Why are our bathrooms so gross??

[Food Lady]

I was shopping in my store yesterday and went to the ladies' room. One stall had a toilet plugged by a tampon, with blood floating in the water, but grosser still was the stall next to it, in which was blood smeared on the floor. I just don't get it.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Your bathrooms are gross because the people who used them before you are gross.

And if I have to mop up the swamp's mens room one more time because somebody held the flush handle down too long...

[KellyHabersham]

We've been having issues like that with our "family restroom" in the library......'tis always been a problem with people clogging up the toilet, but after someone decided to smear poop on the walls, we had to put an "out of order" sign on the door. (Our manager would prefer to just close up that bathroom permanently, but administration wouldn't approve)

[blondemarmot]

Talked with some of the maintenance/janitor guys in my store commiserating over my gender's completel disregard for common decency and he told me that the men's room is never as bad as the women's.

[MoonCat]

Talked with some of the maintenance/janitor guys in my store commiserating over my gender's completel disregard for common decency and he told me that the men's room is never as bad as the women's.

Sadly, this is true, and I'll be the first to admit it. Women have an additional bodily fluid, as well as the accompanying paraphernalia, to, ahem, decorate with.

I hate using public restrooms and avoid it whenever possible.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Sadly, this is true, and I'll be the first to admit it. Women have an additional bodily fluid, as well as the accompanying paraphernalia, to, ahem, decorate with.

I hate using public restrooms and avoid it whenever possible.

I have to agree with this.

For one summer I worked maintenance, back in the day when the janitorial work was done by store employees, not contractors.

One of my jobs was to clean the restrooms. The smells I smelled in the womens public bathroom cannot be unsmelled.

[Falor]

One of my jobs was to clean the restrooms. The smells I smelled in the womens public bathroom cannot be unsmelled.

Disturbing commentary on the general public in my area. I learned this valuable lesson (concerning which sex's restrooms are worse to clean) while working maintenance (everything from cleaning to installing new walls and painting) for a church. People are nasty. And whether its just that the messy women make more of a mess or that there's more messy women, with one exception it was always that one that was worse to clean.

That exception being the time my partner found someone had mistaken the men's trash can for a. . . er. . . *ahem* a composting toilet, let's say.

Yeah, I was glad to have been working the women's toilet that morning.

[Food Lady]

I have to agree with this. For one summer I worked maintenance, back in the day when the janitorial work was done by store employees, not contractors. One of my jobs was to clean the restrooms. The smells I smelled in the womens public bathroom cannot be unsmelled.

The smell of flowery wet wipes combined with dirty diapers is awful and constant in our restroom.

[ThirdGenRetail]

All I can say of public women's restrooms is my desire to tape signs on the inside of all the stalls... "Nobody can make you actually SIT on the toilet, so the least you can do is lift the seat so nobody ELSE is subject to your urine. Men urinate cleaner than you do, and we're supposed to be the 'fairer sex'."

[SuperDan]

Many people looked at me in disbelief and even tried to argue with me when I told them the ladies room at my previous employer was always ten times worse than the mens room. Ladies are instinctively cleaner they say, and sitting down of course must be a more effective method of delivery than standing up and hoping you aimed correctly, right?

They don't understand that some ladies are so concerned with keeping themselves clean and buy way too much into the theory that germs and diseases are passed via toilet seat (in reality, highly unlikely) and are unsatisfied with the ass gasket option, so they insist on hovering over the seat that was perfectly clean until then. A woman not in physical ass-to-seat contact does not have as good odds of delivering her output to the desired target, and this results in the seats actually becoming dirty, thereby encouraging further hovering.

Add to this the fact that men do their graffiti with Sharpie markers while women seem to prefer brown fingerpaint... yeah.

[sarasquirrel]

ugh i can not STAND IT when i use the 'public' bathroom at work. there is always piss on the toilet. ladies!! just sit down! and you know whats even better? we provide toilet seat covers! so your precious buttocks dont have to touch the horrific toilet seat.

i usually just end up using the one upstairs where customers dont use. while its ancient, and creepy, id rather use that becuase i dont have to wipe piss off the seat before i use it. also i dont have to worry about customers constantly trying to open the door with out a key or without knocking first.

though now, there is smudged poo on that toilet up there. but no one will confess to it

[Seshat]

One of my jobs was to clean the restrooms. The smells I smelled in the womens public bathroom cannot be unsmelled.

Honestly, I hate the smell of my monthly, even 'fresh'. Add that to the other inevitable smells of a bathroom, and as someone mentioned, diaper changing.

Blend in 'flower' and 'baby powder' and 'pine-fresh' or 'lemon-fresh' scents, and it all adds up to nasal horror.

And that's before anyone does anything nasty or unhygenic in there.

[telecom_goddess]

I guess I've been lucky that I haven't run into piss covered toilet seats. I also don't hover or use those stupid ass toilet seat covers. I just sit on the damn thing. It's not difficult.

[CaroPhoenix]

I've run into a whole bunch of things, while working and having to clean the toilets to out shopping and having to use the "facilities".

I like the bathrooms at the Ikea near my house. There is the little spritzer thing that sprays disinfectant on toilet tissue and then you can wipe down the toilet seat yourself. Plus they have the toilet seat covers which you can put down. It's really really nice. Automatic flushing toilets (though some of those types and even the manual flushing types spray the water so hard it comes up and lands on the toilet seat). Automatic faucets and hand driers. (And that's a problem and will have to be written about in another thread - due to Child Rum).

However, when I go to the dinner theater, the women's bathroom is always clean even during intermission & after the show.

[Captain Trips]

Having a wife with a disability, I've been in my share of ladies' rooms. Yes, they can be much worse than mens' rooms. Why? I attribute it to the "since I don't have to clean it up, I can do anything I like" attitude.

Oh, and even in the mens' room -- lift the darned seat! Just because there's that gap doesn't mean you don't need to. And 1) your aim is never as good as you think and 2) ever heard of the word "splash?"