For some time now, I have been finding poo in the men’s toilet at work. I guess it’s better than finding it on the floor, but I don’t understand why the guy isn’t flushing.
I use the same toilet, so I know the flusher works. It has a large tank and it never gets jammed – even when there is a lot of paper.
Anyway, most of the time I find small “cling-on” style poos at the bottom of the bowl. Other times the bottom of the bowl is merely streaked (even though another flush always cleans the bottom of the bown completely).
However, what got me writing this post is that I found actual poos in there yesterday! Small poo, mind you. But poo nonetheless.
I have been trying to postulate an explanation for this behvavior. For instance, maybe the guy thought he flushed, but there wasn’t enough water the tank and the poo never went down. But that doesn’t explain why there was no paper in the bowl. If I poo, I wipe. Where the heck was the paper in his bowl?
I can’t figure this out. I think I know who is doing it. He seems otherwise normal, although he is a bit annoying often.
Is not flushing a sign of some crazy mental disease? Is this the sign of a serial killer?
Sometimes a couple poos float to the top, and escape the pull of the flush, which gets the paper and everything else. The only option is to wait for the tank to refill and give it another flush.
But I use this toilet all the time. It always pulls down everything. Let’s assume this guy 'aint flushing. Any ideas why? Is this passive agressive behavior?
There are apparently a lot of people who don’t flush in public restrooms. I’m not sure why…maybe they like leaving a mark on the world…maybe they enjoy the idea of people looking at and/or being disgusted by their poop.
On a related note, my mother used to manage an apartment complex. She mentioned something odd she noticed…whenever she inspected an apartment that had just had black residents move out, there was poop left in every toilet. She said she could only think of one exception, and it was a medium-sized complex that she managed for several years. She said that apartments that the former residents had cleaned prior to moving and were otherwise left spotless still had crap in the toilets.
She had an interesting interpretation (she’s pretty anti-racist, so she was trying to think of a non-offensive explanation for this) - she thought maybe it was some kind of tradition, that maybe they felt that if you left your poop in the toilet, you would leave some of your troubles behind when you moved to a new home.
Does anyone know why this might be? This was in a small town in east Texas, if that helps. If I’d heard this from anyone but my mother, I’d have my doubts. I’m afraid to ask any of my black friends as it seems like a difficult topic to bring up without being offensive.
This could be a cultural thing. Is he from Asia, or otherwise used to latrine-style toliets? On the other hand, he could just be lazy or have the kind of “issues” you describe.
We have people here–and I’m talking about the Honest, Og-Fearing, NASCAR Worshiping, Blue-Blooded, Natural Born Native Son of Pasty-Faced Immigrants–who can’t manage to flush the damn urinals, even when they can actually refrain from pissing outside of them. It’s a white collar office environment. I don’t get it. Ugh.
My grandfather wouldn’t let my dad or his siblings flush after they peed. Purportedly, this was so they could save money on water and toilet paper. They were also only allowed to use three squares of toilet paper at a time, no matter what they went to the bathroom for. They always flushed after pooping, though.
Not flushing after a pee is common in some houses, especially in rural areas with wells/septic tanks. Both are far more finite resources than the effectively limitless capacity of city water/sewer.
“If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.”
Got low-flow terlets in your office? Maybe your coworker has a high fiber diet and extra-buoyant poop.
If you’re not seeing a bunch of poop and at least some paper, then you’re almost certainly seeing leftovers after a complete flush.
Some people take 3 dumps a day, some folks take one every 3 days. The second group frequently end up with “leftovers” after a flush. Members of the first group, who’ve done the 3x/day routine their whole lives, can’t concieve of the gaint multi-lb bowl-filling pile that needs to be disposed of, and which takes very little paper to wipe up after since it’s so firm.
With typical commerical toilets without a tank, us group 2 folks can readily flush twice without hanging around for the tank to refill. If it’s a home style toilet witha tank, he’s probably flushing once & not being willing to wait for a tank refill for round 2.
As to streaking, often that stuff will NOT flush off with a second flush, at least not immediately. But let it soak for a half hour, like until you come in, and it flushes away easily. So you can’t know for sure he didn’t flush twice.
Finally, as others have said, a surprising number of people of supposedly decent upbringing are unsanitary pigs in public toilets, unwilling to touch the lever to make their contribution to public health. So they leave a mess and actively contribute to public unhealth, as well as disgust. Swine.
Start “reading” it , A la tea leaves, and give the Daily Poop Miraculous Oracle prediction to yer coworkers: “A firm united plop hunkered at the bottom of the bowl indicates a heavy dissent within our ranks.”
“Today, unfirm feces, with streaks, sans paper, on the left side of the bowl, despite ample water, indicates a time of great despair for our company.”
Here’s another question to add into the mix…
How can a woman miss if she’s peeing!?
I normaly go to the bathroom during lunch at school and every single day I find urine on the seat, on the floor, sometimes on the wall… how in the world can a woman miss? shakes head
Oh, also, so you have your period and that’s just dandy. But PLEASE dispose of the used tampons after you’re done with them. Finding one on the floor is just disgusting.
One of the stalls in the women’s bathroom at work has a sign telling you to “flush two times”. Since the darn thing always works with one flush when I use it, perhaps some people have more stubborn crap than others.
How do women miss? It’s simple. They “hover”. They don’t want to touch that icky seat with their precious tender backside, so they just sort of hover it over they toilet in a half-squat. Usually, this results in a bit of “sprinkle” all over the seat…thus, the seat is too icky for anyone else to sit on.
Perhaps you should inscribe this little instructional couplet inside the stall door:
“If you sprinkle when you tinkle,
Be a sweetie–wipe the seatie!”
(I thought he made that up and I’m actually glad to find out that he didn’t.)
My dad used to subscribe to that philosophy but I never bothered to ask him why.
Once I worked in a store where there were a limited number of suspects every time something controversial was left in the toilet. Once, when someone discovered an abandoned poo, everyone was offering their theories and mine was “maybe it just didn’t go down” and “who stands there to make sure it went down?” and everyone said that they DO stand there and watch it go down. I would have suspected myself since I never look back, only thing is, I never do number two at work. I can save a number two for days if necessary, I won’t do it anywhere but home.
So the long and the short of it is, I don’t know.
Regarding a tradition of leaving some of your “troubles” behind by abandoning a poo in your last place of lodging, I don’t remember if someone told me or that I read that people staying in hotels often leave their troubles behind for the maid to find. I figure it’s some people’s way of saying “fuck you!”