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Toilets – we all use them but seldom like to talk about them. The flushing toilet was invented by Sir John Harrington in 1596 for Queen Elizabeth I. He was originally barred from the Royal Court for spreading smutty stories, but after his invention, he was allowed back. Having whet your appetite for fascinating toilet facts, let us look at 15 more.
1. The film “Psycho” was the first movie to show a toilet flushing – the scene caused an inpouring of complaints about indecency
2. Pomegranates studded with cloves were used as the first attempt at making toilet air-freshner
3. Hermann Goering refused to use regulation toilet paper – instead he bought soft white handkerchiefs in bulk and used them
4. Over $100,000 US dollars was spent on a study to determine whether most people put their toilet paper on the holder with the flap in front or behind; the answer: three out of four people have the flap in the front
5. King George II of Great Britain died falling off a toilet on the 25th of October 1760
6. The average person spends three whole years of their life sitting on the toilet
7. The first toilet cubicle in a row is the least used (and consequently cleanest)
8. An estimated 2.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to proper toilet facilities, particularly in rural areas of China and India.
9. The Roman army didn’t have toilet paper so they used a water soaked sponge on the end of a stick instead!
10. The toilet is flushed more times during the super bowl halftime than at any time during the year.
11. 90% of pharmaceuticals taken by people are excreted through urination. Therefore our sewer systems contain heavy doses of drugs. A recent study by the EPA has found fish containing trace amounts of estrogen, cholesterol-lowering drugs, pain relievers, antibiotics, caffeine and even anti-depressants.
12. Lack of suitable toilets and sanitation kills approximately 1.8 million people a year, many of them children.
13. The toilet handle in a public restroom can have up to 40,000 germs per square inch.
14. While he didn’t invent the toilet, Thomas Crapper perfected the siphon flush system we use today. He was born in the village of Thorne – which is an anagram of throne.
15. In a 1992 survey, British public toilets were voted the worst in the world. Following quickly behind were Thailand, Greece, and France.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:40 am
I remember once when I was in Southport, UK. I was dying for a piss. I managed to see one before I wet myself. I crossed the road and remained composed, I knew I had made it.
Horror of horrors as I see they charge 20p for using it. I quickly pulled out my wallet and feverishly searched for coins. I found about four 50p coins, slightly upset I had to sacrifice so much for 15 seconds of urination, I put the money to the slot. It wouldn’t fit.
I almost cried. However, luckily I managed to find someone who would trade coins around the corner.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:47 am
awesome
June 15th, 2009 at 1:54 am
Toilets are HAWT
June 15th, 2009 at 1:56 am
Interesting list.
wee third
June 15th, 2009 at 2:00 am
I don’t mind that vanity aquarium one! I think the water is optimized but really funny!
June 15th, 2009 at 2:01 am
i could have 3 more years of life if i did something while sitting on the toilet
WOW!
June 15th, 2009 at 2:12 am
Let me predict that there will be a number of pun-ful comments of varying degrees of taste. I’ll come back when I’ve thought of one.
I’m still reeling from seeing “fascinating facts” and “toilets” in the same sentence.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:25 am
Hmm. I’m suspicious of a few of these.
I know Psycho was famous for showing a flushing toilet for the first time, but with transvestism, perversion and shower stabbings in the same movie, did the mere presence of a toilet really cause such a – ahem – stink?
June 15th, 2009 at 2:27 am
cool list. In Massachusetts there is the American Sanitary Plumbing Museum or as we call it the toilet museum. Went there one time and it was surprisingly fun.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:29 am
you know sitting on a toilet is a great time to get some thinking done. I wonder if that is how you got the idea for this list?
June 15th, 2009 at 2:33 am
3 years?? that doesn’t sound right.
its like an hour a day, everyday.
and british toilets being the worst! haha i wouldn’t have guessed that.
June 15th, 2009 at 2:47 am
wait, so they actually spent 100K dollars, just to find out how the toiletpaper hangs in someones house?
either there is some money to make by products that use such info, or someone did not want the money to be spent usefully.
either way, that is 50,000 beers (or cokes) flushed down the drain. i think there are much more fun (and fulfilling) ways to spend money.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:04 am
Bog-standard list
June 15th, 2009 at 3:07 am
Actually I kinda agree that British toilets are crappy (tee hee) when I went to covent garden recently I really needed the loo but the closest public toilets were disgusting! One of them was overflowing… Ergh
But in airports, cinemas, shopping centres, etc they’re surprisingly very nice, so don’t take the piss! I’m so sorry I couldn’t resist.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:17 am
8. Dave Rattigan – It sure did! The reason Marion tears the paper up and flushes it in the toilet was so Hitchcock could insist the flushing of the toilet was necessary for the scene and would not be forced to have it removed.
And then 15 years later, the Brady kids didn’t even get to have a toilet…
June 15th, 2009 at 3:18 am
Hello Dave, My friend would like to use your toilet…
Another victory for Britain! Worst toilets in the world. Anywhere else we go is a luxury.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:25 am
British toilets are the worst? I dont think George Michael will agree!!
I cant make number 2 in public toilets!!
June 15th, 2009 at 4:00 am
The thing about number 9 – the Roman stick sponge is that it was a communal implement.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:15 am
Who ever did the worst toilet survey obviously did not visit Africa countries in Africa. At the Swaziland and South Africa border the public toilets will give you super-waiting-powers you never thought you had.
Also the FIFA Confederations Cup is currently being played in South Africa. Spain destroyed New Zealand with a 5 – 0 win. Sorry Jfrater.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:18 am
Don’t know about public toilets, but I’d suggest that toilets in British bars are pretty good. We know there are going to be hordes of beer swilling guys and plan accordingly. In Italy, there’s usually just one toilet and a long queue in popular bars. Same thing in France, except they usually forget to clean the toilet. I think this is because a night out usually consists of a few hours spent chatting over a teeny tiny cup of coffee or a cognac.
Having said that, the absolute worst was a rough bar in Glasgow, where the floor was just a sea of piss. Luckily the floor sloped slightly, so you could edge along the back of the toilet with the ’sea’ lapping at your toes and contribute to the flood. Just about beats the trendy Parisian joint where the toilet had a wall of flies.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:31 am
List item no 9:
Q: What’s brown and sticky?
A: A stick.
Q: What’s browner and stickier?
A: A Roman stick.
In two and a half years of living in Korea, I used Asian-style squat toilets three times – each time in dire emergency; indeed, once in dire rear (get it? haha!). I predicted that there would be tasteless puns.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:46 am
oh my!
June 15th, 2009 at 4:53 am
How long will #7 actually be true for? Because people will go into the first cubicle thinking it’s the cleanest, when in fact a lot more people will be using it. So then the second, third, etc etc cubicles will actually be the cleanest after a while. Oui?:)
June 15th, 2009 at 5:09 am
I have heard that the second toilet is the dirtiest as people do miss the first one and automatically head for the second… this is a habit I am tying to break. It is harder than you think. Next time you head into the toilets and you have the choice of all toilets, see where you automatically go!
June 15th, 2009 at 5:09 am
One thing that really bothers me about foreign countries (especially in Europe) is that they charge money for the use of the toilet. I explained to an Italian friend of mine that gas stations and most other businesses in America will let anyone use their toilet without buying anything or handing over a quarter. Somehow this led my Italian friend to believe that some gas stations in the States exist exclusively for the purpose of making a toilet available.
June 15th, 2009 at 5:12 am
i got a cool story about public toilets in bratislava, slovakia. i was just passing trough that country as i was going from chech republic to hungary and we stayed for about 3 hours there. i went to mcdonalds to eat something and after that we went for a walk. as i was walking i felt my stomach starting to digest the stuff i just ate
i had to find a public toilet and i had to find it fast. luckily, we were in some kind of a park next to the main square. i looked around, and immediately found a wc. it was an underground type, and the urinals were separated from the toilets. i walked in, i payed 2 euros to an old lady that looked like a witch and she gave me 2 sheets of paper to wipe. the toilet had no lock, there was no toilet seat, and the scrubber was chained to a wall. i did my thing somehow, and proceeded to the sink, hoping i can wash my hands. of course, there was no water, and the soap was in a small bag also chained to the wall… so i thought to myself, maybe there are sinks in the part where the urinals are. so i went there. as i was walking in there i saw something very very disturbing, at least for my standards. an older man was on his knees, performing a fellatio on a younger man and the third one was watching and masturbating. i stood there in shock for a second, turned around, got in my car and left slovakia never to return again. i hope u like the story, it was all true. cheers.
June 15th, 2009 at 5:15 am
Three years on a toilet in a lifetime? That’s why it’s important to not just sit there and do nothing, instead read a book or write a screenplay. Just don’t talk on the phone though.
June 15th, 2009 at 5:39 am
When I read the title, I thought it might be a crappy list, but it doesn’t stink! ba-dum tish!
As for number 7, I heard that it was false now. It used to be true. Now because many believe it to be the cleanest, they use it and now it has become one of the dirtiest.
I feel that I need to bring sanatizer in with me just to go to the restroom.
@Clouds (19): “At the Swaziland and South Africa border the public toilets will give you super-waiting-powers you never thought you had.”
That cracked me up!
June 15th, 2009 at 6:17 am
Thailand second to the British? I’m shocked. We must do better!! (I guess we lost a couple points coz you don’t gotta sit on a squat toilet)
I would like to nominate Brazzaville International Airport of Congo Africa. For worst public toilets in the world.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:18 am
#11: assuming the average person lives to 80 or so, it works out to 54 minutes each day of toilet use. So, you’re right. Even when you factor in days when you may use the toilet more (those painful #2’s, the day-after-a-night-of-drinking runs, illness), 3 years still seems a bit high.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:18 am
I don’t think I’m the only one who noticed that the guy who perfected the siphon flush system is named Thomas Crapper, but I haven’t read a comment about it yet. How’s that for an appropriate name?
June 15th, 2009 at 6:20 am
*makes a mental note never to use a public toilet in Britain*
June 15th, 2009 at 6:29 am
How could Frnce have come fourth when they still utilised the ubiquitous ‘pisseau’ (phonetic spelling – pronounced piss-wah) – the open air hole-in-the- ground0and-four-walls over which the urinating male could see (and so converse wirth friends/passers-by and where one could also see their ankles.
My wife is French and the easiest way to watch her shudder with horror is to mention the term ‘piss-wah’ in her hearing: Add to that they stank for 100 yards in every direction – - – - OK; 30 yards in every direction!
June 15th, 2009 at 6:39 am
Has anyone ever watched Transpotting? The scene when the main character falls into the toilet… yeah thats right… all toilets in the UK look like that… even in private homes!!!
June 15th, 2009 at 6:51 am
TOILET HUMOUR:
Why is a man’s pee yellow and sperm white?
So we can tell if we’re Coming or Going.
What did Mr. Spock find in the toilet? The Captain’s log.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:55 am
actually the term crapper was used for a toilet for a while after he became known for then. And the term crap comes from that. How would you like to have crap named after you?
June 15th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Anyone have that one guy/gal at work who COMPLETELY destroys the office bathroom after use? And they’re PROUD of it!
June 15th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Number 10 is bunk, as snopes.com will tell you, and this list is rife with grammatical errors.
I hope your book doesn’t turn out as poorly edited as this site is sometimes.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:33 am
Wow, Bob… who peed in your Cheerios?
June 15th, 2009 at 8:01 am
Picture no. 3, I can’t imagine anything more romantic than pooing with your partner… … … … …
I also heard that squat toilets are actually better than sitting toilets because the poo comes out through a more natural shape of the body.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:12 am
@ Bob :
Snopes.com is full of bullsh*t!!!!
And by the way… so are you!!!
June 15th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Peculiar but interesting!
June 15th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Bob # 38 – sober up.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:26 am
i found the toilets at the thai-cambodian border (poipet) life-alteringly horrific. the open-air communal squatty-potty set-up in some parts of beijing is quite a jarring experience too.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:38 am
# 19 Clouds – yea I agree with you on the sanitation problem at the border post.
I live 200 kms from the Golela border post, and go to Big Bend and Pigs Peak quite often.
So nice to here that a fellow Listserver – practicaly passed my front doorstep on the way to Swazi.
Thanks Jamie nice list.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Once while wandering around Palmerston North NZ (I believe) my wife needed to use a toilet. Seeing the sign for a public restroom she entered the facility. Turns out that what it was: a restroom. No toilets, just couches and chairs for people to sit and relax.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:42 am
I have to publicly thank McDonalds for providing a free toilet all the way through my Europe trip, while I never dared to consume their “food”, every time I saw that big yellow M my bladder rejoiced
June 15th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Regardlesss of what snopes says, I was still curious about #10 anyway. Do people in New Zealand also rush to the toilet during the halftime of the US Super Bowl broadcast?
June 15th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Some real geniuses here today. Look, number ten is false. If it isn’t, prove me wrong. And this list has errors all through it. If it doesn’t, prove me wrong. It’s pretty simple, folks (but then, so are you).
June 15th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Hi. Good list. – lets not defocate it.
With Glastonbury Music Festival just around the corner, I’d like to nominate fastival ‘facilities’ as the worst toilets in the world – ever. The stories I could tell you! It’s much better these days but in the past, whenever a port-a-loo get full, folks would still keep on using it… You had to master the art of hovering OVER the huge pile and dangle yourself in mid air to part with anything – all while holding your breath from the stink. If you were lucky, you could make it; but if you passed out while holding your breath – you were in DEEP SHIT!
Public bogs in Britain are quite average on the whole, maybe those in scotland are worse?
@Shagrat (33): Isn’t La Piscine the word for toilet in France??
(joke)
Any girls ever used a she-pee?
June 15th, 2009 at 8:50 am
@Travis (34): Thank you Travis, I thought I was the only person thinking about that movie, when I read the fact about the state of affairs in the British loos.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:04 am
@archangel (40):What a cute thought, it reminded me of this…
))((
Some of you may recall the emoticon for pooping back and forth from “Me and You and Everyone We Know”.
Personally I thought the 3rd picture could use a dose of Tidybowl and a –dare i say it—sponge on a brush!
June 15th, 2009 at 9:05 am
What happened to my emoticon?! it should show as..
))((
June 15th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Damn you Word Press…Okay Jamie now I have a problem…Arghhhh!
June 15th, 2009 at 9:12 am
I would have to say that I think number 10 would be correct. Only because the sheer amount of alcohol that is consumed during the game causing many more calls to nature.
My two cents on the matter.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:27 am
I was on the toilet once when a mild earthquake hit. For a brief moment before I realized what was happening I thought I was rocking the house with the best crap ever.
Where can I get a toilet like the one in the third picture? That is the sexiest thing ever!
June 15th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Go Bob!
June 15th, 2009 at 9:36 am
That first toilet looks like some kind of bizarre molestation device…
June 15th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Hey!! Has anyone ever been to a toilet where there’s a TV? I went to this pub in Santiago, Chile (where I’m from)that has a TV playing 80’s music videos… I thought it was hilarious!! very interesting experience…and the music was much more fun when you were IN the toilet
p
PS: Firt time commenting. I’m kinda nervous…
June 15th, 2009 at 10:14 am
@ Lifeschool (50)
The French word “piscine” directly translated actually means pool.
That means that it is equally as disgusting. Nice find.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:16 am
AHAHAHAH thomas crapper
June 15th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Awesome!!!
June 15th, 2009 at 10:20 am
dare i saw….This list is the “shit”
June 15th, 2009 at 10:26 am
@Mary Jo (59): Welcome aboard! Keep commenting.
@Shifty (56): That reminded me of Walter from Jeff Dunham!
June 15th, 2009 at 10:55 am
The most infamous crapper:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/20070404cbgb.jpg
June 15th, 2009 at 11:05 am
@Diogenes (64): That brings a whole new level to the word -disgusting- and I’m not referring to the graffiti.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Clouds: I have been in that very restroom on the Swazi border and thought the exact same thing as you did. Small world!
June 15th, 2009 at 11:19 am
I always use the handicapped stall – it is never occupied and almost always roomier and spotless.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Interesting list, but more interesting comments! Seems as if everyone has had a run-in with a strange public bathroom, as have I, and which I will now share.
On a shoot, in a foreign land, a place not meant for tourists at all, we were one night filming in a bar/pool hall. The men’s room was a gully which ran along the long side of one wall. There was a slow trickle of water running through the gully, just enough to eventually rid the room of urine, but not the urine smell. I’ll leave the rest of the bathroom needs to your lively imaginations.
I was the only female on the shooting crew, so special arrangements had to be made for me. There was a house katterkorner to the bar which the production company paid to allow me to use their bathroom as needed during the shooting.
I only needed to use it once, but once was enough. The entire upper story of the house, the third floor, had no roof. That floor contained the kitchen, the living-room and the bathroom.
The bathroom was a largish room, square, with a tiled floor, a bathtub, a shower in the middle created with pipes and designed along some kind of Rube Goldberg lines, a basin, and a toilet with a gravity flush. Even though there was a door, the fact that there was no roof made you feel *exposed* somehow.
In any case, it was an interesting experience.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:57 am
ugh the worst kind of toilets have to be porta loos.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
copperdragon, your comment reminded me of a this scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm. The end of the clip is pretty funny. It’s hard to believe all of these guys would be so disciplined as to not the use the handicap stall.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
By the way the clip above has foul language just in case you are at work.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
wow people r interested in weird subjects…
June 15th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
@Bob (38): I think Bob is correct that the Super Bowl toilet flushing is a myth. It’s also said that there are more cases of domestic violence that day, which is also not true.
@Mary Jo (59): I was in a bathroom at a restaurant called ESPN which was affiliated with the sports network. There were TV’s in the bathrooms so patrons wouldn’t miss any sports coverage. Weird.
#9 “The Roman army didn’t have toilet paper so they used a water soaked sponge on the end of a stick instead!” I once heard that the expression, “he got the wrong end of the stick” came from this, but I can’t find evidence that proves it.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
moonbeam: how do you know these aren’t true? did you do a study or something?
June 15th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
HAHA! Thomas crapper! He was destined to have something to do with poop
June 15th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
*farts*
June 15th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
@Looser (75): I wish I could site proof, that’s why I started with “I think.” I remember reading somewhere that these were Urban Legends, but I can’t recall where I saw the information.
“did you do a study or something?” Too funny, no I didn’t do a study! I found this from about.com: “[A] Salt Lake City water main did burst open right in the middle of a Super Bowl broadcast back in the 1980s. But though news stories at the time attributed the mishap to an excess of toilet flushings, no evidence has ever been found to substantiate that, or even the likelihood of such an event..”
June 15th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
A few years ago, cable channel Nickelodeon sponsored some off the shoulder tales told by seniors, recalling some event from their life. An old New Yorker told this tale:
As a kid, toilet paper was not easily available, so everyone would salvage whatever paper they could for the task at hand. The softer the paper, the more prized it was.
In the neighborhood was a green grocer, who often had his fruits arrive individually wrapped with tissue, said tissue becoming a coveted item to the neighbors.
At this point the storyteller lets us know about the stingy, hateful old lady of the neighborhood, and how he supplied her with a handful of the greengrocer’s tissue.
Tissue that was harvested from the delivery of a crate of Prickly Pear Cactus fruits that had arrived. And then he bursts out laughing, close to tears, as he remembers the woman’s encounter with the micro-spine covered tissue.
I just couldn’t see the humor–guess you had to be there.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
3 years using the toilet= 25,632 hours. If you live to 72 years old and spend 3 years of that on the toilet you have to spend about 1 hour a day on the toilet. That does seem a little off.
I guess if you are sick and when you get older you make a lot of that up by going to the bathroom 3 times throughout the night.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end the faster it goes
June 15th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
I live on a property in the tropical rainforests of North Queensland in Australia and Thomas Crapper’s grandson (or great-grandson) built the house I live in! The funny thing is he followed in the family’s footsteps and was a plumber, however, the plumbing in my house is crap! The pipes sing and some are exposed and the toilet is not insulated, in the middle of the house under stairs so you can be heard from anywhere in the house!
June 15th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
@rufus (82):
That’s pretty interesting. Who would have thought we would hear from someone who lived in the same house as somebody’s grandson or great grandson mentioned in this list. Judging by your description of his work maybe plumbers are like shoemakers: “The Shoemakers Children have no Shoes”
June 15th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Do a lot of men prefer to urinate in the cubicle than the toilets hanging on the wall ?
June 15th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
The worst public toilets in the world are in New Orleans
June 15th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Lets not forget that Elvis Presley died on the toilet lol.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
#84: I’ve noticed that. These guys are probably too bashful to go “in public,” but then they go into a stall and splash away for all to hear. That really bugs me.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Ah toilets… very interesting list (although I’ve always heard that you spend 9 months not 3 years on the loo during your lifetime – reference: old wives tales).
I’ve always found that I can hold a quite detailed conversation about toilets and the activities that take place therein with any of my male friends. My female friends on the other hand… Following are a few of my own ‘fascinating facts’ on the subject of the humble dunny:
I agree with Lifeschool (50) that the toilets at music festivals are the worst (that I’ve seen anyway). By the end of one 3 day event there were a few people that had stopped using them completely (for both 1s and 2s). However it was quite funny to see the long line of guys in the morning waiting to take a dump with their own personal roll of paper under one arm.
When I was at uni I ’sampled’ numerous toilets around campus, and by the end of my degrees I’d identified a couple of locations that were my first preference when in need. I hate going to busy public toilets so it was important to find a nice quiet out-of-the-way spot.
NOTHING can beat home ground advantage when it comes to toilets…
Toilet graffiti most likely warrants an entire top 10 list, but the most amusing thing I’ve read is (apologies for the French):
“Here I sit
Brokenhearted
Tried to $hit
But only farted”
I know a lot of people that take pride in going to toilet at work, and about getting paid for partaking in said activity.
Finally, I highly recommend the Australian movie “Kenny” to anyone that enjoyed this list. While some of the film’s humour might be lost in translation (different nationalities find different things funny and all that), I personally thought it was hilarious.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Precision: My fiance LOVE getting paid to sit on the toilet! He used to send text messages to his friends while sitting. I like it because it keeps our bathroom less smelly!
Anyone know where the term “the loo” originated? I asked a guy when I was in London (one of the information guys at the Tower of London who seemed to know just about everything, except this!) Still don’t know the answer:(
June 15th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
the worst toilet is the so called squatting pan, which is not a toilet but a method for inadvertently soiling oneself.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
good topic…I started traveling late in life and was shocked and apalled when I went to Greece and was told I could not “flush” toilet paper…sicily and parts of tuscanny were the same way…and after all my research before my trips NOT ONE mentioned the “toilet” problem…
it’s been a running joke in my family about the “toilet habits” in europe…is it just me or shoud travel books tell you that in all of athens, nobody flushes and the place is a festering ecoli epidemic waiting to happen
June 15th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Hmmm… so what’s the next $100,000 study? whether people crumple toilet paper into a ball before using it to wipe their behinds, or do they fold it neatly?
June 15th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
After a long day of work I came on here expecting another sub par list. To my astonishment this is the best list thats been on here in weeks. Yo JF the only thing better than this would be if you put up that list I sent you. Its sweet!
June 15th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
kappakapp… June 15th, 2009 at 2:33 am:
“3 years?? that doesn’t sound right. its like an hour a day, everyday.”
AN HOUR A DAY? 60 minutes total of sitting on the John? Every single day? Dude/dudette… you really need to eat more raisin bran. Some of us (male and female) are in ‘n out kind of people. There is life outside of the bathroom walls, you know. Here’s what you can do: wait until critical alert level… THEN head to the toilet. I guarantee you won’t waste an hour of your day sitting and waiting, trying to prematurely evacuate.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Ya man unless you are reading, making calls, or doing some other worth while activity while crapping, an hour is far to much time to waste on the pot.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Reading Precision’s poem jogged my memory. Here’s one found at a community college:
“Some come here to sit and think,
others come to sh*t and stink,
but I am here to scratch my balls,
and read the writing on the walls”
This was painted over after awhile and then this was written:
“With paint they try to cover my pen,
but the sh*thouse poet strikes again!”
June 15th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Some more graffiti:
“The toilet paper here is like Clint Eastwood – rough, tough and takes no sh*t”
At the bottom of toilet door written in tiny writing: “You are now sh*tting at 30 degrees”
Written above the men’s urinal “Why are you looking up here? The joke’s in your hands”
On a construction site: “OSHA regulation 42-2 : All turds over 6 inches must be hand lowered.”
In a restaurant: “Flush twice – it’s a long way to the kitchen.”
It seems there are quite a number of websites dedicated to this type of humour.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
they missed out Malaysian public toilets from the “worst public toilets” study. I have lived in the UK and Malaysia. I think Malaysian public toilets are scary.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
#26 – Your story is not really so unique…most public restrooms have some history of sexual deviancy, particularly male restrooms. It’s a rather widespread and common phenomena.
I have seen my fair share of strange toilets and bathrooms in my travels over the years, but I have to say that one of the strangest happens to be on the side of St. Catherine’s Cathedral in Brussels where there is a pissing wall…literally on the side of the church. It’s a concrete area against the church that smells horrific and is, evidently, a public urinal.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Actually, come to think of it, I have a delightful story concerning a good friend of mine and a public restroom.
She and I were visiting the beach in Cassis, France, some years ago when she decided she needed to find a restroom. There happened to be a public one that cost about 50 Euro cents to enter. So I left her to her business and I wandered off a bit down to the water again. It was a particularly long period of time that she was absent and I started to get curious to know what happened to her…finally when I turned around I saw her approaching, partially soaking wet! Apparently, it was also a self-cleaning bathroom and the way she described the experience was that she inserted the coin to enter, the light turned on and she closed the door. She proceeded to do her business and after finishing, her hand slipped while opening the door and it accidentally closed again. The lights turned off and in the next moment water began to appear from the corner of the room spraying in the direction of the toilet for which she used her (thankfully rather large) pocketbook as a shield. She said she was mortified and thought she was going to be locked in their forever and was hoping that I would come to look for her or that someone else would pay the 50 cents to use it so she could get out. Fortunately, after being assaulted by various sprays of water, she discovered that the bathroom does not lock from the inside and she was able to escape.
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life, and I’m already losing it just recalling the story here!
June 15th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
#7 has changed my life forever
June 16th, 2009 at 1:32 am
From the introduction:
Sir John Harrington … was originally barred from the Royal Court for spreading smutty stories, but after his invention, he was allowed back –
flushed with success, no doubt.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:01 am
deeeziner (52)… it’s okay =] I know which emoticon you mean.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:11 am
again, a very interesting list on listverse. is it cool, Thomas “Crapper” has something he contributed to toilets.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:11 am
I just got back from a trip to London and I need too dispute England as having the worst Public toilets. You have to HAVE public toilets to have the worst and they don’t have public toilets!
June 16th, 2009 at 8:17 am
@ #1 Jono
-your storys funny, hehehe
June 16th, 2009 at 9:19 am
I guess we better have a holiday called “STAY as LONG as U CAN in the TOILET DAY” and a law giving everyone a designated half-hour chance to do whatever he wants inside that mistery room..
June 16th, 2009 at 10:16 am
#74
Yeah, I have heard the same thing regarding the origin of the saying “The wrong end of the stick”.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:33 am
So three years sitting on the pot. Let’s say you live for 80 years:
80years x 365 days = 29200 days
3years x 365 days x 24hrs = 26280 hours
26280hrs/29200days = 0.9hrs/day
That’s almost an hour a day, no way is the average life span 80 for the world and no way that many people sit on the toilet for an hour a day. Sorry, bad source you got that one from. I sit on the toilet for like 10 minutes a day.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Freshies: See my post #80. I also came to that conclusion using different math though.
Maybe they take into an account for the times you are sick (diarrhea) and the elderly spend a lot more time then younger people. Also, some people spend more time on the toilet than others (if you have IBS) so they make the average time go up for everyone else.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:47 am
So what about the toilet in Slumdog Millionaire?
June 16th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
But the again it does say the average person…
June 16th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I’m one of the 25% (along with my parents) who are exclusively back-rollers on toilet paper. My aunt, a front-roller, swears that you can tear the paper easier when it hangs down the front. I say exactly the same about back-rolling. We also back-roll the paper towels.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
I was reading this thing in a book were it talked about people who died on the toilet. It was pretty interesting.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
How about that toilet in Slum Dog Millionaire ?
June 16th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Oh so cranky!! Don’t publish that fact about the first toilet stall in a public restroom! I’ve been using that stall and feeling cleaner for it for years!
June 16th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
I remember on my trip to Italy, France, and Spain, the worst part was having to pay to use the toilets, especially when you had to find a bank to cash the traveller’s cheque first! I remember being on Capri (Italy) and I had to pee SO BAD. There was only one bank on the island that would take my traveller’s cheque, and I couldn’t find it. Once I did find the bank, I then couldn’t find the public washrooms. I was so sad. The upside, of course, is that the bathrooms were always clean and well stocked.
(The bathrooms that you didn’t have to pay for, you needed to provide your own toilet paper; this is a suggestion for anyone travelling to Europe soon!)
June 16th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
LMAO @ #1
June 17th, 2009 at 2:50 am
You knew that the direction of the spinning toilet water is random? the coriosole power, or something like that, only affects on hurricanes. Also, some companys finnally realized, that toilets use CLEAN water to flush down DIRTY water. So they now make toilets, that use already used water, and even use the water used in toilets, is used to gardening. I swear this is all true
June 17th, 2009 at 3:02 am
@Clouds (19): Clouds, sometimes that superpower becomes a puddle.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Is #10 true? I always thought it was a myth
June 18th, 2009 at 12:28 am
fun facts
June 19th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
40,000 germs, huh? Good thing whenever I use a public restroom, I flush the toilet with my foot.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:00 am
@Tats (123): doesn’t everyone?
June 20th, 2009 at 10:39 am
I can just imagine #1:
“I was just going in to the theater with my five year old daughter to see a wholesome family film about keeping your mother’s corpse as a dummy, and we saw that… that… TOILET! How am I supposed to explain this to my children?!”
June 21st, 2009 at 3:19 am
I read books on leadership in the toilet.
June 21st, 2009 at 6:11 am
And the point of this list is?…
June 21st, 2009 at 8:18 am
I once found a centipede in the toilet in Karma (pub in Dublin). The toilets in Fibbers on Parnell Street are fairly bad, I’ll only use the ones downstairs if there’s a long wait upstairs. One of my male friends has repeatedly tried to drag me into the mens – not the most romantic of places!
June 21st, 2009 at 9:15 pm
thomas CRAPPER
LOL@that
June 22nd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
British toilets? The WORST!?!?! How ’bout Ukraine?
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:45 am
90% of men leave the toilet seats up, much to the disdain of the women
June 25th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
the aquarium toilet is cool!
June 25th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
and I can use these for my statistics homework! Imagine the shocked look of my teacher when she reads these!
June 25th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
@kring_kring (111): You got a point there!
June 27th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
OMG this has been a good read. People are totally obsessed with their own excrement. BUT, as a contradiction, I visited Greece just 2 years ago and found their public restrooms immaculate, everywhere. It’s true, they often had no toilet paper or you had to pay for said TP and several times in some remote areas they were squat toilets but NOT ONCE did I encounter a yucky bathroom. Even the squat toilets were clean. The toilets at Piraeus in the subway station was a bit over used but there was an attendant and it was constantly being cleaned. I did keep my own roll with me at all times just in case and only needed it a couple times.
“Trainspotting”! That! was a toilet from hell!
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Milos – wow. that’s awesome. lol
I usually do skip the first one, just because it’s typically closest to the door and sink, where people congregate. I’ll look in and if one looks unfitting, I will go to the next and so on. The worst one I can remember was also in a park. I went in to pee and not only was it dirty, but there was no door on the stall (which I have found is a common ocurrence). There were many a hobo running through that park, so I didn’t like doing my business without a door. Oh well, I survived.
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
and as for men leaving the toilet seat up… my boyfriend has a worse habit of not lifting the seat, and then not wiping off the seat afterward. Also at least once a day, I hear him pee, and then silently exit the bathroom to which I say, “Flush” and he goes back to flush. lol
July 8th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
the roman soldiers all used the SAME sponge??.. that’s disgusting.
and thomas crapper. haha
July 26th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
While traveling, bring your own toilet paper or wet wipes. In countries or any place where there are no public toilets, carry your own burb bags that you can use and dispose of properly at the right facilities. While the burp bag is still in your possession, take comfort in the thought that it is still warm to the touch.
Thanks to the author. Factual or not, it gives you food for thought.
August 8th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
#10 is not suprising at all. i have no doubt thats true. at least for the US.
August 22nd, 2009 at 2:39 am
I so gotta get me a dump in toilet number 3 *haha*