Here in the U S a common sight in public toilets is a dispenser of toilet seat covers, a large tissue* sheet to lay over the seat so your butt and the toilet seat don’t come in contact. Sometimes some wag will scrawl Ass Gaskets on the container, or during election season <Candidate> campaign hats.
The question I have for our non-American dopers is, do you see such things in your country, or is this unique to us with our cleanliness fetish? The site linked to above is doing a bit of fearmongering. At least one study demonstrates that toilet seats aren’t the dirtiest objects around.
*The thin present-wrapping type, not the fluffy nose-wiping type.
Given what some participants in the thread about Indian culture had to say about the North American ‘dry wipe’ system of cleaning after defecation, I’d say that the toilet seat is the least of our worries. We’d be better off installing moist towelette dispensers…
I’ve never seen them anywhere but the US and I’ve been all over Europe as well as parts of South America, Africa and Asia. I think Americans are just more germaphobic than everybody else.
I’ve seen them here in the UK, but it might have been in a place with a high throughput of international visitors, such as an airport or the lounge/bar toilet of a hotel near an airport.
I’ve seen 'em in Mexico, but only at American owned plants.
Personally, I hate 'em, and maybe my big trasero has something to do with it? They stick to my butt and impede the cleanliness portion of the routine. I’m not sure what to do with the portion that goes between the break in the commercial seat. Is it to protect my junk from contacting the rim? For me it prevents the #1 portion of the combined #1 and #2 function of the commode.
I take the following approach when feasible: make sure no one’s in the restroom, grab some paper towels, wet 'em in the sink, and wipe wet and then dry. Forget those sanitary liners.
And that is why I really hate those electric hand driers. Doesn’t take much to rip them off the wall, but then you find out the GD cord is too short to reach the toilet!
This should be separated from the outer circle, except for the back side that isn’t perforated. It should dangle into the water. This will pull the “gasket” into the toilet when you flush, without you having to touch it with your hands.
If the toilet is so bad I won’t sit on it, I should trust the magic of *tissue paper * to keep me safe?
I’m not a germophobe, but I’ve always had a disgust for public restrooms, particularly the kind where they’re really available to the general public. This excludes restrooms that are only used by a handful of people…they tend to keep them pretty clean.
I’ve seen some pretty disgusting sights in places where a person figures that they’ll never have to go in there again, so why not shit all over the floor.
I don’t worry about coming into contact with germs anywhere else, but in a public restroom, I generally won’t touch anything and will even hold my breath before entering if I suspect it’s going to be really bad.
Anyway, in 34 years, I’ve avoided sitting on public toilet seats except for in one instance when I was on a non-stop cross country trip. I happened to find a really clean restroom in a truckstop and on top of it, they had the toilet seat liners. So I figured I’d better take the opportunity to do my business there.
This all leads up to: the toilet seat liner wasn’t tissue paper or anything like tissue paper. It was more like a really light waxed paper or even maybe plastic coated like those really thin plastic grocery bags. Obviously, it has to be somewhat waterproof in case there’s drops of something on the seat so those drops won’t soak through and get onto the user, but light enough that it won’t form a big wad in the plumbing and cause a clog. I wouldn’t want to use something like that on a residential type toilet, but those high-powered public toilets seem to be able to get just about anything down them. Also, as far as I could tell, the little flap is supposed to hang down in the back, not the front (the part that draws the whole thing down into the toilet when you flush). I think there was even instructions on the dispenser that showed a diagram.
Yeah, exactly. I’m more concerned with stray pee pee drops than germs anyway.
I’ve actually seen one useful solution to the issue, but only in the Wegman’s (super-dupermarket) bathroom. They have a little dispenser with some sort of spray cleaner. Spray some on some TP, wipe the seat, voila! I’m not germophobic at all, but it’s nice to actually have a clean seat. I don’t bother with assgaskets, but I do use that spray cleaner.
Last time I used a toilet at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, it uses a “sausage” cover around the rim. It automatically cycle through every time the toilet is used.
Worst of all is someone who improvises their own gasket by laying down lengths of toilet paper, and then leaves them there. I understand that my university (where I most often see the after-effects of this ritual) is a somewhat international institution and premade gaskets are vanishingly rare in Quebec, but yeesh.
I hate those! The plastic or whatever they’re made of has a weird sticky-slick feeling. I don’t see why I should have to be annoyed by other people’s germophobia.
Also, the ones I saw did not cycle automatically, but had a button you could press to make it cycle. There was a sign by the button, but I can’t remember now whether it said to press the button before or after use. I wonder how many of those covers are wasted by people pressing the button both before and after they use the toilet.
So that how it works! I was having the hardest time imagining it… I thought it had to rotate crosswise to the rim, towards the centre or something, and was wondering, did it go in the water or what?
Needless to say, I have never ever seen one of these autogasket toilets in real life.
I’ve seen such things occasionally in Norway, but they’re by no means common. The latest fad is wall mounted sanitizer spray to be used with toilet paper.
Yeah, what’s with that? Who in their right mind decides to take a dump all over the seat or whatever. Is it drunks? Druggies? Nihilists?
I recall an episode of the 1980s British Comedy The Young Ones where they’re on a train and Vivian says “right, I’m going off to stuff loads and loads of toilet paper down the toilet” and the others look at each other and say “I’ve alway wondered who did that.”
Anyway, I have seen one sausage plastic dispenser in Ireland but it was broken. I have seen the waxy paper things in airports, but can’t recall having seen them anywhere else.
