I live in student cooperative with 13 other people. As is inevitable with so many people, we have different standards and ideas regarding hygiene. We are all pretty sensitive to each other’s needs, so none of us want to make any one else uncomfortable.
An issue that has come up on several occasions is the question of health dangers from other people’s urine. Initially this was a problem because some people were not flushing the toilet after peeing in order to save water. Others objected to this practice as unhealthy (who knows what germs lurk in there! :eek: ) One of us who works at a low income health clinic asked a doctor about this and he said “Even if the person had a Urinary Tract Infection they would probably have to pee in the person’s wound to make them sick.” This was pretty much what I thought going into the argument, but it was only a feeling.
The second time this came up was entertaining (for me) but it reopened an old wound (and peed in it?) The issue was SHOWER PEEING . Some of us admitted to doing this and others were appalled (the same ones who were pissed about not flushing. Some, myself included were not particularly concerned about it. Myself, I had peed in showers before, but hadn’t in quite a while and wasn’t planning on starting any time soon. So I was kind of on the side of the shower pee-ers, but not too adamant about it; I just thought that it was silly to worry about it and I thought if someone wanted to do it, it was ok by me as long as they didn’t leave a mess.
Cecil has written about a similar question before, I wish I had a link to the question here, but I don’t. His is a partial answer, but I want to hear a bit more on the subject. Is there any clear evidence that urine is actually antiseptic when it comes out? How dangerous is contact with someone else’s urine? Would there really be any residual urine in a shower if you peed directly into the drain and had the water running to wash it down? Would you actually kill some of the bacteria with your urine? Finally, how many of you pee or have peed in the shower? Hmmm?
I realize this is pretty long and has quite a few questions to answer, but I’d like a good discussion about it. I’d also appreciate cites I can show my housemates. I’ll try to find more info myself and put it up. No promises though, finals week is coming up.
I’d be more concerned with getting Athlete’s Foot from a shared shower, than pee germs.
IMHO pee is pretty safe. I’ve heard of people using urine to clear up mild ear infections.
Pee in the shower once in a while. Peed in the sink a couple of times when I was desperate.
I actually heard a doctor say it made more sense to wash your hands before peeing than after. You hand are far more likely to transfer germs to your goodies than vice versa. And urine is as sterile a fluid as the human body produces. Unless someone is very sick with a rare disease, you should be safe.
What yojimboguy said, as of the moment it comes out of the body. However, it is one hell of a good growth medium, so if you leave it sitting out (diluted in the toilet bowl or otherwise) it is going to cease to be sterile and start being a feeding trough for a wide variety of bacteria.
Most of that bacteria’s most dangerous quality (at least while it is only fermenting the contents of the unflushed toilet bowl) is its capacity to pervade the room with an ugly smell, although I wouldn’t want to bathe my open wounds in the stuff.
The shower is a different matter. The water runs off in a continuous flow, and goes down the drain. If one of your housemates slipped and fell down in a puddle of dog pee, they’d probably go “ewww” and run back to the house, strip, and take a shower, and we’d all think this sensible and reasonable and would not worry about residual dog pee somehow clinging to the drain or the porcelain. (It doesn’t).
Conclusion: unflushed pee in toilet = bad; peeing in shower = OK as long as shower keeps running.
Got a comment about the unflushed pee. I think trying to save money and water is an admirable thing. BUT unflushed pee is gross. The smell…ewww. And someone mentioned the bacteria that can grow. And, as everyone here has probably experienced, what if you have to poop?..you know when it plops, toilet water comes splashing onto your butt…and it’s really gross if it’s someone else’s pee. So you’d have to flush the toilet before anyway, right? And then after. So what’s the money saving in that?
You’re right about the unflushed toilet I guess. Those who didn’t flush flushed some of the time so perhaps it wasn’t so bad. One thing I came up with while I was looking around was that pee contains, among other things, proteins and stuff like that. THese might make good food for the bacteria.
The chance of getting any kind of disease from an unsanitary toilet or shower is really quite small. You’re far more likely to get ill from poor cleanliness in your own kitchen. So if you want to rag on someone about their community toilet habits, hitting hard on the health issue won’t be of much use. Use the grossness factor instead, and threats of public beatings.
And Yojimboguy, if your doc really thinks you should wash before you touch yourself, either he needs to be updated on medicine, or I really don’t want to know what you’ve been doing with your hands.
1st guy: What were you doing this morning?
2nd guy: I spent a hour with my arm up a cow’s rectum.
1st guy: So how’s the veterinarian practice going?
2nd guy: Veterinarian practice?
Definition of a gentleman: A man who steps out of the shower to pee.
Guess I’m no gentleman. Urine is rinsed down the drain leaving no residue (as long as the shower is running) so I don’t trouble myself to hold it until I can get to the porcelain convenience.
Hmmm, no one wants to come out and say how disgusting they think peeing in the shower was. I would have thought we might get a few outraged posts. I guess we dopers are all pretty open-minded (or apathetic).
Perhaps we are all well schooled in this issue since the master has taken it up on occasion. What I’d really like to see was someone come up with a really strong argument for the dangers of shower pee so that someone can come back with reams of info as to why pee really isn’t that bad.
I had heard that peeing in the shower stops athletes foot. I admit to peeing in the shower every so often and I have never had athletes foot. Any references to confirm this?
Hmmm, no one wants to come out and say how disgusting they think peeing in the shower was. I would have thought we might get a few outraged posts. I guess we dopers are all pretty open-minded (or apathetic).
Perhaps we are all well schooled in this issue since the master has taken it up on occasion. What I’d really like to see was someone come up with a really strong argument for the dangers of shower pee so that someone can come back with reams of info as to why pee really isn’t that bad.
Yeah, I’m not quite sure how that happened. All I know is that it took so long to post the reply that when the dinner bell rang I just left my computer to go have dinner while it processed. When I got back the post was there, I didn’t notice that I had double posted.
I once read that the “chlorine smell” one experiences at the public pool is actually the smell of a chemical resulting from chlorine reacting with urine. Yech!
That smell might be from chloramine, which is formed by chlorine oxidizing ammonium-containing compounds, including:
proteins from dead skin flakes and bacteria (plenty of both in a pool) and urea (in urine), plus many other organic sources.
