Users of bathrooms don’t prefer them. Bathroom owners do. Privacy would allow people to feel comfortable, which is the last thing the bathroom owners want.
One of our airports had a large mixed-gender bathroom with fully-private stalls and it was the best public bathroom I’ve ever used, I assume to appeal to the international crowd.
Amazingly, McDonald’s has pretty consistently provided the best public restroom experience for me. They’re almost always clean and usually provide either a private room or at least a fully protected stall. Wal-Mart would be second best (in terms of consistent acceptability across locations). Though Wal-Mart toilet paper often has little embedded specks that make me uncomfortable (observed before use, not after).
Couple months ago I found myself needing to stop at a McDonald’s in probably one of the worst neighborhoods you can find outside of the inner city. Nature was calling and it seemed like my best option.
It was for paying customers only, fair enough, I made a token purchase of a McChicken and some fries, and got an employee to unlock the door for me.
I was greeted with that eerie blue light that bathrooms in places like this use to deter drug use because it makes it harder to find a vein.
It gave off an all-around really unsettling vibe, but I will admit that, at least as far as I could tell given the lighting, it seemed to be immaculately clean.
As unsettling as that can be, I certainly prefer it to what I’ve seen at some rest stops - mostly in Pennsylvania, but I’m not well traveled - where, to discourage drug use, they have half (at best) stall doors which (by design) provide no privacy at all.
I once was in a McDonald’s washroom in the very dirty city of Regina while traveling and it was life changing. While in the washroom this person comes storming in, drops trow and pushes their ass up to the stall wall (not the door but next to it) and just starts ass blasting. Very much liquid human waste is now spraying everywhere (due I assume to the pressure seal they have made with their ass on the wall). I was lucky and was washing my hands near the door and was able to exit without incident, but I do remember that there was another person in the very stall getting a colon pressure wash. I went to the counter and told the staff about it (hoping in vain they might be able to save the person trapped with nothing but that very open gap stall as their defense) and to my shock they did not seem at all surprised but just said, “oh them again”. When I somewhat shaken ask what they mean by “them” they explain that its not just one ass blaster but a couple that both regularly run into the “wrong” bathroom at the same time (the gender of the ass blaster did not even occur to me, let alone rank high on my list of issues) and just, as they put it “make a bad mess” of the washroom. At this point I asked about what can be done about the person trapped in shit land, and the staff just looked at me like I grew a second head. They did not see the issue at hand, they just went “well that is where shit happens” and they can always clean off.
Now by this point the ass blasters have finished and left (no one seemed to even look at ether of them) and my food was ready (I ordered then went to the washroom). The staff member grabs my food and tells me not to worry too much about the event as it “only happens a few times a month”. I get my food and leave passing by another staff member white in the face pushing a cleaning bucket towards the rooms “where shit happened”. As I drive away eating my food I have the thought, I really should not be eating this, and I never saw the person in the stall leave.
I don’t understand how there was not a shit covered act of violence. To this day I just don’t get why those ass blasters where just lived with, like some sort of unchangeable act of nature.
I’ve seen one interpretation of our fire code result in each enclosed stall requiring their own flashing light and siren. So the expense to build really does add up. Every contractor knows how to do it the cheap way, anything else they charge a much higher rate to make it worth the trouble. Maybe some shit related to sex or drug use in bathrooms as well, I’d imagine the more secure it feels the more likely someone might see that as a safe thing to try, not saying that’s a real thing but shit gets talked about on the news enough for it to be something the decision maker has in their head to be influenced one way.
I didn’t realize how much of a difference it made till I got my new job where the restrooms don’t have any gaps. Never felt more secure in a public restroom.
The gaps on the bottom and the top serve the important purpose of ventilation. It’s a really effective design allowing vertical airflow. So yes, I do prefer air gaps over stinky boxes, and I have personally never seen a creep sticking their head under the gap.
Is there any reasons you guys there over the atlantic prefer those creepy gaps under the stall doors / walls?
We all hate them. Please help.
Indeed.
Sometimes my back gets wet sliding under them.
what
Users of bathrooms don’t prefer them. Bathroom owners do. Privacy would allow people to feel comfortable, which is the last thing the bathroom owners want.
One of our airports had a large mixed-gender bathroom with fully-private stalls and it was the best public bathroom I’ve ever used, I assume to appeal to the international crowd.
Amazingly, McDonald’s has pretty consistently provided the best public restroom experience for me. They’re almost always clean and usually provide either a private room or at least a fully protected stall. Wal-Mart would be second best (in terms of consistent acceptability across locations). Though Wal-Mart toilet paper often has little embedded specks that make me uncomfortable (observed before use, not after).
Couple months ago I found myself needing to stop at a McDonald’s in probably one of the worst neighborhoods you can find outside of the inner city. Nature was calling and it seemed like my best option.
It was for paying customers only, fair enough, I made a token purchase of a McChicken and some fries, and got an employee to unlock the door for me.
I was greeted with that eerie blue light that bathrooms in places like this use to deter drug use because it makes it harder to find a vein.
It gave off an all-around really unsettling vibe, but I will admit that, at least as far as I could tell given the lighting, it seemed to be immaculately clean.
As unsettling as that can be, I certainly prefer it to what I’ve seen at some rest stops - mostly in Pennsylvania, but I’m not well traveled - where, to discourage drug use, they have half (at best) stall doors which (by design) provide no privacy at all.
I once was in a McDonald’s washroom in the very dirty city of Regina while traveling and it was life changing. While in the washroom this person comes storming in, drops trow and pushes their ass up to the stall wall (not the door but next to it) and just starts ass blasting. Very much liquid human waste is now spraying everywhere (due I assume to the pressure seal they have made with their ass on the wall). I was lucky and was washing my hands near the door and was able to exit without incident, but I do remember that there was another person in the very stall getting a colon pressure wash. I went to the counter and told the staff about it (hoping in vain they might be able to save the person trapped with nothing but that very open gap stall as their defense) and to my shock they did not seem at all surprised but just said, “oh them again”. When I somewhat shaken ask what they mean by “them” they explain that its not just one ass blaster but a couple that both regularly run into the “wrong” bathroom at the same time (the gender of the ass blaster did not even occur to me, let alone rank high on my list of issues) and just, as they put it “make a bad mess” of the washroom. At this point I asked about what can be done about the person trapped in shit land, and the staff just looked at me like I grew a second head. They did not see the issue at hand, they just went “well that is where shit happens” and they can always clean off.
Now by this point the ass blasters have finished and left (no one seemed to even look at ether of them) and my food was ready (I ordered then went to the washroom). The staff member grabs my food and tells me not to worry too much about the event as it “only happens a few times a month”. I get my food and leave passing by another staff member white in the face pushing a cleaning bucket towards the rooms “where shit happened”. As I drive away eating my food I have the thought, I really should not be eating this, and I never saw the person in the stall leave.
I … Don’t know that I would have been eating that food, so agreed with you there.
Hopefully the person to whom shit happened is okay!
It was years ago at this point, I hope they made it out. Wonder if it happened to anyone more then once.
If that happened to me in that room, I might never go to the bathroom again; if I did, it would certainly not be in that room.
I don’t understand how there was not a shit covered act of violence. To this day I just don’t get why those ass blasters where just lived with, like some sort of unchangeable act of nature.
No, none of us do. Well, probably a small amount of us do, but they would be the exception that proves the rule.
We don’t prefer them. The people that own the buildings do because they are cheaper.
I think maybe it also makes it easier for the cleaners/security to see if there’s someone hiding in the stall at closing time.
Not to give some rich idiot an idea, but so are no locks, no doors, no walls.
How do i delete someone elses’ post
No one prefers them
I’ve seen one interpretation of our fire code result in each enclosed stall requiring their own flashing light and siren. So the expense to build really does add up. Every contractor knows how to do it the cheap way, anything else they charge a much higher rate to make it worth the trouble. Maybe some shit related to sex or drug use in bathrooms as well, I’d imagine the more secure it feels the more likely someone might see that as a safe thing to try, not saying that’s a real thing but shit gets talked about on the news enough for it to be something the decision maker has in their head to be influenced one way.
I didn’t realize how much of a difference it made till I got my new job where the restrooms don’t have any gaps. Never felt more secure in a public restroom.
The gaps on the bottom and the top serve the important purpose of ventilation. It’s a really effective design allowing vertical airflow. So yes, I do prefer air gaps over stinky boxes, and I have personally never seen a creep sticking their head under the gap.
Where I’m from doesn’t have the gaps, but they could be useful if the door jams.