Up, for two reasons:
The cats like to drink the nice cool water. Relax, we keep all the toilets very clean, and the kitties have been quite healthy for many years, so it’s clearly not that big a deal. If they want a drink and the lid is down, believe me, they’ll let us know.
The toilets must be in “ready-to-use” mode for my wife at all times. This means seat down, lid up. I’ve never come close to winning an argument about this, so that’s the way it is, period.
Actually, I think the “somewhere” I read about what happens when the toilet flushes was this Straight Dope column.
Lid down. For me, it’s like this…you don’t leave the cabinets open or the lid of the washing machine up, why leave the toilet lid up? Things should be closed when not in use.
I was raised to keep the lid down.
Which I did for many years, until 9/11, when I read that having access to water in toilets made the difference for some pets stranded in apartments for a few days in unsafe residential areas.
I know that’s a little weird in terms of being one’s main take-away from 9/11, but still … it got me thinking about what would happen if we were in a car accident or something and it took a few days for anyone to find our cat.
So for about 10 years, the lid was always up to provide emergency water for the cat, which worked because the cat didn’t seem too otherwise interested in it.
Now we have a toddler, who likes to drop things in the toilet so the lid is down again.
I don’t want the cats drinking from the toilets, so the lids go down. We don’t keep our toilets very clean (our housecleaner handles most toilet cleaning), and, even if we did, the stuff that is used to clean toilets is probably not intended to be ingested by cats.
This also makes it much less likely that things will fall into the toilet. In a small master bathroom used by two klutzes, this is an issue.
In someone else’s house, I often put the lid down. If not, I leave it the way I found it.
I’m not that concerned what people think. I want things ready to go. If I use certain dishes, bowls or utensils, they are left out on the counter too. I have a variety of tools (pliers, drivers, knives,VOM, flashlight, etc.) right on my desk. That’s how I roll.
I responded to the poll with “lid up,” but this is more accurate.
I thought this thread was going to be more about male/female toilet etiquette. You know, guys should put the seat down when done. Unless, of course, you’re married to my stubborn husband who feels that it’s MY duty to leave the seat UP for him. If I leave the seat down he’s threatened to pee on it. And has. Jeez. :mad:
Fortunately, we have two bathrooms upstairs now and keep to ourselves.
Woman, lid always up, I wish the damned thing didn’t have a lid.
I’ve never fallen in but I have gone for a midnight run and inadvertently sat on the lid while naked - eww, lid up please.
Toilet Aerosol - I hope that’s a myth but if it isn’t, well, I haven’t been sick yet. I just don’t care.
I know Kimber sneaks a toilet drink now and then but that’s the least of my worries. She still carting around an elk leg I gave her in October. After her name she probably hears “don’t eat that” more than any other phrase.
None of us have keeled over dead so I reckon the risk is not so great.
I picked “lid down,” but not for the specified reason. I just want to keep the cats out of it.
We always keep it down, because we have cats, too. Our cats don’t have a tendency to seek out the toilet, unlike Robson’s, but we have a more compelling reason.
the toilet lid is an essential step up to the bathroom window, where our cats like to hang out. Especially for Lotta, our oldest cat, who now can’t jump directly up to the sill.
One day Pepper Mill opened the lid, preparatory to using the toilet, when lotta bounded in, making a run for the window. She jumped up onto the toilet…
…and the lid wasn’t there. All the gyrations in the world couldn’t change her course, the laws of conservation of momentum and gravity being what they are, so she landed in the water. She immediately scrambled out, shaking off her soaked limbs with every step. Ordinarily Lotta is the kindest and most easygoing feline, but she looked daggers at Pepper Mill that day, certain that this was a deliberate prank on her part.
Lid down, I just think it looks better. I now have a practical reason as well (my cat), but I put the lid down long before I got him.
Didn’t we just have a poll on this a couple of weeks ago?
I always leave it up. Many years ago I was suddenly hospitalized, and my cat was left alone in my apartment for two weeks. If the seat had been down, he’d have died of dehydration.
At my house, the lid is almost always down but I don’t freak when it’s up. The cats were long ago banned from spending a long time in the bathrooms. One cat likes to think he’s really acrobatic, so he jumps from the side of the tub to the top of the toilet and back. He’s missed at least twice, ending up in the tub with me. It wasn’t fun for either of us. Another likes to use the tub and sink as her personal litter box. Off the top of my head I can’t recall anything the other one does, but it’s just easier to keep the doors to the two bathrooms closed. I hardly ever use the second bathroom anyway.
Lid up. For one, I don’t keep my toilet in the bathroom so I’m not paranoid about poop spray getting on my toothbrush, and two, regarding the animals - I have this thing called a “Door” on my toilet, that closes so the dog doesn’t get in there. Not because he’ll drink out of the toilet, but because apparently bog roll is OMG THE BEST TOY EVER.
i think it is interesting how a link to the same page draws two opposing conclusions. personally, i am reading the column as agreeing that yes, leaving the lid up results in a spray of microbes around the bathroom. that is however, with the caveat that there are worse places in the house in terms of harbouring microorganisms.
You are right, there was a similar poll back in November. Honestly I did check to see whether it had been done before, but I had been meaning to write it for months and someone beat me to it!
I leave the lid where it was when I entered the bathroom. I’ve yet to enter a bathroom where the lid is closed. In fact, many public toilets don’t even HAVE lids (I’m guessing that makes them easier to clean, less surface area to worry about + fewer hinges). So, I vote to leave it up. I only put it down when I take a shower, because I need a place to set my dirty clothes after removing them that isn’t the floor. I open it back up on my way out.
No, it exists to give you a back while you’re sitting on the toilet. Otherwise the tank lid would leave a mark, or you’d have to never lean back.
It also exists to give you a stool to sit on when you need to sit in the bathroom for some reason (like cleaning the tub). Though, admittedly, without being able to lean back, it’s far from comfortable.
And it does look wrong to be down. Go look at any toilet pictures in media. Go look at advertisements. It’s always up. And look at restrooms: they don’t even have lids, so obviously it’s not that important to function.
I almost always leave it up, but I’m pretty much the only one who uses the bathroom so no reason not to. The one exception is if I have to leave the bathroom door open for some reason. (If it’s colder than -20F, the radiator in there is inadequate.) Then I close the lid to keep the cat from putting stuff in the toilet.
Always up*. Oddly, we’ve pretty much never dropped anything in that didn’t belong in: not at home anyway… I’ve dropped things into toilets in public places, twice, both were places where there WAS no toilet lid.