I heard the exact same thing, but it doesn’t explain the initial, sudden rush to buy, which happened over a course of a few days. It’s not like the whole world had only been using the bathroom away from home, and then suddenly everyone had to use the bathroom at home 10 times a day. It just doesn’t explain it. There still are a lot of people working outside the house, and human biology hasn’t suddenly changed. Not everyone was ONLY using the bathroom at work.
It does explain the nature of the particular supply chain for home bathroom tissue, but that would have adjusted to ***a less sudden ***increase in need for home use.
So yeah, it’s a good point, but it doesn’t explain the whole situation–which was catalyzed by the initial stupidity of people who probably had just watched too many zombie apocalypse movies and were too easily influenced by seeing other people buy it suddenly.
Back in February or early March I saw people in Australia getting into fist fights over toilet paper, because they’d heard there was going to be a shortage. Assuming that the panic would spread to the U.S. and that the store would be out the next time I needed to restock, I went out and bought an extra 36 pack. This will last months. It was only one extra pack, but a lot of people probably saw those videos and decided to buy an extra pack or two, just to be safe. Add in the people who bought cart-fulls and we have our own shortage. It’s like the guy who heard the news in China, so he went out and bought up all the hand sanitizer, except this time, a lot of people contributed to the fake shortage.
Nope. We came close, but each person in the household buys the one package of toilet paper each time, so now we have too much.
However, I cannot get access to Lysol without committing a crime. Not online, at the grocery store, or anywhere else. Fortunately other cleaning supplies are available.
I don’t buy in bulk, it’s never been a problem before and I don’t have that much storage space. Plus I’m in the UK so I am kind of used to the local shops (nearest one is less than a minute’s walk from my front door) stocking the necessities. I was lucky in a way, my mother passed away in January and I had to clear her flat, at which point I realised that she hadn’t exactly stockpiled, but she had put it on her shopping list any time someone offered to get groceries for her.
So I emptied the bathroom cabinets and found four 4-packs, which I’ve been using since then. For weeks, there was none on the shelves in my preferred supermarket, and I was not about to take my life in my hands visiting all the other big supermarkets in the hope I’d find some. Fortunately, I went out about a week ago and was able to get some more. That will last me until the next round of crazy takes a break.
I am halfway through the last roll I have. There is some TP available around here, but not my preferred brand and type.:eek:
Before anyone suggests it, I rent, so no bidet.
What annoys me is that we shouldn’t be out and about, but I need to go to many sources to find what I need (water, also). I call Hellmart and the message says associates won’t check stock for callers. So I have to go to every Hellmart in the city to look for what I need? How does that comply with stay-at-home orders?
All paper product shelves have been bare 99% of the times I’ve looked. I was down to the point where I started thinking about how I might be in trouble if it continues too long when I happened to be in Costco after they got a big delivery. One 30 pack later and it won’t be a worry for me.
I should say that this isn’t far from my normal buying routine. I might have waited to be down a couple more rolls before buying but I usually buy in bulk and keep it in my garage until it gets low.
School teachers are paid monthly in Georgia, and one month during my first year I ran out of TP. It was near the end of the month so all I could afford was one roll of Scott or a four roll package of cheap store brand. I read the labels and got the Scott roll. That roll lasted me half way through the next month and I have only bought the 1000 sheet rolls ever since.
Today I went to Walmart. The only TP they had was a 4-pack for 60 cents, with a total of only 66.7 square feet. I bought a package just for shits and giggles, but my regular brand has 105 square feet per roll. I’m glad I still have nearly five rolls of it left. I ought to be good 'til June. This TP hoarding nonsense ought to be over by then, unless it’s caused by the same people that hoarded all the .22 lr ammo back in the Obama years.
It’s not something I’ve discussed much with other people. But we’ve not run out. When we seemed low, I went online and bought a 20 pack that’s “equivalent to 49 regular rolls,” but we’ve not even had to tap into that. Once we had to use less, we did. (Finging lots of wet wipes helped, though.) And now we see $1 packs of 6 at the store that barely has anyone in it.
Like others, I had luckily pre-horded - TP was on the list back in January or Feburary, I bought some at Target, stuck it in the basement, then on my next trip to Costco, bought more because its cheaper than Target and I only bought the Target TP because we were low. I also managed to pre-horde bleach and hand sanitizer (the hand sanitizer was because I go through a lot of it 3D printing). We were, however, down to our last unopened roll of paper towels
But this week I went out and braved the world - and I swung by Target near opening and they had both TP and paper towels! So I threw some into my cart - the pre-horde of TP had a significant dent in it with the college kid home and the young adult who lives here home ALL THE TIME. I then headed over to Costco and walked into the store at opening - they had three pallets of TP by the front door - each staffed, and an employee was putting a large package into your cart as you walked by. The also had paper towels. I came home both since I gave my own parents and my husband’s mother who are much higher risk and therefore shouldn’t be going out on the TP hunt.
I ran out almost immediately. The buying panic hit right when I was getting low on toilet paper. I have three bathrooms in my house, and the week of St. Patrick’s Day, I ran out of all spare rolls. When I finished the roll in the master bath, I pulled the toilet paper from the spare bathroom and moved it into the master bath. When that ran out, I pulled the roll from the basement. That ran out Thursday morning (March 19) right before I left to go to the office. A friend of mine met me in a parking lot and gave me a package of toilet paper he had. Saturday morning (March 21), another friend of mine met me and gave me another package. So I’m okay now, but about to open the second package so I figure I’ll need to order some online soon. I do have Kleenex, napkins, and paper towels, so if I run out, I’ll at least have something to wipe with.
We keep an eye out for it when we go to the store, and have been able to find enough to keep ourselves… going, as it were, but we’ve gotten close on a couple of occasions.
We ordered a 40-pack from Amazon, and it was scheduled for delivery last Sunday. Then delayed until Monday, then Tuesday, and on Wednesday Amazon conceded that the order had been lost in transit. Basically a USPS employee or (more likely) a contractor apparently helped themselves.
We have another order in, and delivery is again scheduled for Saturday. We’ll see what happens.