Where to start?! So much to rant about, so little time … But first:
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These low-water flush toilets are absolutely -no- good; whoever thought that they’d be saving water with them, well … if it takes 2-3 flushes, isn’t that defeating the purpose?! Argh!
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I don’t think this is limited to my job, but who the heck invented these low-to-the-floor toilets?! I mean, come on, is it a toilet or a bidet?! What the hell?!
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You go into the bathroom and there are three stalls: 2 regular, which are kind of on the “compact” side if you know what I mean, and the stall for the handicapped. I guess most folks would rather be comfortable when they go to the bathroom (LOL, I know I would at least!), so many times the stall designated for the handicapped is used by … well, non-handicapped folks. Granted, some disabilities are not visible; but I’ve observed this over a period of time and have concluded that many non-disabled people make use of the stall meant for the disabled.
This would be all fine and well, except that where does that leave someone who actually -needs- that stall? Perhaps it is someone who has arthritis, for whom it is quite painful to stoop to the level of these stools that are near-bidet level?! It leaves them dancing around outside the stall, trying to hold themself in, let me tell you! Either that or painfully stooping to sit on a toilet, only to wonder how the hell to get up when finished. 
It irks the hell out of me when this happens; and that’s not even scratching the surface of a public bathroom rant, really. I don’t even like to think of all the people who don’t wash their hands! GAH!
Bah, not really much of a rant; I guess I’m not as steamed as I was earlier today when this happened to me. Honestly, after the non-disabled lady left the stall, she sashayed right out of the bathroom. Did not bother to wash her hands. ARGH…
I’m done, stick a fork in me!
tarragon
Guys: If you don’t want to use the urinal, then please lift up the seat of the toilet before you urinate. Nobody wants to sit in your piss. (BTW: Do you pee on the seat at home?)
I used to work at a truck stop. Part of my job was to make sure the restrooms were clean. And I have nothing against truckers, mind you, because I might some day be one, but GOD-DAMN can they stink up a bathroom. Something about being on the road five days a week and eating greasy truck-stop food (although we had a Subway shop in ours, which might have something to do with it, too) must do some serious damage to their colon, because I have never - EVER - smelled anything as bad as when a group of truckers would line up outside a stall to do their duty.
Now you know why man invented the plunger.
-Syko
And why are 90% of public restrooms always overheated? Is it a subtle effort to discourage . . . umm, “loitering”? Whatever it is, it pisses me off. 80 degrees is not an appropriate indoor temperature in winter!
Unlike handicap parking spaces, handicap bathroom stalls are not exclusively for the use of handicapped persons. They’re there so that handicapped persons can use public facilities – if the law didn’t require it, many places would not take it into consideration that it’s impossible to get from a wheelchair onto a toilet in a normal stall, to say nothing of privacy, and that one cannot use a normal-height urinal from a wheelchair or if one is a dwarf or midget.
Non-handicapped persons should, IMHO, use the other stalls first, but should not feel any compunction about using the handicap-accessible stall as/when it comes available if no handicapped person is waiting to use it.
Your complaints seem pretty mild compared to some things I’ve seen in public restrooms. When people are peeing in the sink and crapping on the floor, the exact configuration of the fixtures becomes relatively unimportant.
I confess to using the handicapped stalls whenever they are open. One reason is that I’m fat and the narrow stalls make it very difficult to do my business and clean up properly afterwards, if you get my drift. Also, I’m about six months pregnant and this adds to the aforementioned difficulties. Furthermore, I often have my two young children in the restroom with me and I’m just not comfortable leaving them out there where I can’t keep an eye on them while I sit behind a locked door. And there’s no room in the little stalls for even one small child!
Grr… I like the low seats better than the high ones. I was in a bathroom this summer and the seat was so high that my feet hardly touched the ground. I am not a short person. I’m 5;10", and if my toesies are dangling while I’m expelling my waste, something is seriously wrong…
Tenebras
As to #3, the problem frequently is that bathrooms have been retrofitted for handicapped access, so they had to make the other stalls smaller in order to create the larger accessible stall. Sucks, I know.