Kayt Turner: ‘Like all addicts, I have to confess it makes me feel far too good for me to ever want to stop’

I’VE found myself doing it again. After I was caught in the act the last time, I was made to take a solemn vow that I wouldn’t do it again. But I’ve broken my promise. My head hangs in shame. I know I can’t help myself and I obviously have a problem. But, like all addicts, I have to confess it makes me feel far too good for me to ever really want to stop. What am I talking about? Smoking? Pah – gave that up easy peasy. Once I quit, I never looked back. Drinking? Yeah, right – like I’m ever going to voluntarily give that up again. Al fresco amour? Er, let’s not get into that, shall we?

I am in fact talking about my obsessive compulsive behaviour when I use someone else’s bathroom. Not the rifling through the medicine cabinet – that’s never going to stop. But then again, that’s maybe because I haven’t actually been caught. And, while people might have their suspicions, they haven’t been able to prove anything.

Nope, it’s my need to tamper with their toilet tissue. Don’t worry, I don’t eat it or restack the rolls or even interfere with the skirts of their crinoline lady. You see, when someone has their loo roll placed so that the paper comes from the back of the roll (or as I like to call it, the wrong way) I like to – well have to – put it right. I don’t necessarily see it as interfering. It’s more an act of kindness really, don’t you think?

It’s the same with dishwashers. Now, I fully appreciate that everyone in the world stacks their own dishwasher their own particular way – and I also know they consider that way to be the right way. They are, however, wrong. My way is the right way. It’s also, I have found, the safest way. When we visited the Von Trapps last month, I went so far as to throw away the cutlery guide that was in their machine and put the fear of God into the kids about deaths in the home caused by incorrectly stacked dishwashers.

Now, you may well think that this is just me charging on through life convincing myself that I – and I alone – am right while the rest of the world blunders on in the darkness. Truth be told, you couldn’t be more wrong. I know fine well that I’m not always right. In fact, there was a time when I thought I was wrong – but I turned out to be mistaken.

I know the pain my obsession causes. I have occasionally been on the receiving end of people who think that they are right and that I (gasp) am wrong.

As if. Really, just how deluded are these individuals? We used to have a cleaner who disagreed vehemently with how we arranged our personal effects – where candlesticks were placed and which family photographs were put where, that kind of thing. So, she took it upon herself to put them back where (she considered) they were meant to be.

Every Thursday she would come and rearrange all the items on the mantelpiece and change our distribution of cushions and throws. We had to let her go when we worked out that the couple of hours we were spending putting things back where we wanted them was longer than we would spend if we just did the cleaning ourselves.

But as for anyone who thinks I learned my lesson from this experience and have ceased forever my, ahem, toilet habits? They couldn’t be more wrong.