# how much does a customer's bathroom visit cost a business? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 16, 2013, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-a-customers-bathroom-visit-cost-a-business/668966 "2013-09-16T13:13:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-a-customers-bathroom-visit-cost-a-business/668966/41 "2013-09-18T01:27:48Z")
ok lets throw some real world numbers at it (some are guesses, some are actual numbers we derived). I was park operations supervisor of a small amusement park. any given restroom was supposed to be checked every 30 min. Clean up any obvious mess, change trash can if full, restock any supplies that may have run out. So call it 5 min per restroom per hour, sometimes its 2 min, sometimes its 10. Average restroom traffic for us was around 20 /hr so a $8/hr employee, average 5 min $0.66 /20 customers $3.3c each about 30 min at the end of the night, averaged across all customers $4.00 labor $0.03 each TP rolls, we went through 2-3 per shift per restroom, so call that $1.50 for 160 customers or about $0.10 each Call it $0.15-$0.20 per customer. Of course that amounts to about $3 per hour and if you have higher customer volume you will have more messes and higher supply consumption. Water usage is not insignificant for the day. Call it another $0.01 per customer. Wear/tear, replace seats every 6 mo or so, the occasional bit of tank hardware, and a maintenance guy who probably makes far more per hour but might interact with a bathroom a couple hours per month. Not so bad lets call him parts and labor $0.02 per customer. Not hard to imagine it costing $0.25-$0.30 per customer (estimating high) So apply that to a fast food restaurant open for 12 hours at those numbers averaging 20/hour and you have about $80/shift About $2,400/month. More volume increases that. So even though the individual customer is minimal, ramping up volume can add some hefty numbers to a month. We did a bunch of studies on stuff like this looking for efficiency issues in the park related to non revenue generating tasks. ---
**Author:** ![TashaKitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@TashaKitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TashaKitty)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-a-customers-bathroom-visit-cost-a-business/668966/42 "2013-09-18T01:29:21Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > They hover. Some ( a lot) of women are averse to plopping their butts on the seat, so they try to hover above it in a leg-shaking squat. As a result, urine goes _everywhere_. Filthy beasts, they are. šŸ˜› > > Maybe when they go in groups twp of them hold the third one over the bowl. Iā€™ve never attempted to do the ā€œhover and prayā€ thing. I always carry a bottle of hand sanitizer with me in case I wind up having to use a public restroom. I squirt it on the seat, wipe it around, and Iā€™m good to go. But Iā€™ll never plop my ass on a toilet seat that I canā€™t clean beforehand. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-a-customers-bathroom-visit-cost-a-business/668966/43 "2013-09-18T01:41:28Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > ā€œItā€™s a period piece.ā€ > > I know that in some European countries, there are pay toilets. Has anyone tried that in other places, especially automated ones which wouldnā€™t require ticket sellers? They could be made minimalistic and easy to hose down. I think the problem with public toilets is much the same as with public parks; without the labor intensive option of someone to supervise it constantly, itā€™s treated badly. In Asia itā€™s pretty common to have pay toilets - thereā€™s a cleaner / attendant sitting outside also selling toilet tissue šŸ™‚ The grossest thing I ever saw was when someone had diarrhea in the urinalā€¦and then again on the floorā€¦ ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-a-customers-bathroom-visit-cost-a-business/668966/44 "2013-09-18T06:40:51Z")
Thanks for those informative numbers, **drachillix**. In the Netherlands, many malls have fairly large restrooms, say 10-20 stalls for both gents and ladies. There is a permanent attendant who does the cleaning and restocking. Every customer pays her about 30 to 50 euro cents, so about 50 -70 dollarcents. IIRC, that money pays for the attendant. The mall pays for the other costs. Customers who hurry home because they have to pee donā€™t buy stuff. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-a-customers-bathroom-visit-cost-a-business/668966/45 "2013-09-18T10:34:20Z")
Australia has self-cleaning toilets. Once in a while they flush themselves with sprinklers on the walls. Search for Exeloo. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-a-customers-bathroom-visit-cost-a-business/668966/46 "2013-09-18T11:46:28Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > I know that in some European countries, there are pay toilets. Has anyone tried that in other places, especially automated ones which wouldnā€™t require ticket sellers? They could be made minimalistic and easy to hose down. I think the problem with public toilets is much the same as with public parks; without the labor intensive option of someone to supervise it constantly, itā€™s treated badly. During the 60s and 70s, in at least some parts of the US, some ladiesā€™ rooms had doors that required a dime to enter. Sometimes you put the dime in the door to the whole restroom, sometimes the dime went into the door to the individual stall. What generally happened was that women would hold the doors open for each other, if at all possible, as a way to protest having to pay that dime. It didnā€™t matter if you knew the other woman or notā€¦you were expected to hold that door open. This led to the immortal ode: Here I sit, all broken hearted Paid a dime and only farted. The thing is, a regular user isnā€™t going to cost much. However, the problem user is going to cost quite a lot more than the average user. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-a-customers-bathroom-visit-cost-a-business/668966/47 "2013-09-18T11:54:48Z")
Problem with pay toilets is that it upsets some people and they get all pissy about it. :rolleyes: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-does-a-customers-bathroom-visit-cost-a-business/668966.md?page=2)