she’ll leave her keys in the door, which Raquel is concerned about, or misplace where she placed her toothbrush in the morning.

Raquel will come home and see that Gina has placed it on the side of the kitchen counter after using it, which I finds unhygienic, because the kitchen is for cooking, not for oral hygiene routines. It’s where vegetables get cleaned and glasses are rinsed. It isn't meant to be where Raquel looks down and spots a bubbly residue of toothpaste sliding towards the drain.

In the bathroom, Gina has another bad habit – she hydrates straight from the faucet while brushing her teeth. Not once, infrequently, but multiple times a brushing period to clear her mouth.

She leans over, draws water directly from the tap, moves it around her mouth and spits it. Raquel can listen to the noisy routine from my room, and it triggers a strong response. I lie there and shudder. Why not just use a container?

I doesn't know if her mouth is touching the tap, but I doesn't want to know. That’s the identical tap I uses when she cleans her face and when I refills my water bottle.

I doesn't think her overreacting. It concerns hygiene, and acknowledging that shared spaces require shared standards. Brushing your teeth should be limited to the bathroom sink, and performed without turning the faucet into a communal water source.

She has said that she'll attempt to cease, but whenever I asks, she pauses for about a seven days and then carries on again.

Living with someone with ADHD is demanding at the easiest moments, but sometimes Raquel believes she uses it as an justification. Raquel isn't flawless, but if someone requests me to change something, I will try to take that on board. Gina could try a bit harder.

The Response: Gina's View

Living with ADHD is challenging, besides, the kitchen is not some untouchable food-only zone.

She states that Raquel is exaggerating and missing the context. Gina sometimes brushes her teeth in the kitchen sink, sips from the bathroom tap and leaves her stuff out of place, but this is just typical for having a mind like mine.

Gina reside with the condition, and that means becoming distracted easily. In the morning before leaving, I will clean my teeth at the simultaneously as putting on my shoes, or making her lunch in the kitchen because she is juggling tasks.

The kitchen sink has running water and drains just like the bathroom sink, and it everything ends up in the identical plumbing. It’s not, as Raquel thinks, some hallowed food-only zone.

Gina rinses the sink afterwards – I is not leaving saliva floating around. And, if anything, the kitchen sink probably gets sanitized more frequently than the bathroom. I also doesn't do this daily. It's only evidence if Gina leaves her toothbrush on the side, which I ought not to do but her mind forgets to put it back occasionally.

With the taps, lots of people drink from them. Gina grew up doing it. My brother and Gina would often clean our teeth like this. To me, it’s commonplace to clean your mouth out by drinking from the faucet. Using a glass every time feels like extra admin.

Gina does not put my whole mouth around the tap, I just kind of hovers, or angles the stream towards me and catches it. The way she imagines it, it’s like Gina am a feline with a bowl, licking it clean.

Gina prefers to rinse thoroughly, so she does take around multiple rinses, which might sound excessive, but it means my teeth feel clean.

Bathrooms are not aseptic laboratories, and microbes are everywhere. Unless she is sterilizing the tap each day, we are equally coming into contact with germs in the bathroom.

Coping with ADHD is difficult. Additionally, I might mention things Raquel practices that annoy me: everyone has annoyances, but Gina tolerates them because they share a home.

Gina cannot promise that I will change. I has tried not to walk around cleaning her teeth, but I continues forgetting.

The Jury

Must She Stop Brushing Raquel’s Complaints Aside?

Several believe that she should understand that housemates already share germs just by cohabiting. Sipping from the tap isn’t unsanitary – although she sucked on it – because the liquid is on the interior of the plumbing.

But it seems as if she believes her condition gives her a excuse. Gina should respect Raquel’s discomfort and try to change her habits. Also, rinsing after cleaning your teeth washes away the fluoride – you should just spit.

Some readers note that Raquel’s discomfort at what Gina sees as innocuous quirks is about beyond oral hygiene. If Gina changes her ways, Raquel will soon find issue with something else.

It seems as if this house-share has reached its limit. Gina is correct that in common areas we must make accommodations, but she is refusing to respect a valid request from her roommate.

It's less about cleanliness than about mutual respect of limits. Drinking from the faucet is acceptable, if there’s no physical mouth contact. But placing a toothbrush on the kitchen counter is gross – period.

If she can learn to work with Gina’s ADHD, Gina can show effort to change. Moreover, not washing after cleaning her teeth means Gina will retain the advantages of her toothpaste and address two problems in one.

Now You Be the Judge

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