Since going to the UK this summer, I’ve become very dissatisfied with American toilet stalls. I always took it as a given that stalls are what they are… but it just ain’t so over the pond!
Two main differences: in the UK (at least where we went)there wasn’t really a gap between the door and the rest of the stall. (in the US the gap is often up to 2" wide on both sides of the door)
but more importantly, in the UK the clearance from the floor to the bottom of the door and stall walls was usually around 4-5 inches. CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT??? Oh the blissful privacy! (in the US it’s usually a foot to 18" or so. Often you can see almost to the person’s knees while they’re sitting on the toilet)
So after the wonderful privacy of the UK toilet stalls, I’m now utterly annoyed by the typical US stall. I sit there on the toilet, watching people walking by through the huge “look at me” at the side of the door… watch the person in the next stall’s feet and legs… wonder if they’re trying to deduce what I’m doing (specifically) by the way my feet are planted… None of this really bothered me before because I didn’t realize there was any other way…
I feel your pain. Here in Australia, we are moving towards the US style. Why? Coz certain individuals think a stall is an ideal place to indulge in hroin usage or dealing. So now, we have the added joy of knowing that there’s likely a security guard walking by counting the number of legs and checking where your feet are pointed.
We’ve also got god-awful ultraviolet lights installed in public toilets in railway stations, etc. They are designed to be horrible, so people don’t want to loiter, and also so heroin addicts can’t see their veins well (they just bring a flashlight though).
Really? Is that the reason? I have been in the Flinders bogs a few times and it gives me an awful headache - I thought it was some clever scientific way of eliminating odours.
What I hate is that the doors on the stalls usually open in toward the toilet rather than out. I’m a big guy. Some of those stalls are small. In some, I’ve had to straddle the bowl to get the door open.
I used to like the European water closets because of the privacy until I walked into one in which the previous occupant had a serious case of the smelly shits. Gawwd, the minimal air circulation did not help disperse that dead cow smell for a long time.
Now I just want the place clean [no water or paper on the floor, toilets that flush, those paper toiletbowl cover things, counter that isn’t all gunked up] so I can do my business and get outta there quick.
In some places (like a school I once visited in Virginia), the stalls don’t even have doors. So people can (in the unlikely event they would want to) see toilet-goers perform their ablutions in their entirety :eek:
I went into a bar once where the toilet stall doors were so abbreviated that they barely covered the user’s face! I felt like one of those women on the covers of old porno mags with nothing blocked out but the eyes.
The ones in Japan are pretty spartan (some, not all).
There are no partitions and no commode to sit you dainty ass upon. Just a hole in the tile floor that you have to squat over.
Ditto for South Korea, at least in Seoul. I was in the adoption agency that placed my two kids. I was there to pick up two babies to escort them to the US.
I needed to make a pit stop, and lo and behold a pit is JUST what I found. A hole in the ground, and a bit of a gross one at that. I simply…well…balance was a difficult proposition.
I was DOUBLY upset that these people handle YOUNG babies all day and there wasn’t soap to be found. I simply stuck my hands into the fireplace for a few moments, and sterilized them that way.
Not to mention the SMELL! When I was over there in August, every restroom I went in smelled much different than over in the U.S. I guess I’ve gotten used to the smell an American diet produces, but not what a steady diet of rice will produce!
That is my biggest complaint with stalls. I’m not even a big guy, but I usually use public restrooms while in/going to/coming from class, and I have a coat and bookbag with me. Add to the fact that most stalls don’t have coathooks, and the ones that do are usually falling off. That’s why, if I can, I use the handicapped stall. The door swings out, I have plenty of room, and the coat hooks are usually still there.
(I’ve been lucky in that no handicapped person has ever had to use the stall while I was in it.)
Heehee, I noticed this too at the office park my office in CA was in. I’m pretty damn skinny, and the way the stalls were set up, plus the fact that the doors opened in, I had to squish against the back of the stall to get out. I often wondered what people who were normal-sized or larger had to do to get out of the stalls.
Gaps, no gaps – I don’t care, as long as nobody sees the details of my excretory acts. What bothers me is when I have to hear what’s going on in the next stall – or two or three stalls over. Poots, farts and gurgly sounds echoing off of toilet bowls, grunts, plops, splashes, things like that – no thanks. I also feel “stream inadequacy,” when some guy standing a couple of pissoirs away isn’t merely “taking a leak” but urinating at such a force and volume, the sound produced is equivalent to that of a garden hose with a high pressure sprayer emptying into a pool. I’d just rather be left alone in silence with the newspaper.
Hey, at least you have toilet stall doors. In my High School, they didn’t have doors on the stalls in the men’s bathrooms. Needless to say, I never sat down on one toilet seat throughout my entire High School career. And to the bastard who thought this was a good idea: I’ll probably be outside in your bushes about 2 o’clock this morning…sleep tight
