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scared of cat poop

I don't recall for sure but how likely is it a stray cat could have gone in my backyard and pooped on my clothes like my socks? I examined my shirts and shorts by smell but don't recall my socks. I now have a fear that I overlooked cat poop on my clothes and I mixed them with other clothes. Furthermore, I fear touching stuff with cat poop and eating it.
a)how likely is it do you think I examined my socks too since I wanted to examine the clothes I left outside? I forgot for sure unfortunately.
b)if a cat pooped on my clothes would I have smelled it right away?
c) how paranoid do I sound? Im just concerned for my safety and everyone that lives in my house.
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Avatar universal
Mind you I still haven’t seen any cat poop on the brick part I laid it but I don’t know for sure.
Helpful - 0
134578 tn?1693250592
In what way is cat poop going to make "everyone that lives in your house" unsafe?

To answer your questions in order:

You probably did examine your socks, since you are clearly assiduous about examining everything else.

You would smell and see cat poop. It is not invisible, nor microscopic, nor liquid that would soak in. It looks like small versions of your own poop.

You do sound pretty paranoid. Your household is not endangered by cat poop.

Are you worried about cat poop giving you toxoplasmosis or just about it seeming really unclean?

If you are thinking of toxoplasmosis, please look up a reliable article on toxoplasmosis (such as, from a  health authority). You will learn some interesting things, such as:

- People can get toxoplasmosis, but not that often, and when they do, it is more often from working with their hands in the soil (it's a parasite that lives in the soil) or from eating meat that is cooked 'rare.' It is less common to get it from cat poop.

- Toxoplasmosis gives mild symptoms in people, sort of flu-like. I have owned cats all my life and always cleaned their litter box, and after forty years of this, I got an antibody test to see if I had ever had toxoplasmosis (because I wouldn't know, frankly. It might seem like a mild flu.) And guess what, after years and years of cleaning cats' litter boxes, I have NEVER had toxoplasmosis.

- The one time toxoplasmosis is dangerous to human beings is that it can be dangerous to an unborn baby. This is why pregnant women often tell their husbands that now, the husband has to change the litter box. People won't get it from you or your clothes.

- The parasite that causes the disease has to be swallowed. Say, a gardener gets some on her hands and then eats something from the garden, she might swallow it. It doesn't come from breathing it in, or looking at it, or smelling it.

- The parasite that causes toxoplasmosis in humans is NOT infectious from the cat's poop until the third day after the cat poops. If a pregnant woman owns a cat and she cleans the box every day, she is in no danger of getting the illness. If the poop is more than three days old, AND she gets it on her hands and puts it in her mouth and swallows it, that is the only way she could catch toxoplasmosis. But even then she might not, because -- the cat has to be sick with toxoplasmosis at that time. Just general cat poop might be gross but it is not toxic.

If you are worried about cat poop for a different reason, first of all, you should know that there is no other known disease that can come from cat poop exposure. And second of all, if it is just the grossness factor in your mind about poop, well, I'm sorry you're so upset about it. It might help to understand that cat poops are far less bacterial than human poops. This is because their digestive system is so short, there is not time in their intestine for them to develop as much bacteria as humans do in their poops. (This is why cats, or dogs, can lick their bottoms without getting sick. Their poop is not very bacterial.)

Good luck with your worries. You might want to look up "medical anxiety" and try to parse out the source of your fears on this particular issue.
Helpful - 0
3 Comments
The toxo is one concern. To be clear for a normal person eg an adult, how fatal is it? How possible is it he or she won’t exhibit symptoms?
The concern id have is the poop getting on my clothes and it touched something else in the house. Then someone touches it and unknowingly eats it.
When you ask "how fatal is it?" it makes me feel like you didn't read what I wrote. It is not fatal. It does not travel on clothes. It is hard to get, and if someone does get it, they feel like they have a mild case of the flu. Please google a knowledgeable article about toxoplasmosis and read about it -- knowledge dissolves fear.
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