When you have cloth bath mats, it is very important to keep them as dry as you can. This may seem like an almost impossible task since you only have the mats to keep your floor from getting wet. Their very function is to soak up the water on your feet when you get out of the shower or the bath. While you do not need to keep them from ever getting wet, you need to allow them to dry out quickly after this happens. If you do not, they could get moldy with time and need to be thoroughly washed. They could also start to smell very bad even if you cannot see any mold, and this smell could permeate the entire house.
To allow them to dry, you just need to clean up the room after your bath. Do not leave the mat in a pile on the floor along with your towels. Pick everything up and hang it up to dry. You can hang the mat over the edge of the bath, but this is not often good enough because air cannot move through it. You are better off to hang it on a towel bar or even on the curtain rod that runs across the front of the shower. This way, it can breathe and it can dry out.
