Jerry Seinfeld (character) - Cleanliness

Cleanliness

Jerry has an obsessive insistence on cleanliness and neatness.

• A girlfriend of his (played by Teri Hatcher) comments that "he would have made a great Nazi" because "everything has to be just so."

• In "The Pothole", Jerry inadvertently knocks his girlfriend's toothbrush into the toilet bowl, and after she uses it, he is unable to bring himself to kiss her. As revenge, she proceeds to put one item of his in the toilet without telling him what it was; a distraught Jerry, thinking it could be anything, ends up throwing away virtually every item in his apartment in panic. Upon learning it was the toilet brush, he reassures himself that it can be replaced (his girlfriend is later bombarded with toilet water following a plumbing accident in her bathroom, causing him to break up with her). Elaine says that in some instances, his cleanliness can verge into a serious disorder.

• In "The Outing", Jerry comments that most people think he's gay because he's "thin and neat".

• In "The Statue", he acts like a child at Christmas when he finds that his apartment is totally clean and that the cleaner cleaned the little area between the wall and the fridge; even going as far as noticing he 'de-coagulated' the dried soap from the around the nozzle.

• In "The Voice", he throws out a belt because it touched the edge of a urinal.

• In "The Butter Shave", he throws out a shoelace because it touched the floor of a men's room.

• In "The Couch", rather than have the cushion cleaned, he gives away his couch because Poppy peed on it due to his stomach issues.

• In "The Blood", when Kramer announces that he moved his blood from the blood bank into the building, Jerry panics until Kramer tells him that the blood is in his apartment. Jerry tells him that if any blood gets into his apartment he will "freak out". Later when Kramer's freezer breaks, Jerry freaks out again, checking his freezer for the blood, thinking that the bowl of jello and the jug or tomato juice is blood. Kramer proceeds to drink the juice, causing Jerry to freak out even more.

• Jerry is horrified when Poppy forgets to wash his hands after using the bathroom, and refuses to eat the food he prepared in "The Pie". His look is described like he had just "seen a ghost."

• While Elaine is talking to Jerry about a seemingly germaphobic woman in her office in "The Apology", Jerry starts meticulously cleaning a spot where Kramer spilled soda. Eyeing him, she comments that the woman (and by the look of it Jerry also) must be "probably one of those neurotic clean freaks."

• Jerry almost gets into a state of panic when he finds out that Kramer is not wearing any under shorts in "The Chinese Woman".

• During the course of events in the episode "The Limo", Jerry and George are misidentified as Nazis. Elaine remarks that Jerry is not a Nazi, "he's just neat."