Thanks for posting this. One of my "hot button" issues is when I visit friends and they don't have paper towels in the bathroom. Or they have a loose roll that has a habit of falling onto the floor at the slightest touch. Yes, cloth towels are a major germ-spreader. You don't know who used it last and if he/she got his/her hands fully clean before using the towel. Most of the apts I have lived in for the last 30 years didn't have a paper towel holder in the bathroom when I first viewed them. In all cases I either asked the landlord to put one in (which some did) or for permission to put one in myself. In one case the landlord was stuffy and asked me to use one of those things that sit on a flat surface with the roll vertical. Same problem with kitchens, a lot of them don't have a paper towel holder. This was especially scary when we had the brief shortage of flu vaccine in the U.S. earlier this winter, and they told us our first line of defense was to wash our hands often. The shortage is over, but things like this will happen again.

I agree that paper towels are worthwile in the bathroom and indispensible in the kitchen but there are some toilets which cannot accommodate paper towels and one should be forewarned that towels do not flush as easily as toilet paper and might cause blockage.