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Public toilets are vanishing and that's a civic catastrophe
- triyambakam 2y agoI have a urinal bottle, collapsible toilet, and bottle bidet in my van. I never fear needing to urinate or defecate wherever I am.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoWith your rig I’d fear it every time
- triyambakam 2y agoI don't follow. Why would being prepared make you fear it?
- kjkjadksj 2y agoThis isn't being prepared. This is sloshing around urine and feces in your vehicle and having to dispose of it yourself. Its a half step removed from the sanitary practices of the middle ages. Prepared in this case is going to the bathroom before you hit the road and making appropriate stops as needed from there.
- triyambakam 2y agoHuh, that's a weird take. My personal provisions are cleaner than the public facilities I have access to, which are admittedly very much like the middle ages. And I don't need to hold it or search around. I have medical grade liners for the containers so disposal is easy. But huh, I guess you keep enjoying your take.
- saulpw 2y agoDoes that van fit in your pocket or do you just never walk anywhere?
- triyambakam 2y agoI live in a rural area so walking anywhere civic is not possible so I always drive.
- generatedtruth 2y ago[dead]
- middlefing 2y ago[dead]
- ikekkdcjkfke 2y agoThere needs to be more innovation in turd extraction
- konfusinomicon 2y agothe apple i-poop is gonna be a game changer. word is its just a little more invasive than a neurolink and just as capable
- Havoc 2y agoI vote for in-situ teleportation.
- amelius 2y agoYes, this is what Apple should invent next. With my iPhone I can do almost anything while traveling: look up maps, pay, take pictures, browse the web. But what I _can't_ do with my iPhone is the most basic thing ...
- wjnc 2y agoYou are punning, but if a big tech would create a map of publicly available toilets that would be great for many demographics (any man 65+, those with bowel syndroms). It’s the little things that make life easier (or more affordable) that matter the most (in my opinion). I know there is a debate in the group that needs “fast toilets” whether they should be free. Well that debate is moot when there are near zero options. A coffee brings what €1 of margin? A toilet could cost €1, and still help those in need. I hate paying for dirty toilets (German and Belgian gas stops grmbl, learn from France). But a clean toilet can be a lifesaver.
- Schiendelman 2y agoApple Maps does have pretty good restroom information - there just aren’t many.
- amelius 2y agoHalf a solution isn't a solution at all ... If Apple cared about users they would work on problems that really mattered instead of giving us a 100MP camera where 50MP is already just fine.
- schrodinger 2y agoYou want Apple to… start building a public toilet infrastructure? and judging them for not as not caring about their users? Seems a bit extreme of a stance!
- amelius 2y agoI'm just saying that they are solving the wrong problems.
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- padolsey 2y ago> ‘feeling unsafe or exposed in a public toilet’ This just makes me think of America and the bizarrely huge gaps between the hinges and gaps at the bottom and top of the cubicles, even in very wealthy contexts, like at big tech companies. WHY? Such a strange example of embedded inertias of design in ostensibly innovative contexts.
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- rolisz 2y agoI think that's because of safety regulations, so that firemen can quickly check if there's anyone in stalls. Yes, it sounds stupid as an European, where somehow we survive without this.
- brudgers 2y agoI used to practice architecture. In general (1) there are not regulations/laws/codes requiring the practice. The gaps at the floor are to facilitate mopping and reduce the damage from overflow floods. For first responder access, I have seen a hospital requirement for outswinging doors for one-holers with privacy locks. This allows the door to be opened when a person is collapsed against the door. (1) “In general” because there are almost certainly niche regulations that require it. For example the construction standards of a state prison bureau, local board of education, etc.
- Zealotux 2y agoIt's simple: they don't want you to slack in the toilets, sitting there scrolling Twitter, in other words they don't want you to poop on your paid work time. The feeling of being unsafe or exposed is the point.
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- Y_Y 2y agoIt is far more important to prevent (through shame and surveillance) any unamerican toilet activities than it is to allow peaceful bowel movements. In the old world there there are floor-to-ceiling cubicle doors and toilet bowls that could barely drown a toddler. I need not explain how this is the first irreversible step towards authoritatian socialist anarchy.
- FredPret 2y agoPublic restrooms are the first public good to bite the dust when petty crime picks up.
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- lotsofpulp 2y agoCleaning bodily fluids and repairing bathrooms is not cheap. That is why the government doesn’t provide them. If the government can’t be bothered to pick up that burden, no one else should be expected to.
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoAnd then people complain about shit on the sidewalk. Not providing a toilet doesn’t mean that people are going to stop needing one.
- FredPret 2y agoThis is why a little bit of money spent on public order yields 10x - 100x ROI at least. Safer streets, longer lives, a fair environment for the physically weak, longer-lasting infrastructure, a better business environment, and - more crucially than all of the above - more trust.
- debo_ 2y ago*when potty crime picks up /joke
- jtdev 2y agoAnother symptom of the decline of our formerly high-trust society. You can’t have public bathrooms in a society filled with criminals and homeless drug addicts.
- greenavocado 2y agoWhat are the factors that led to the explosion in criminality and homelessness and their drug addiction?
- ta988 2y agoIn some cities? people that have the means to spend $10 to go pee.
- rangestransform 2y agoBeing allergic to enforcing the law post blm
- scoofy 2y agoProbably the proliferation of opiates and, more likely, methamphetamine. Scientific progress that makes these highly addictive and debilitating substances easy to produce can't be undone. I live in San Francisco, where it now costs over $100,000 per year to operate a single toilet, because without it being under constant guard, people start living in them.
- greenavocado 2y agoA more efficient solution is to have a stainless steel bathroom which rinses itself with bleach every 20 minutes unless an emergency call button is activated. If it is occupied past 20 minutes a hydraulic press ejects the contents of the bathroom to the outside.
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- ghaff 2y agoAnd meanwhile in Japan, I've seen bathrooms for hotel restaurants that expect you to pay an attendant.
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- 1992spacemovie 2y agoNo offense but I think a lot of tech guys on this site have never dealt with the "other side" of life. The other side being the shitty, disgusting, repulsive aspect of humans that occasionally rises to the surface. The reason un-restricted public bathrooms are "challenged" (to use corporate speak) is because the second you have one available, either a homeless person will camp out in it for hours doing everything you can imagine, or someone will be a total anti-social asshole and take a crap ON THE WALLS. I've seen this occur dozens of times, without fail. Yeah, it isn't as simple as "le humans are bad and mean mmkay." Like most things that remain unsolved, it is complicated.
- bell-cot 2y agoUm, yes, kinda. Though in my experience (US/Michigan), "not public" toilets are very often accessible if one has a good subset of the following traits: Very polite, locally-majority-race, clean, appropriately dressed, discrete, elderly, frail, female, alone, heavily pregnant, with an infant or small child, familiar to the employees, not in an urban area. Old geezer perspective: The withering availability of public toilets is just another symptom of the massive decline in social trust over the past half-century or so. I might suggest that the author talk to people on the "supply side" - especially long-time small business owners - about the expenses and miseries of being on their end of the stick...but the author seems so focused on the rights & well-being of the "user" population that I can't imagine him actually caring about "their sort".
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agoIt's not a business of a private business to provide public toilets. Local government must do it, just as they do roads, parks, buses, waste management etc.
- tiahura 2y agoMaybe we should have believed them when they called themselves the counterculture?
- ghaff 2y agoPretty much. In the US, outside of major tourist areas, my sense is that explicitly public toilets have always been pretty scarce but, if you blend in, you can pretty much always find one at a hotel or a shopping center. No, you won't find them in a more residential area but that's always been the case.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoYears ago, when I worked at a hotel, we had to lock down the bathrooms because a specific taxi driver would come and absolutely ruin them. The housekeepers threatened to quit simply because of this 1 person, and we had no reasonably cheap way to stop him, other than removing access to the bathrooms for the public.
- 486sx33 2y ago[flagged]
- mrtksn 2y agoI don't know how serious this article is. This is because even in Europe there's a huge disparity between countries and I don't think it can be generalised. In London, it's socially acceptable to use the toilet of any venue like a pub. In Paris they have high tech public toilets that automatically clean themselves, in Turkey mosques usually operate public toilets for profit alongside with the facilities provided by the government, in Germany they have Sanifair which gives you voucher for your payment and you can use at any participating location to purchase stuff like coffee.
- attendant3446 2y agoIn Germany, it is normal to charge even paying customers extra for using the restroom.
- jmkni 2y agoAnecdotal, but I got an uber in London recently (quite near the center) and the driver was complaining the whole trip about the fact that he needed to take a piss, and that there was a severe lack of public toilets.
- mrtksn 2y agoI see how this can be a problem. It's probably not O.K. to offload the Taxi industry toilet costs to 3rd party businesses.
- nytesky 2y agoSo before Uber did taxis return to dispatch center for such things? With their own version of Danny DeVito?
- mrtksn 2y agoI have no idea, probably it varies by location. If no paid public toilets are available and dispatch centres with toilets are not a thing they can always strike a deal with local businesses I guess. Also, they need to eat and the places they eat are probably also the places they use the WC.
- dachworker 2y agoThis is one of my biggest frustrations with living in Germany. And btw, so much for "walkable cities". Especially for the elderly who get the need more frequently, but even I ended up in situations where I am an hour away from home and needed to pee badly. Pretty much every mildly secluded corner in the city smells like piss as a result of this ... You know for a country who thinks of itself as more socially minded, and not as hardcore capitalist, they do nickle-dime you for everything. Public latrines are the most basic of public goods.
- crngefest 2y agoIt differs city by city, in some you have better facilities. IMO it’s more about drugs and sex than capitalism but yea I agree the state of public toilet availability is a disgrace in Germany
- snowpid 2y agoBerlin has a program building public toilets. Though not so many, it is a contradiction to the original post as the public toilets increase.
- crngefest 2y agoIt might have. But where I live in Berlin there is exactly one public toilet for the whole district. And it’s a pissoir only so if you are female or need no.2 you are screwed. Might be different in another neighbourhood here.
- adityapatadia 2y agoI faced when I visited New York. I had to search Google Maps and it showed a public toilet in Rockefeller Center. I walked a few miles to reach but it was a real pain.
- chhenning 2y agoThe public toilet in NYC is called Starbucks. It doesn’t get easier than that.
- raverbashing 2y agoAnd McD. And Shake Shack. And others. (Yes you might need to buy something but seems like a small effort for it)
- ckemere 2y agoI can attest that Shake Shack have purchase-only bathrooms. And even after a purchase they seemed annoyed…
- ckemere 2y agoHaving just spent the year in Manhattan, my experience was that most (every?) Starbucks there no longer have public bathrooms even with purchase. I was surprised to discover that the only free public bathrooms were at Sweet Green. It changed my perspective of them as a company- it’s a real commitment when the trend is going in the other direction and I want to support them financially as a result.
- adityapatadia 2y agoYes, I figured out the Starbucks (or any other fast food chain) thing after staying there for a while. It's however really a sad scene where people deny visiting washrooms especially when you need it the most. Plus it paints a wrong picture of a country because it's technically people asking you a few bucks for a basic necessity and the government has failed. This is in stark contrast with developed countries like Singapore (where I visit a lot). Singapore makes sure a public toilet is available within a few hundred meters and boy are those clean!
- ethagnawl 2y agoI just read this article about vanishing bathrooms at Starbucks and other fast food restaurants which are pivoting to mobile pickup and drive-thru locations. https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/19/business/starbucks-mobile-orders-third-place/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/19/business/starbucks-mobile-ord... It doesn't look like the linked article mentions restaurant bathrooms but it can't be a coincidence. This all strikes me as a passive-aggressive reaction to FUD about homelessness and "out of control cities".
- lolinder 2y agoIt could be passive aggressive, or it could be that frontline employees at these places are seeing things that you're not and headquarters is making changes to protect their employees and their property. Not every instance of fear is FUD, sometimes the danger is real.
- c-linkage 2y agoChange "protect employees and property" to "limit exposure to liability" and I'd agree.
- lolinder 2y agoTake whatever monetary incentive you like, the point is that it's more likely that there are real risks that people who work in these places know about than that it's all FUD and OP's anecdotal sense that there is no real problem is reflective of the reality on the ground.
- Wytwwww 2y agoPresumably employees are more expensive than property here. Both paying them to take care off and loss incurred because they left to work somewhere else where the conditions are better.
- Aurornis 2y ago> headquarters is making changes to protect their employees and their property. Or to simply retain employees. If you had your choice between two fast food jobs with similar pay but one of them requires employees to take rotations cleaning the public bathroom throughout the day, which one are you going to pick? The issues with drug users are also very real depending on the city and location. Having to have cops or emergency medical people show up to your location a couple times for no other reason than you offered public restrooms is a quick way to make a company decide to no longer offer them.
- abbadadda 2y agoSurely this is an erosion in public trust, but if you’ve ever been in a busy public toilet that smells horrendous, you know from experience that maintaining these public toilets is no easy feat. At the same time, I agree with the thrust of the article that they are a civic good & necessity. I live in the UK. I use the “Radar Key Scheme” for both my son and myself. The Radar Key opens handicapped toilets around the country that are otherwise locked. I asked my GP about a referral for this and they knew nothing about it. In the end I just bought one online. Bizarre. I have a disability that’s not visible, I’m otherwise healthy and relatively privileged, but being unable to find a toilet to use when my bladder feels like it is going to explode makes me feel like a wild animal - unable to fulfill the most base need in a culturally acceptable way - terrible feeling.
- koolba 2y ago> The Radar Key opens handicapped toilets around the country that are otherwise locked. I’ve never heard of this type of thing in the USA. Handicap stalls, if available, are just next to the rest of the stalls in any given location. They’re usually a bit bigger to accommodate a wheel chair, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a special entry mechanism. Is the UK version a physical key or some RF tag?
- tialaramex 2y agoIt's just a physical key. Like the keys for operating train equipment or fire safety they're not intended to prevent malicious access, they're a social signal - this is for people who need it. You're not clever for figuring out how to abuse it, you're just a bad person.
- throwaway3306a 2y agoThe bad person is the one who decided to lock and downsize public toilets. All the arguments about taxes are about money for public good that market can't solve, well where is it?
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- hiAndrewQuinn 2y agoRent-a-Potties, paired with some kind of mobile app, make good business sense to me. Especially if you can get some kind of network effect / critical density mass going in a given area. A person is out and about town, and suddenly has to go, bad. They pull out the app and find their closest Rent-a-Potty. It appears on their map with a green dot - that means the last person to use it considered it reasonably clean, a good sign. (Everyone knows that people whose usage of the Rent-a-Potty is, ahem, strongly correlated with the state transition to an orange or red dot face price hikes, or possibly even expulsion from the app as a whole, so there's good reason to leave it at least as good as you found it.) They tap the dot, hit "Reserve", and the timer begins. A 4 digit PIN code appears on the screen, your secret incantation to the hall of the porcelain throne. These things are not cheap - $1 per minute for the first 10 minutes of reservation, $2 past that. But they're emptied every night, the sink always has hot water, and the soap is always refilled. Some people have tried to game the system by {your deviancy here}; the company has responded with {countermeasures you're smart enough to think of here}. Some enterprising souls could theoretically {countercountermeasure}, but honestly, implementing {countercountercountermeasure} isn't a huge concern for Rent-a-Potty's C-suite, compared to the recent competition from new market entrants like Loolurker, AirPnP, and Pouber.
- lobochrome 2y agoWe all pee and poop. Every. Single. Human. There is no place for “business”. It’s the literal definition of a public good and such the role of the government.
- CrazyStat 2y agoWe all eat too. Is there no place for “business” in eating? Should all restaurants be nationalized?
- citizenkeen 2y agoNo, but we try to guarantee that you have food.
- ajwin 2y agoI live in South Australia and I feel like public toilets are ubiquitous and still increasing in number. Mostly they are either accessible or have a separate accessible toilet. The only exception to this is in areas where they have public social issues. My mum is a little bit financial about toilets so she always struggles when overseas. We even have small self cleaning toilets at the small playgrounds in the suburbs. It would be interesting to understand why we ended up like this.
- wirthjason 2y agoThe article has one good point: there’s diseases and conditions that cause people to need the bathroom, and even if you don’t have this upset stomachs are common enough that at some point it’ll impact you. Parents with young kids realize it too. So this is everyone’s problem. However the article misses the point with statements like this. Quite simply, Lowe was right: there is often no place to go. There are often many places to go, it just might not be a public toilet. There’s restaurants and coffee shop, gas stations, stores. Don’t confuse no public places to go with no places to go. Public toilets are one of those things where all it takes is one person to mess up a good situation for everyone else. There’s no incentive for people to treat them nicely. There’s an asymmetry, people want to use public toilets but who wants to clean public toilets? It’s always “someone else job.” I see no problem having a little friction as a way to help control it. A small charge to use the bathroom or social capital of asking can be enough to remedy the problems of misuse.
- MOARDONGZPLZ 2y agoSome people literally don’t have money for a small charge and they shouldn’t be denied using a public bathroom because of that. You’re right about everything else though.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agoWell, I don't have any social capital. Would rather pay $10 for a public toilet than beg to pee.
- adrian_b 2y agoI have been recently in a trip through Japan and I have been very impressed by the abundance and the quality of the public toilets. On the other hand, in Japan there are extremely few places with public trash cans. Those few that exist are typically associated with vending machines for beverages.
- tmm84 2y agoHere in Japan there are many public toilets (department stores, train stations, 7-11s, etc.). However, not all public toilets here are clean or anywhere I would advise people to use. A lot of train station toilets are just plain stinky (you'll pass out bad), I live off the beaten path so take that into perspective. On the other side of things, I have been out in the middle of no-where and the toilet at the only store in town was as clean as I have ever seen one. As for trash cans, many train stations I use have bins located near the entry/exit gate where you can put it in the correct slot (burnable, plastic, bottle, etc).
- Narishma 2y ago> On the other hand, in Japan there are extremely few places with public trash cans. Those few that exist are typically associated with vending machines for beverages. IIRC they removed them after a terrorist attack in the 90s.
- CamelCaseName 2y agoBut... Why?
- freeone3000 2y agoBecause the bomb was placed in a trash can. It’s like having to remove your shoes to board an airplane in the US: firmly securing the exact door the horse has bolted through, and not paying any attention to other holes in the wall.
- tkgally 2y agoThe nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995 [1] was quite traumatic for those of us living in Japan then. There was a very real fear of follow-up attacks. Security was tight for a long time in public places, and facilities like trash cans and lockers that could be used to plant bombs or poisons were removed. It took years for the tensions to ease, and it seems that even today the people in charge of public places hesitate to reinstate trash cans. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack
- Mistletoe 2y agoI’m a runner and public water fountains seem to be as well. Is there some sort of website that maps public water fountains in your city? I run pretty far and I don’t want to carry water.
- nradov 2y agoStrava has that, although there are some data quality issues. https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/6525900339725-Strava-Maps-Glossary https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/6525900339725-S...
- habi 2y agoAs suggested in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41016144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41016144, OpenStreetMap is the thing for you; I suggest use the data with Organic Maps: https://organicmaps.app/ https://organicmaps.app/ You can search for „drinking“ to find mapped fountains/drinking water: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:amenity%3Ddrinking_water https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:amenity%3Ddrinking_w...
- wirthjason 2y agoWhen I was in high school (ages ago) the boy’s bathrooms didn’t have doors. I guess it was to deter kids smoking, graffiti, and other bad things that happen. We were a middle class suburb so I don’t know how often this happened anyways. I was fortunate to never need to go but I always remember it.
- lifestyleguru 2y agoNeither had toiler paper and toilet seats. Instead of weeding out bad kids who smoked and vandalized, all kids were punished. Negatively impacted nutrition and hydration habits during the following decades of my life.
- CamelCaseName 2y agoThe government should simply mandate that all restaurants, supermarkets, event venues, etc. above a certain size should be required to have at least a certain number of free public toilets. Otherwise, the more stores that withdraw from offering free public toilets, the more burden it places on everyone else. If it causes a slight increase in labor cost, at least it the cost will be borne equally by all, and benefit will be borne most by the most vulnerable.
- burlesona 2y agoThe bathrooms are already mandated by the government, they just aren’t required to be free. But in the overhwhelming majority of cases they are free.
- RecycledEle 2y agoIn Texas, fast food places almost always allow people to use their bathrooms. The few fast food places that do not let me go without complaint get a complaint to corporate and they lose my business for a few months.
- egypturnash 2y agoIn the US, we have the Committee To End Pay Toilets In America to thank for this state of affairs. It was an organization started as a joke back in the seventies, when pay toilets were very common in public spaces; it succeeded all too well. Pay toilets are banned across many states but there has been absolutely no work put into replacing them with public, free toilets. Nobody is willing to pay to maintain these, so if you can’t pay the much higher tax of going into a coffee shop and buying a $10 drink, you are largely fucked. Large banks of pay toilets in places like bus stations, where everyone can take a dump for the minuscule cost of a coin, are long gone. IF you look sufficiently affluent, you can slip into a hotel or a department store (assuming your city’s downtown still has those) and take a free dump in some pretty luxurious surroundings. But if you’re at a point where that $10 drink for bathroom access is a big stretch then you’re probably not going to make it through there without a run-in with security. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_in_America https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets...
- joshuanapoli 2y agoThe situation varies from state to state. In Florida, many businesses are required to have public restrooms. So you should be able to do your business without being coerced into buying that $10 drink.
- trogdor 2y agoFlorida’s Building Code requires restaurants to have one or more public restrooms. There is no state law that forces restaurants to allow people to use those restrooms. Restaurants can refuse access to non-customers.
- SoftTalker 2y ago> Restaurants can refuse access to non-customers. And many do, because of the repeated experiences of non-customers destroying the restrooms. They aren't doing it just to be dicks to people who need to pee but don't want to buy something.
- sharkrice 2y agoIn the past, public restrooms in China also required a fee, ranging from five to two yuan per visit. It wasn't until 1998 when a rural youth named Ge Rui was charged three jiao at a restroom in Zhengzhou Railway Station. To seek justice for this three-jiao fee, Ge Rui personally paid 50 yuan for the lawsuit, taking Zhengzhou Railway Bureau to court. The case went through two trials, the details of which we will skip. In short, Ge Rui won the lawsuit in 2001. A month later, the National Development and Reform Commission, citing "strong complaints from passengers," mandated that all public transportation venues must provide free access to restrooms. To this day, most public restrooms in China do not charge fees, and most government agencies, institutions, companies, shopping malls, hotels, office buildings, etc., allow tourists to use their restrooms for free, which is seen as a symbol of civilization. Presently, public restrooms in China are generally well-maintained, and since China has strict drug laws, there are no issues with drug addicts, marijuana odors, needles, or syringes.
- seanmcdirmid 2y agoYour prices are off. Not 5 to 2 yuan in the 90s, more like 5 to 2 jiao. I remember 5 jiao bathroom places being common into the late 00s in Beijing (and literally why I would carry a few 5 jiao notes whenever I went out, along with tissue). There is no judicial independence or precedent in China, and localities typically set their own policies and standards. Even mandates are often just unfunded wishful thinking, you can still find pay toilets in China today especially in tourist places. Starbucks would always have a sit down toilet in Beijing malls, which was useful if the alternative was a squat toilet. But availability is nice, so that sit down toilet wasn’t very available and the squat toilet in the mall was, so whatever. The old guys smoking in the bathroom was a pretty big problem. 20 years ago at least, even in the squats. I feel sorry for girls, though, a fancy mall in xidan would always have a huge line for the women’s restroom that made my bladder cringe, well past 2015.
- sharkrice 2y agoIndeed, you are correct in mentioning the range from five jiao to two yuan. During my travels, I have often encountered overcrowded restrooms, especially in scenic areas and popular highway rest stops. The issue of long queues for women's restrooms is also significant, along with the presence of cigarette smoke. However, paid restrooms are indeed rare nowadays, at least in Zhuhai, which may be due to its status as a tourist city; the public restrooms there are well-maintained. When I can't find a public restroom, I often use the facilities in banks or government offices. As you mentioned, while local judicial rulings may not apply nationwide, central administrative directives do have a broad impact. In Guangdong Province, I rarely encounter obstacles when using restrooms in government departments, except during the pandemic.
- tambourine_man 2y agoI highly recommend this movie from Wim Wenders, Perfect Days, about a Tokyo public bathroom worker: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QzZBbX5A1FA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QzZBbX5A1FA I know the synopsis doesn’t do it justice, but really, go watch it. One the best movies I’ve seen in a while.
- burlesona 2y agoSo the Author is based in Spain and writing about life in Spain. My experiences traveling in Europe have been that bathrooms are often hard to find there … but, as a tourist, I’ve definitely not seen enough of normal daily life to know. Meanwhile many comments here seem to be reflexively decrying the situation in the US. That makes no sense to me. Every business has to have a bathroom, and in the overwhelming majority of the country these bathrooms are not locked and nobody minds if you come inside and use one. There are two exceptions, that most of us aren’t visiting very often: (1) some of our city centers where there are concentrated disorder and mental health problems (2) the most crowded tourist destinations These places tend to keep bathrooms locked, but you can usually just ask and get the key or code. Many have signs saying you need to make a purchase but few try to enforce that. These exceptions are indeed annoying, but I believe the solution is better mental health care and generally more effective community policing so that businesses in those locations could follow the norms of the rest of the country.
- Eumenes 2y agoStart putting addicts and rabid homeless in mental wards/jails and only then will public bathrooms be tolerable. Hire some local muscle to keep an eye on things. Problem solved. These days I'd rather spend $5-$10 on a beer or souvenir to use a private bathroom with my kid vs potentially encountering a deranged man masterbating or shooting up. The real civil catastrophe is the enablement of this behavior. How come we can't figure this out in 2024 but for 1000s of years it was the absolute bare minimum that was expected from a society?
- kjkjadksj 2y agoPublic bathrooms are nasty even when there aren’t homeless people or addicts around. Ever been on a road trip?
- xboxnolifes 2y agoHighway reststop restrooms have been some of the cleaner restrooms I've been in. Gambling between them and a random fast food bathroom, I'd pick the reststop.
- SoftTalker 2y agoMajor name truck stops are also mostly good in my experience, as are bigger gas stations that are right off the interstate (more variable). Yeah fast food places are hit and miss, and post-COVID most are not open past 10pm or so.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoWell I used to clean bathrooms as part of my first job. What you see is after people like us have gone through and cleaned it. I've seen piss everywhere. Poop everywhere. Puke. Blood. Used catheters and feminine hygiene products. Soiled clothing left behind for me to throw away (begging the question how they left without pants). I would clean the bathroom I was assigned probably once an hour and each time there was something disastrous to clean at that interval. Many people are simply disgusting; I can't imagine they would ever do this stuff in their own home. Never had a homeless person or obvious drug addict at this location, just people coming off the highway.
- binary132 2y agoThis feels like a cope for the fact that we let people defecate in public now.
- underseacables 2y agoI lament this too. Paris has nice public pay toilets and Germany has the custom of leaving a euro. Maybe a company will open a series of public-private toilets in major cities. The government could help by providing space, utilities etc. The company charges a low rate, keeps things stocked and cleaned, police patrol it and everyone benefits. I understand the arguments of drugs and sex, but architecturally, socially, and civically we can mitigate that and should towards the common goal.
- more_corn 2y agoIf you go into a business that doesn’t have a “public” restroom leave immediately and never go back. I don’t want to live in a world where I have to hold it, so I vote with my feet. And I assure you, that is the one thing that business owners pay attention to. If you want to make it clear you can post your reasoning on their yelp page. I would prefer a model like Germany has where instead of paying $50M for a public toilet and then service contracts, the government pays businesses to keep their bathrooms open. $50M goes a long way at $15/hr. Businesses add slightly more staff and bathroom maintenance is just part of the job. Sadly I am not in a position to make this policy dream a reality so I must push the upkeep cost onto the business owner.
- djmips 2y agoIn Canada where I live, public parks, which there are fairly numerous have public restrooms, however they started closing them after dark and in the city itself many of the places you used to be able to go without a problem like stores have now permanently closed their public washrooms or at least have a code / key you now need to get. Nevertheless, it feels like it's still much much better than places mentioned in the other comments.
- hnpolicestate 2y agoI noticed something related in my borough (not Manhattan), over the past decade there are far fewer trash cans. In front of places like Dunkin, Starbucks etc. These are the small things that add up to make people irritated. Having to shlep a block to throw out a few dirty napkins sitting in my car.
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- joecool1029 2y agoBehold, some brave soul did NYC's subway toilet tour: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fE9y-1YCnMY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fE9y-1YCnMY
- gandalfian 2y agoThe best idea I've used is a small charge but paid by an honesty box. The most annoying are the turnstiles that require exact coins only. Mostly to pay for the attendant who can't give change or accept an overpayment. If you don't have two 20p pieces your money is no good.
- theendisney4 2y agoAs someone who cleans public toilets i had to think what my expert opinion is. The deposit should be around 500 usd and it should be entirely refunded. Before engagement you should do an inspection on camera, report the issue so that the previous user can be billed excessively. If you can restore functionality, even if it is only partial you should be rewarded for it.
- squigz 2y agoThat is insane.
- theendisney4 2y agoYou have no idea how insane it gets and that is a good thing. The toilets cost 100k if you make an effort 500 worth of damage is easy. If it needs to be fixed imediately things get expensive even faster. Bodily liquids or biological agenta arent exactly safe. At times the ultimate price is paid. Everyone with 500 in the bank or 500 in credit covers enough of the people in need.
- squigz 2y ago> Everyone with 500 in the bank or 500 in credit covers enough of the people in need. How does this work, then? Does everyone pay $500 to use the toilet, or not? If not, how does the toilet know who can afford it? Maybe it should be a function of one's income.
- theendisney4 2y agoYou get your 500 back after use but there is always the chance you flush your cape, clog up the pipe, puke all over the walls and drop your bottle of wine. Someone will have to timely pick up the shards, clean up and who knows? share your rare incurable diseases? It could be expensive.
- squigz 2y ago
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y agoFirst put a law to prevent urinating in public, then remove public toilets. Something sounds fishy
- Charon77 2y agoIn Japan I think there are laws mandating barrier free access, which include having free toilet, including for wheelchair users, diaper change, and ostomate support