Students 'slip back to squalid era'

A poll of more than 100 students found this year's freshers will be anything but fresh, with male undergraduates admitting they only wash their pants once a fortnight and wear socks an average of four days before throwing them in the laundry.

Women aren't much better, on average they wash their bras just six times a year.

But the survey, commissioned by cleaning experts Dr Beckmann, also found students don't have much underwear to wash in the first place.

The average male student owns eight pairs of pants, while women own 12 pairs of knickers.

And like the unwashed students portrayed by Rik Mayall and friends in the hit 1980s BBC sitcom The Young Ones, more than half of male students admit to masking less-than-fresh clothes with deodorant and aftershave.

Almost two thirds of male students will arrive at university without knowing how to work a washing machine.

While seven in 10 students said lack of time was the main reason why they do so little washing, more than eight in 10 (81%) admit to lying in bed past midday at least twice a week.

Dr Beckmann spokesman Steven Simpson said: "It's clear that while they are happy to massage their grey cells at university, most students will also happily exist in dirty, grey underwear too."

He added: "We were shocked by the findings of the survey but I guess when our teenagers head off to university their priority is making friends and socialising, not cleaning their underwear."