Okay, so I did a search, and found a few related results. A rant on the same thing from two years ago , a similar one concerning male urination, a poll concerning public restroom use, and one dealing with fecal matter. This has been covered, but I still find that I have many instances in which I find toilet seats that have been delicately (or liberally) sprayed with urine in public bathrooms. I even overheard a conversation that a little girl and her mother had regarding the public bathroom I was washing my hands in. The little girl is instructed not to touch anything and that the bathroom is disgusting and dirty. (It was almost spotless.) She asks her mother how she knows it’s dirty, and gets the following response: “Because it is not my bathroom.” The bathroom may have been a relatively high traffic bathroom, but it was cleaned at least once every two hours. I do not know of a single person who cleans their bathroom more than once a day, and most people I know clean their bathroom weekly or less, and with less thoroughness as the public bathroom. And yet, the public bathroom with its much more regular cleaning is considered much dirtier than the bathroom at home. Maybe this woman is also a hoverer who sprays urine all over the toilets and doesn’t clean up after herself.
Urine on the toilet seat is the least of my problems. However, it’s annoying, and it happens more often at the more upscale public places in this area than the ones that are mainly catering to the “unwashed masses.” Why is Neiman Marcus’ toilets covered in pee and having feminine supplies left on the back of the toilet seat (rather than in the designated bin inside the stall) and with paper towels all over the floor, while Target’s bathroom is immaculate? Are wealthy women so germophobic that they have to create a disgusting mess to show their displeasure any time they are faced with using a public toilet? Why is it that I have fewer worries about accidentally sitting in urine (yes, I do check, but sometimes the spray is so fine or the lighting is so low that I do not see it) in the bus station than in the ritzy upscale department store or restaurant? I may soon end up doing the same as Presidebt and wadding up a good bit of toilet paper to wipe off every toilet seat before I sit down, regardless of whether I can see droplets on it of not. I do note, however, that most of the time when I see urine, it is not backsplash from the toilet water, as unused toilet water generally isn’t a dark yellow.
I wish I weren’t so timidly polite about this, as it would give me great satisfaction to make someone who has peed all over the seat to go back and wipe the seat in front of a line of women waiting to use the now soiled bathroom stall.
Why is it that I can’t go anywhere nice without risking the [relatively high] chance that I will end up sitting in someone else’s pee? Why can’t they just learn to aim or clean up after themselves? All of these places have the paper toilet seat guards, and yet this still happens more often than in places where the toilet seat guards aren’t available. Disgusting.
I suppose I can jump in if I’m a guy, 'cause this is a real sore point for me. I consider this incredibly sociopathic behavior, especially if it’s a guy. Why the hell are you peeing in the toilet anyhow, when there is a perfectly good urinal out there? You’ve got weird privacy issues so you don’t use a urinal, but you feel obligated to piss all over the toilet seat? Lift up the damn seat you lazy piece of shit! Dude, you got some serious problems.
I only use a stall when all the urinals are occupied or I HAVE to take a dump. I was entering a stall and the kid exiting had pissed all over the seat. I almost grabbed him and gave him a swirlie. Swift vigilante justice, that would have taught him a lesson! I neglected to do it, but I also haven’t been arrested for assault, JUST YET.
From the thread title, I thought for sure this would be woman’s rant against men, and I had a clever response all planned out. Then I realized that opening this thread was the on-line equivalent of walking into the ladies room… so I guess I’ll just turn around and walk out, pretending like nothing ever happened.
Actually, there’s an excellent chance the little droplets you see aren’t urine at all. I’ve often noticed that power-flush systems in commercial bathrooms are so turbulent that during the flush, droplets of water can spurt out and land on the seat. Thus, it’s not the fault of the user, but of an over-energetic design.
Not that venal slobs don’t exist, of course. Just don’t blame them for everything.
I’ll just condense my usual post to these sort of threads:
Fuck you to hoverers, especially hoverers that don’t clean up after themselves.
Fuck you to the ninnies that won’t flush the goddamned toilet (surprisingly common at my husband’s law school, you’d think relatively well-educated and supposedly well-mannered women would actually flush instead of leaving a crumpled ass gasket floating in a bowl of urine).
Fuck you to people and institutions that perpetuate bathroom urban legends and myths that are totally out of line with actual biology.
That is all.
If they’re gonna hover anyway, why don’t they lift the seat and hover over the rim? That’s what I don’t get. That way, you can’t mess up the seat for the next person, and have a bigger target to hit - seems like it would be all good.
I am very sorry that this offends you. It is very possible that you overhead *me * with my child. I would never sit on a public toilet seat and the thought of letting my little girl put her tushy on something that strangers with unknown hygiene habits have planted their’s makes me shudder. I don’t care if it has been cleaned within two hours. During that time, who knows who has sat on that seat.
That being said, I try to be aware to wipe off any urine ending up on the seat when I am balancing over the bowl. Shame on those ladies that do not have the same courtesy.
Not to single you out, but I’ve always wanted to ask someone who was paranoid about sitting on a toilet seat: what are you worried will happen? Is there a disease I’ve never heard of that you can catch through your butt cheeks? I mean, I can understand it if there is visible filth or urine on the seat, but what about a visibly clean seat?
Note: I’m not saying you should sit on the seat, I’m just honestly curious what you think will happen if you do.
I know there are varied attitudes towards MythBusters on this board, but one of their projects applies here.
They grew cultures from different surfaces around their workplace. The break-room table. The floor under the table. The break-room counter. Yadda yadda yadda. And the toilet seat.
The toilet seat was cleaner (fewer bacteria colonies) than any of the other surfaces they tested. (Cleaner than surfaces that many people wouldn’t hesitate to let their food touch.)
I’m not picking on you, Foxy, really, and I do see where you say you try to remember to wipe up. But, did you read what you wrote? Offends me? You think sitting in a puddle of what you leave behind offends me? The thought of delicate you touching a clean seat makes you shudder, so I should be allowed to sit in what you leave behind or have to clean up after you if I have the good fortune to notice first?
Ok, so I may be oversensitive on this issue having been ambushed by a wet seat on quite a few occasions (at work no less :rolleyes: ) and maybe I am reading into what you wrote.
Edited to add: Again, Foxy, I just wanted to impress that I am not ranting at you. Just in general about people with that “Oh I couldn’t possibly touch a toilet, I’m going to hover, fuck the next person” thing going on.
You are aware that you can’t get any diseases from a toilet seat, are you not? I’m with Giraffe. What are you afraid is going to happen if your precious tush comes in contact with a public toilet?
I’ve worked as a janitor in the past and women’s restrooms were always ten times more nasty than men’s rooms because so many women insist on hovering over the goddamn seat. Is there a generational cycle of mothers filling their daughters’ heads with bullshit about “dirty” restrooms? It’s a load of crap, you know. You aren’t really going to catch anything. You should break the cycle. Don’t make your daughter as paranoid as you are.
At the Denver Airport, you can get an ass gasket to place on the seat, the toilet flushes automatically, even the towels dispense themselves when you wave at a sensor - all that is needed is for something to grab your dick and aim for you - but still I see pee on the seats.
While we’re at it, what the hell is up with the non-flushers? Are they afraid to touch the handle or something? What makes people so irrationally fearful of public restrooms?
