# Everyone Should Have to Clean Their Own Toilet **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 25, 2005, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357 "2005-09-25T18:54:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2005, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357/21 "2005-09-27T21:46:39Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > The image this put into my head had me laughing intermittenly for hours. I pictured myself laying on the floor in the living room, stuffing a Big Mac into my face, helplessly pooping all over the place. Well, you DID say you eat an American diet! ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2005, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357/22 "2005-09-27T23:16:49Z")
My wife insists on spending an hour or so cleaning the house in anticipation of our housekeeper’s arrival. Sweeping, washing dishes, picking things off the floor, wiping down surfaces, etc. But we don’t go anywhere near the toilet. The housekeeper earns her keep alone by allowing us to avoid that one task. ---
**Author:** ![carlotta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@carlotta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlotta)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357/23 "2005-09-28T03:32:32Z")
If I could afford a housecleaner I would start with the toilet. Just come in and clean the toilets and leave the rest. Bliss. Personally I think everyone should have to pick up their own socks and underpants off the floor (if they can’t just put them into the hamper to begin with), but if I held the line on that one I would either be divorced or have socks and underwear up to the ceiling. I would never allow a housecleaner in until I’d picked up all the socks and underpants. But I think there’s an untapped market waiting in cleaning litter boxes. I’d go for that before the toilet even. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357/24 "2005-09-28T15:58:18Z")
It’s funny how we all have our things - I clean the bathroom and kitchen and do the laundry, no problem, but I rarely do the floors and dusting. The litter box - that’s my husband’s job, and I don’t touch it at all. It could be a mound of solid poo, and I won’t clean it. I have come to terms with my Half-Assed Housekeeper status, however. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![JohnBckWLD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JohnBckWLD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnBckWLD)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357/25 "2005-09-28T17:20:48Z")
I clean my own toilet, provided some fat, blue-collar side, burrito eating, ‘I refuse to use the gas station facilities down the road’, carpet cleaner hasn’t gone and locked himself in my bathroom for 15 minutes and dropped a human waste implosion in my luxurious home. ---
**Author:** ![Creaky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e68b1a/32.png) [@Creaky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Creaky)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357/26 "2005-09-28T20:18:11Z")
I have a housekeeper. She cleans my toilet. That’s what housekeepers do, in my experience. (She probably also checks out my medicine cabinet, or at least she might have at first. I really don’t care. If she wants a snort of my booze on occasion I don’t mind that either. If I did, I wouldn’t give somebody access to my apartment. As long as she does her job and doesn’t take my stuff, I’m happy. 🆒 ) ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357/27 "2005-09-28T20:21:51Z")
I clean out necrotic ulcers, lance purulent abscesses, open thrombosed hemorrhoids, and express the contents out of anal fistulae. I do that (and other unglamorous things) as a part of my job, to improve my patients’ well-being and take care of them medically. I’ve also cleaned out toilets (my own and others). But not recently. I think I’ll just let our cleaning lady take care of that job in my house, unless there is an urgent need. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357/28 "2005-09-28T20:27:00Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Bill Gates probabally has a personal toilet cleaner, who stands by and goes in right after Gates gets off the thrown. He most likely makes a pretty decent wage, and pays tax (on money from Gates, which Gates has paid tax on). Nope. I heard that Bill uses each toilet only once and then has it thrown away. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357/29 "2005-09-28T20:28:58Z")
Boy, I sure do wish I could get my kids to clean their own toilet. I keep all the toilets clean in the house and we’re lucky enough to have 3. Personnally I wish I could find a housekeeper we could afford. Our budget would probably only be around $60. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357/30 "2005-09-29T04:22:18Z")
> [@Qadgop the Mercotan](#): > > I clean out necrotic ulcers, lance purulent abscesses, open thrombosed hemorrhoids, and express the contents out of anal fistulae\ Always with the bragging, you. ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357/31 "2005-09-29T05:19:12Z")
I spent one summer during my High School years working as a housekeeper at a nursing home. Every morning my partner and I stripped and remade forty beds, many of them fouled by incontinent patients. Every afternoon we cleaned forty bathrooms You know what? After the couple of days on the job, you stop thinking about it. You’re not repulsed or offended or resentful or anything else. It’s just another part of the routine, one boring task among a multitude. You just go through the steps while mainly thinking about other stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Sengkelat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Sengkelat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sengkelat)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357/32 "2005-09-29T05:59:01Z")
> [@StarvingButStrong](#): > > I spent one summer during my High School years working as a housekeeper at a nursing home. Every morning my partner and I stripped and remade forty beds … Aren’t there laws against having high school students work in the nude? ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357/33 "2005-09-29T13:20:38Z")
> [@Sengkelat](#): > > Aren’t there laws against having high school students work in the nude? You know, I _wondered_ why the old geezers were giving us so many tips… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357/34 "2005-09-29T13:29:20Z")
**Lissa** , if you don’t want to inflict your toilet on anyone else, that’s up to you. I don’t really see a moral high ground to keeping on doing one’s own mess. Part of it is, while I don’t know, I’ve cleaned plenty of other’s messes. I even volonteered to scan for radioactivity a sample of feces some asshat put into a radcon bag. (Must get probe within 1/4 inch of all inaccessible surfaces to declare it clean. Think fingerpainting with an unknown stranger’s poo. Yes we would far prefer to dispose of clean feces than have to pay the extra to deal with rad waste that was also a biohazard.) If I can afford and decide to have a person come into my place to clean it up for me, they’re going to know I’m rather laid back about cleaning anyways. Let 'em do it all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-should-have-to-clean-their-own-toilet/323357.md?page=1)