Here's one for the ladies re public toilets . . .

I do.

I just figure like door handles, it's dirty. No big thing.

One place I worked before (a hospital) the flusher was on the floor where you had to step on it.

I only flush with my feet if the bathroom is REALLY gross or if there's no soap for handwashing. The bathrooms at my job get cleaned every day so I don't really see why I should be so paranoid.

Grab some tp, flush with that as a barrier using hand, drop tp in swirling water. The foot thing is too precarious for me - I'd slip and crack my head open.

wahht? i have never heard this.

also, ladies, please stop peeing all over the seats. it is gross.

We men flush too! And I always use my hand. I sometimes (if its really bad) use a tissue to grab hold of the handle thus cleaning the handle as well - all part of my civic pride. People using their feet are making things worse!

x- post! If it's really gross, I just grab some paper and use that while touching the handle.

I guess I found this really surprising because it never even occurred to me to use my feet yet this was something a lot of them had been taught to do since childhood.

I always use my hands - I'm of the same mind as you, E - I'm washing my hands right after, it's fine!

I would like to know why the women who insist on hovering over the seat - why, WHY do they not check to make sure they haven't peed all over the seat when they're through? There is very little I dislike more than sitting in (albeit through the seat covers) someone else's pee.

Unless the seat is really gross and wet (which it often is) I sit on it. It's because of all the squatters out there that the seats get gross in the first place!

Luna, seriously.

it's foul. and then because i dont want to sit in it i end up wiping it off myself!

I've never heard of this foot thing in my life!

I use my hands, and wash after use.

Seats don't get gross if you wipe them with toilet paper before and after use. It's only consideration.

wahht? i have never heard this.

Neither had I! Seriously, ask around and you'll be shocked. Somewhere along the lines I must have missed the foot flushing memo but lots of girls seem to employ this method.

I use my feet whenever I can, actually. It gets kinda tough when the flusher's one of those old-fashioned chain things hanging from a wall-mounted cistern. Luckily I know how to flip and clench.

So it's not gender specific!! Fascinating.

This is the seriously most mentalist thing I've ever heard in my life. Obviously it's not something I give much thought to on a daily basis, but using your feet, WTF?

Also, if it is manky, it is only temporary mank as you're going to go and wash your hands straight away, aren't you? AREN'T YOU?

EXACTLY!

People using their feet are making things worse!

Why, if you're using a tissue to touch it *and* washing your hand?

I always use my foot. deal with it.

I use my foot to flush the most disgusting gas station toilets, and generally wipe the seat down with some TP before sitting at all public toilets, because the lighting is usually bad and I don't want to sit on anyone else's moisture by surprise.

i am ok with people flush with whatever appendage they want, the peeing all over the seat and not cleaning it is my only concern.

bell_labs otm re: flushing. People who don't bother to flush, blergh.

Men Are from Mars, Women Flush Toilets with Their Feet.

I actually fell once trying to use my foot. :(

I don't get hovering--why not just cover the seat in toilet paper?

I never hover. this is indeed annoying

if a bathroom is so gross I feel I can't sit on the toilet I think I'll just hold it.

The thing about the foot thing that gets me the most is that it never would have even occurred to me to do it. It seems so awkward and potentially hazardous which Jessie's experience seems to support!

So if hovering and flushing-with-feet are both common practices, it seems like some designer needs to completely rethink women's public toilets. You guys should get the trough let we have at baseball stadiums.

ENBB OTM, this is the source of my amazement and general WTF-ness. Not the ludicrousness of it (though that too), but just WHO THOUGHT OF THIS AND THEN MADE IT (apparently) COMMONPLACE?

How dirty can a handle get anyway? By this logic you shouldn't be touching any handle, 'cos you know that whoever made that flusher dirty, didn't wash their hands afterwards and then went and opened doors all over the building...

I don't think I started doing it until I worked at the place where you had to use your foot. Obv I don't do it at home b/c it's not the same kind of toilet. Although I wish I could b/c I know what my guy gets up to in there.

http://www.solarnavigator.net/inventors/inventor_images/howard_hughes_time_magazine_cover_1976.jpg

I'm not sure this casts any light on the subject at, uh, hand, but I'm reading a book where the author's father tells him to wash his hands BEFORE using the urinal. "It's not your penis which is dirty," he tells the boy, "it's your hands."

Who cares if your hands get 'dirty' on the handle? Seriously. You're going to wash them afterwards anyway, right?

you should wash your hands before touching yourself, yes. Ladies do you do so before inserting tampons.

Maybe I like kicking that flush handle. WHY DOES THIS BOTHER YOU SO??

DOES A BEAR KICK THE WOODS?

Maybe I like kicking that flush handle. WHY DOES THIS BOTHER YOU SO??

I read this too quickly as "Maybe I like licking that flush handle..."

xpost

I'm sure he does when he's pissed that a hiker got away.

Eazy-E stop ruining my flow.

Yeah, you gotta do it with a karate-noise. Kee-yah! Actually, it gets really tough when you got one of those push-buttons on top of the cistern. Generally then I have to take my shoe off, stand on top of the toilet, and prod down with my big toe until it flushes.

I just lean over and head butt it.

So I take it you ladies don't pick up the newspaper that someone has graciously left behind to share with you?

I never see this in public restrooms. At home, our bathroom also functions as library.

If a men's bathroom has a wheelchair-accessible stall and it's located somewhere where a fella might relax with a paper, sometimes there will be one hanging over the metal wheelchair-help bar.

the ladies' downstairs has baskets of potpourri and a selection of hand lotion. This annoys me for some reason. Maybe I should leave a Hustler in there.

Headbutting the button would seem a bit far-fetched to me. Actually, the totally impossible ones are when you have to pull a little lever above the sink to get the toilet flushed. In such cases I have to remove my right shoe AND sock, grip the lever with my toes, and then perform a backwards somersault.

I have never seen what you just described.

Why do ladies need hand lotion in the restroom?

xpost: That's because you only get them on coaches, trains, and other cramped forms of transport.

b/c soap dries them apparently.

It just too "let's all make our bathroom nice" cutesy shit for me. At home my bathroom is decorated with a framed tampon ad from 1932 and a Gil Elvgren pinup. Ain't no fucking potpourri. and whatever hand lotion G. keeps on his side of the vanity is his business.

I'm seriously thinking of at least leaving an old back issue of playboy in the cutesy bathroom. And maybe a bottle of KY.

Newspapers get left all over the damn place in the bathrooms at the library I work at.

I'm on the moving committee for our company - a full half of the last meeting was taken up with the horrible lighting/colors/lack of artwork in the ladies room. Having spent months on a jobsite w/ no running water, I'm just glad there's flush toilets and sinks.

I think you should, Ms. M :) That would cause such a ruckus here (LDS owned company, barely concedes to nasty habits like smoking and drinking coffee), it would be worth doing on the way out.

...

this is mentalism

Wow you total nutjobs (apart from Erica and the other few voices of sanity).

Have you ever thought that what you've got on your feet - including most likely urine etc. from the cubicle floor, and whatever gunk you have on your shoe - is just further filthifying the handle for whatever hopefully normal hand-using person who's going to follow you?

it's foul. and then because i dont want to sit in it i end up wiping it off myself!

I do, too, but I bitch about it the whole time.

I would also like to lodge a complaint against all the disgusting fuckers on this floor who NEVER FLUSH THE TOILET. Ladies, I don't want to see a bowl full of your pee, your used sanitary supplies, or the remains of what you had for lunch yesterday, thank you.

(I'm pretty sure this is not the only time I've bitched about this on this board, and we've moved office buildings since - people everywhere are fucking gross.)

This is set to become the next tipping thread

whatever gunk you have on your shoe - is just further filthifying the handle for whatever hopefully normal hand-using person who's going to follow you?

But you're going to wash your hands anyway? Right?

Actually, it gets really tough when you got one of those push-buttons on top of the cistern. Generally then I have to take my shoe off, stand on top of the toilet, and prod down with my big toe until it flushes.

This is just more of your joshing, right? Right? If not, you know you're going to miss and end up with your foot in a toilet someday.

Like someone said upthread, you are WASHING YOUR HANDS right after, it is okay to get your hands dirty right before you wash them.

haha xpost

I imagine if I was at work in high heels, what with my poor balance anyway, standing on my left foot so I crane my right leg very high in the air to push a stubborn lever with the tip of my impractical shoe, SOMEDAY some horrible slapstick pratfall would claim me.

See I think this really depends on the type of toilet. Toilets here at work have the flush lever right behind the seat, no higher. So it's really not much of a reach.

Sam your logic is much more pertinent to your argument than to mine :)

Sometimes I really wonder what people get up to in public bathrooms. There is paper everywhere and it's just disgusting. Looks like someone decided to go crazy in there because they know someone else has to clean it up.

Nothing beats the time someone in my old office um . . . did their business not in the toilet, not even in the stall, but IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FLOOR OF THE MENS' TOILETS! I have my suspicions that it was the lunchtime masturbator who some of you might remember from a previous thread.

Ah, I was going to ask, but this is half-answered now, maybe -- are American flush handles like totally different from UK ones? Because I have never heard of this and it sounds crazy to me.

This is too new and weird to me to know if it's in the following category, but people who hover inches above the seat spraying everywhere and don't flush or wash hands because the handle/taps are dirty: thanks for being so fucking important that your germs aren't dirty and everyone should be delighted to touch them everywhere all day but everyone else's are DEADLY PLAGUE GASMASK TIME. I mean are you that self-important or did you just never have a logical thought in your life? (Yes, I have enough issues of my own that picking on whatever variety of OCD this is on the interweb is in bad taste, but I am grumpy today.)

Bruce Sterling's book Tomorrow Now gave me hope for a future where people weren't so fixated on germs.

Luna makes me realize my rant about potpourri buckets is very minor.

Oh honey, I hate those, too. I do not need doilies or dried roses to have a good pee, thank you.

(xposts while adjusting for xposts) you are WASHING YOUR HANDS right after, it is okay to get your hands dirty right before you wash them

My gut reaction was, things I don't want to think about but could maybe live with touching my hands a minute before I touch them: trace quantities of urine from someone else's hands which I hope were probably washed in the past 3 hours anyway, and anyway probably not too much transfer of bacteria in one-second hand squeeze. Things I am less happy about even if I am just about to wash: shoes which have not been cleaned maybe ever, gathering up all the aging filth and shit and vomit of pavements and mud-walking, which have just spent minutes soaking up a lingering floorful of mixed piss and are now being actively but uncoordinatedly scraped down onto something I have to touch.

Then I realised I am not a take-shoes-off-whenever-home person so this does not actually hold up. But I still don't like the thought much.

yeah, but you don't have to touch it. You could use your feet like like everyone else.

How do you people cook meat? Touching raw meat is probably just as volatile, or more, than touching a toilet handle. You do not feel you should prepare a meatloaf with your feet, do you?

cuz you don't cook toilets

Sinks are dirtier than toilets.

This doesn't factor in dirty-soles-on-the-flusher.

As Professor Gerba's research would later determine, however, the bathroom was hardly the most dangerous part of the house, microbe-wise. The real pesthole: the kitchen sponge or dishcloth, where fecal coliform bacteria from raw meat and such could fester in a damp, nurturing (for a germ) environment. Next came the kitchen sink, the bathroom sink, and the kitchen faucet handle. The toilet seat was the least contaminated of 15 household locales studied. "If an alien came from space and studied the bacterial counts," the professor says, "he probably would conclude he should wash his hands in your toilet and crap in your sink."

fucking aliens and their crap immune systems. GET OFF OUR ROCK.

And stop crapping in my sink!

Gals, now be careful turning the sink faucet on and off with your feet.

This is so so weird. How in the hell do you get your foot that high?

See what I said above Anna. In older public restrooms here the lever is on level with your bottom. Newer public toilets are typically self-flushing. Home toilets are a different story and require hands.

Touching raw meat is probably just as volatile, or more,

i hate touching raw meat. I would use latex gloves but I never remember to by them.

Why is there no website with photos of american public toilets (better question, why can't I find it?)

I'm waiting on someone to call me out on my statement re: level placement but could find no examples to the contrary. These are seriously the only types of public toilets I can think of (and the kind with a pedal on the floor like I mentioned). Perhaps I don't get out and about enough with my commode duties.

"lever placement"

There is definitely a generation of American public/office toilets with a lever that's meant to be depressed with the feet.

http://bornbackwards.com/news/uploaded_images/ghoulies-714265.jpg

IF YOU FLUSH WITH YOUR FEETS YOUR HANDS IS FREE TO FIGHT THE TURLET GREMLINS.

Just had the following exchange:

tigerlillygrrl (2:58:22 PM): I forgot
tigerlillygrrl (2:58:30 PM): are you one of those public toilet foot flushers?
Friend (2:58:38 PM): oh hell yes
Friend (2:58:56 PM): i'm also one of those public toilet no-sitters
tigerlillygrrl (2:59:20 PM): ok, explain this to me because I started a thread on the interweb about it earlier
tigerlillygrrl (2:59:27 PM): why do you flush with your foot?
tigerlillygrrl (2:59:41 PM): you're just going to wash your hands!
Friend (2:59:47 PM): i want to touch as few things in a public bathroom as possible
tigerlillygrrl (2:59:51 PM): and whatever is on the feet of the foot flushers
Friend (3:00:06 PM): yes, but my i might use my hand to grab my purse off the back of the door
tigerlillygrrl (3:00:16 PM): is probably way more disgusting than the whatever is on the hands of the normal people
tigerlillygrrl (3:00:17 PM):
Friend (3:00:31 PM): which is why you should foot flush too!
tigerlillygrrl (3:00:42 PM): NO!

. . .

Friend (3:13:23 PM):fyi i also take my shoes off 1st thing when i get home because i've used them to foot flush and lift toilet seats all day!
Mind you, i also make it a point to use public bathrooms as infrequently as i can, so i don't have to go through all the trouble.

I know your AIM now ENBB.

I just went to the toilet. And used my foot. And thought of all you haterz.

MM - It's posted elsewhere on here anyway and I was too lazy to go through and fix both.

Just giving you a hard time. I don't AIM anyway. Unless I work with you.

I rarely flush when it is just pee. It is a waste of water, this is why toilets have covers.

That's fine in your own home, but I don't want to see it when I'm in a public toilet. Maybe that makes me a wanton water-waster, I don't know.

In the interest of clearing up any confusion here is what an American public toilet often looks like:

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c287/expatrica/toilet.jpg

Here is what my leg looks like while being used to flush said toilet:

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c287/expatrica/flushing.jpg

So, while it's not the most acrobatic of moves, I still had to brace myself while doing it and it seemed like a lot of trouble to go through for just a flush.

My guy does that too but I always flush before I go if he's left it. I don't want his pee splashing back up on me. gross. (same for stranger's pee.)

My first thought was "hey, cute shoes!"

haha, I can't believe you took those photos.

Seriously I'm one of the most uncoordinated, clumsy people ever and I do not find this a hard move. But then I don't typically wear skirts/heels either.

Just so there is no unnecessary concern, that was merely a test flush/picture.

Also, thanks! The shoes are, believe it or not, Naturalizer and extremely comfortable.

I should do the same although I don't think I would want to post it on my flickr.

I'm a foot flusher too.
Any bathroom that is not mine or a friends = foot flush.
i think i wanna photograph this now too!

And ya - pee or not you gotta flash that public toilet/urinal!

you flush a urinal with your foot? You could be a hit on youtube.

Hang on, your urinal's don't flush themselves? I have been in third world countries where they do, what kind of retarded shit is this?

If you do post it on flickr be sure to add it to Foot Flushers Group pool.

Also American toilets! Who knew? Having seen that one I think foot flushing now makes more sense.

I was thinking you were trying to flush something like this...
http://www.rensup.com/t/Toilets_Dtl10783.jpg

No, it's still just plain wrong. ;-)

Oh, I think the hardcore foot flushers do it with those too.

I agree, but not as wrong as I thought it was!

I think some ladies don't flush because they don't realize that when automatic toilets don't flush, they can be flushed manually. (Or pedally? Ha ha.)

I like to pee outdoors. I'm like a small cat, peeing in your yard.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hirosan/312941709/

Amazing what you can find on flickr...
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/191/482844272_dbee212e9b_m.jpg
photo by The Consumerist

I've seen all sorts of dudes here flush with their feet. The urinals are like these old-school lowrider urinals that have handles low enough for foot-flushing. Totally weirded me out.

You flush a urinal with your elbow.

You flush a urinal with your MIND.

You flush a urinal with the power of Jesus.

I think I'm becoming obsessed...this person's dad taught him to flush with his feet...

I am also very weird about public toilets.

You could shoot me dead before I would use a Honey Bucket.
Or any bad public toilet ever.

I have peed in parking lots, rather than go through this insanity!

my husband's office has an issue with the men's urinals. basically, many of the dudes don't flush & the suspicion is that it's because they are used to automatic ones EVEN THOUGH THEY WORK THERE EVERY DAY.

For the record, I am a foot flusher in public toilets.

urinal ice.

Too cold.

To suck.

In Italy there are lots of loos you flush with your feet because the lever is a button on the floor.

That would be normal. America does not seem to get the concept.

yeah italy also has turkish toilets, i.e. a big hole in the ground that you crouch over

We called those "squatters" when we were in Japan.

as does china. i prefer them, actually.

Why is the design concept thing NOT being applied to public toilets?

Also, may I add, Honey Bucket.

CHOOSE YOUR TOILET WISELY

I refuse to choose. Ok, my enemies door.

Note: No Honey Bucket choice!

Italy there are lots of loos you flush with your feet because the lever is a button on the floor.

Exactly. If the there is a button on the floor or a pedal even then flushing with the foot is perfectly fine!

I never flushed with my foot until I visited the US, where the cisterns are so low it's much easier.

What the fuck is a "Honey Bucket"?

A friend of mine lost $40.00 in a squatter - she married the guy who actually reached in.

right there and then?

Ok, I was wondering about the Honey Bucket too but was worried I'd be the only one who didn't know what it was. So yeah, what in the world is it?

It's the common name for the travelling outhouses that everyone has to deal with if you go to a big group event in the U.S.

They are branded as Honey Buckets.

Whatever, I was trying to be funny. I thought everyone knew about Honey Buckets.

This thread is blowing my mind as much as the "think coming"/"thing coming" one did.

Here, most public toliets have large buttons in the wall behind the seat, and they're at about shoulder height in many cases, so you'd have to head butt the wall if you wanted to avoid using yr hands.

You cant win trying to avoid loo germs. AFAIC, maintained public loos (ie ones that have cleaners attending daily) are probably cleaner than my own damn toilet at home, I mean heck I dont clean it every day. And what, are you going to touch nothing in public? Railings, train poles, door handles, seats, tables, COINS ffs.

Think about everywhere coins have been. Ewww coins.

blueski:
And no, she married the guy a few years later - but, y'know, I would marry someone who did that.
the whole story is even more crazy.

Ah, a portapotty. I've never heard the term Honey Buckets before. Maybe it's a regional thing!

Trayce - it's "thing coming" - isn't it?

E: I think (haw) so, but many say otherwise. There's a thread about it somewhere, it is head-spinning.

Um, now that I have googled it, it is totally regional.
I apologize.
I thought everyone knew it as a honey bucket!

yeah well I'll never step foot into one of those things!

FUN TOILET FACTS FROM MY WORK:

1) The restroom on the 2nd floor of our department is being closed off starting tomorrow because THERE IS ASBESTOS IN IT.

2) We had a serious problem with a person who vomited in the women's restroom on the first floor EVERY DAY and DID NOT CLEAN UP/FLUSH.

You flush a urinal with your elbow.

oh tee emmm

wow lots of psychos in this thread!

2) We had a serious problem with a person who vomited in the women's restroom on the first floor EVERY DAY and DID NOT CLEAN UP/FLUSH.

my friend lived with a girl who kept her bulemia vomit in tupperware.

Presumably not for use as a tasty nourishing broth.

I've taken to watching people under the stalls when they flush

You really ought to get a different hobby

Um, now that I have googled it, it is totally regional.

Honey Bucket - as a brand - may be regional, but as I understand it, the term "honey wagon" is jargon used on film sets and by carnies and the like to refer to the enclaves of portable toilets in their lines of work.

"Honey dipper" is the term used where I grew up to refer to the septic tank vacuuming truck.

The brand of portalet at the jobsite where I work is A-Throne ("A-Throne: Fit for a King"). I've resisted the temptation to post photos of it, grand as it is.

And the Port-O-San brand was made famous in the movie Woodstock.

Just giving you a hard time. I don't AIM anyway.

You don't AIM when you PEE?

On the way home from work, driving through some construction, I noticed a portajohn from Emerald Sanitary Services with the proud slogan "A Gem of a Toilet".

so basically people are just gross and don't care about other people

and are simultaneously freaked out by bacteria and covered in it

Still -I won't put any part of my body into The Honey Thingy.

It's a small tower of poop.
With no flushing.

Bad, bad, bad.

If people were getting blotches or dying from a little poo and pee in the air, then public restrooms would not exist. I think it's good to give our immunity systems a little fight, keeps 'em from being hothouse flowers.

Eazy OTM, you pansy-ass germophobes are going to be the first ones down when the bird flu hits.

Who the hell takes care of this stuff? Well, trucks that siphon waste, or trucks that take the poop filled honey thingys and clean them out.

it's nasty!

However, have you ever used an outhouse?

I have, and I lived to tell the tale.

I've worked on the 20th, 35th, and 95th floors of office buildings, and it kind of amazes me to think of how waste disposal must work in them.

Has anyone ever had to use one of those toilets in the woods or at a campsite (...in the woods) that is like a very large outhouse with a fiberglass ceiling, and in the space below the "toilet" hole there are cobwebs and earwigs are crawling everywhere and there's no sink to wash your hands? They were my CHILDHOOD TERROR.

Outhouses are fine, though I do get a little paranoid of redback spiders and stuff in the dunny.

We had one at our beach house. A pit toilet, it'd been built in the 40s or 50s I think. Wonderful little wooden shack covered in ivy, no lighting inside. Terrible using it at night with only a torch when you're in themiddle of the bush!!!

Once as a kid I shone my torch down there to see what was down there.

A pile of poos, of course. A suprisingly long way down.

I was quite terrified of falling down into the hole, like the childhood fear of going down the bathtub drain only times 1000. My brother told me there were sharks underneath it. It obviously wasn't possible, but I was very gullible.

i'm more scared of chemicals in the portapotties and monsters in the outhouses than i am of teh poo and the pee

unless the monster is made out of poo and pee!!

which could happen and be v scary!

Ok, I don't think anyone enjoys outhouses but I'll use one if it's the only option. Festival outhouses are the worst but I've mastered the art of holding my breath and being quick about it.

I haven't had to use one in forever so now all these memories are coming back of being camping in the woods of Wyoming and crying and crying about having to go potty above a dangerous hole filled with sharks and spiders.

At, say, age four.

I had a friend pass out trying that!

xpost to enbb

Oh no, really?! Thankfully that's never happened to me. Last festival I went to, there was a condom on the floor of one of the outhouses. It's bad enough using them for their intended purposes, can you imagine having sex in one? By "them" I mean the outhouses, not the condems.

Maybe it was a lady who put a condom on her hand to flush the toilet. I know I would.

You know, from what I've learned about people and their germ phobias today, I wouldn't be surprised.

The condom in an port-o-potty is pretty depressing really. Easy lay. The smell of poop. Missing about 3 minutes of a good set. :( What kind of memory is that.

It's tragic, really.

"Makin love
Makin love for two
Makin love for two
... minutes"

I have never found a condom in an outhouse.
Nor a shark.

I refuse to ever enter these Honey Bucket/Porta Potties that you are all so glibly talking about!

it's a house of poop that gets taken away and ...they get full before they get taken away, which leads to everyone wading through everyone else's waste.

outhouses are different because there's a hole.

i might need to have a huge shot of vodka before I can think about the condom in the Port-a Potty.

Ok, I might need to drink more to understand a condom in a porta -potty.

xpost sometimes any private place will do - i suspect this was man-on-man

The plumbing in the cabeen we're staying in while we get a brand new shiny house is fuxored so we have a portpotty by the driveway. A man comes once a week and cleans it and drains it and fills it with more of the noxious blue stuff and we get lots of new toilet paper and never have to buy it. The smell is yucky (mostly of the blue stuff), but it's just the 3 of us (Cy has his own potty chair he's starting to use). The situation is bearable because it's just temporary.

I didn't read the whole thread -- did you discuss those torrential automatic toilets? They spare the foot-flushing thing but frighten my kids so bad that I have to plan outings around places with or without automatic toilets. Luckily the local library just replaced the auto with a regular one.

I wish you germaphobes wouldn't hover and pee on the seat and then probably get pee on the shoe you use to flush the toilet. Now that I know about this, I am going to start always washing my hands after I use a public toilet (I usually do).

OK why am I reading this thread while I eat my lunch?

Lunch? Are you in Tokyo?

Maria? Chuck Truck.

I'm in Australia, heaven forbid there might be places other than the US and UK in the world.

Sorry, that was needlessly sarky.

For some reason I thought you were UK. Whups.

I NEVER use toilets anywhere other than at home - so I don't need to worry about foot flushing, honey buckets, or animals in my toilet.

When I was pregnant I was FORCED to whizz at work, I simply couldn't hold it, but I would NEVER go the number twos. Public toilets disgust me and I get the stage fright without my Pooing Friends Network.

pooing friends network sounds like fun

Help for Pooing at Work

oh my god that reminds me of yesterday. I went to the ladies at work and 3 of the 4 stalls were occupied with my other workmates. And they were all talking to each other cheerily through the cubicle walls.

I just tried to pee as discreetly as I could and hurry off, I hate that kind of thing :/

Recipe for colon cancer. (xp)

Hahah I cant believe that site exists! I've done the camo-cough before :/

This is the weirdest thread I've ever read on ILX.

(I'm sure there are weirder threads on ILX, but I tend not to read things with obviously disgusting titles.)

Germ freaks with overbearing toilet concerns really get on my nerves:

1. The people who use half a roll of TP to muffle the sound of their exertions.
2. Washing the hands in water of 60C will kill the germs on your hands that contact with air hasn't already dealt with. Wash them before and after if you are the freakout type.
3. Foot flushers are welcome to use their bare feet on flushes that are designed for manual operation but it's bad manners to do so while shod.

to be fair, often these "germ freaks" are operating in very small spaces spattered with faeces and urine and menstrual blood by mysteriously inept persons so a little squeamishness is understandable.

this entire thread has completely blown my fucking mind more than any other thread i've ever read on ILX in five years of patronage.

WTF PEOPLE use your hand then wash your hand then leave!

Astonishing.

"I know, to prevent a tiny bit of wee or poo transferring to my hand from the handle, which I'll then wash off immediately, I'll use my SHOE which has been walking around all over the much more likely to be wee/poo-infused FLOOR, thus making the handle EVEN MORE DISGUSTING than it could ever conceivably have been before!"

Yes, problem solved, people.

Americans can do what they like, Charlie, the American dream says so :)

Yeah you all are the mentalists. I like kicking the handle with my shod foot and shall do so until the day I die. Stay out of our country (or at least public bathrooms if you live here) if you don't like it.

(NB: Cuntishness applied for comic effect only)

OK, I set up the group, let's see what transpires...

http://www.flickr.com/groups/footflushers/

It's going to quickly turn crepey.

Yeah, I guess...anyway you are one of a very large group it turns out

80 million Americans foot flush - surveys say, rather than touch the flusher.

The company that did the survey have a very interesting website.
http://www.footflush.com/
They're really playing up the clean feet aspect.

xpost

I stand proud. On the flush lever.

merkins be PARANOID...

Yeah, they so scared GERMS and COMMUNISTS and TERRISTS gonna get them.

(Of course, now I'm paranoid, I've been checking the handles in the loo for shoeprints. But they appear to be fine.)

I think maybe once or twice EVER ive seen this US style low-handle flusher here, hence why this whole debate baffles me.

As I continually state I myself am not paranoid. I just like kicking the thing.

In fact until someone posted a pic I had this image in my head of ladies karate kicking the wall above the loo :/

i too like various unhygenic and selfish acts, but i refrain from doing them in public because it's unpleasant.

xpost

tuomas to thread

xpost

You are all Jerry Seinfelds. I do not believe using your foot on the lever is any less hygienic the using the hand you just wiped your shit with. As many others have noted there *is* soap and water in the bathroom. Use it.

Lick your hand.

Now lick the bottom of your shoe.

See?

OTM. you will wash my foot-transfer-leavins from your hands and thank me for it.

xpost

BUT! BUT! BUT!

BUT!!!!

xpost!!

Any men feel like owning up to being foot-flushers, or is this a uniquely female phenomenon?

I know Louis Jagger already did, but he doesn't count.

i am a man. i flush the urinal with my mighty penis.

Do you also then knock all the other guys at the stalls over when you turn around? =)

I use my foot to flush the most disgusting gas station toilets, and generally wipe the seat down with some TP before sitting at all public toilets, because the lighting is usually bad and I don't want to sit on anyone else's moisture by surprise.

-- Rock Hardy, Tuesday, August 14, 2007 11:53 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

Chuck Truck? I do indeed need to do so, we've got a truck with a blown head gasket that needs to be taken away.

I was quite sure i had killed the thread with that last post.

I tried to flush with my foot earlier. It was kinda fun in an 8-year-old-boy-practicing-karate kind of way.

I do not believe using your foot on the lever is any less hygienic the using the hand you just wiped your shit with.

Well, I use paper, but whatever floats your boat...

I got my first photo!
http://www.flickr.com/groups/footflushers/

I was totally baffled by this thread, until someone explained the American style handle thing. It'd take much more acrobatics to flush an European toilet.

But still, I think this is silly. Western people are way too afraid of germs. When I was a kid I used to drink water out of puddles, and nothing ever came out of it.

I like that guy's style with the sensor-thing. If I can remember to bring my camera, I'll add mine.

I was stunned to discover that MY OWN SON, WHOM I THOUGHT I'D RAISED CORRECTLY, is a foot-flusher.

This is outrageous. Can I take it the sort of person who flushes with their foot is also the sort of person who believes their child's high chair is crawling with MRSA as insinuated by the Dettol advert?

You are all Jerry Seinfelds. lol

There is now a commercial on for some kind of lysol something or other where the concerned mom realizes her home is infested with omgkillergerms and flushed with her foot. Ha!

I have never heard of this. Insane!! I flush with my hand, and I don't use those stupid paper things on the seats unless the seat is wet and/or gross. A good handwashing surely, surely suffices?
I only hover if it's one of those nasty public loos with the stainless steel bowl & no plastic seat.

I've gone without foot-flushing and paper sitting my whole life, I'm at the ripe old age of 32 and I have yet to contract cholera/scabies/whooping cough/hemorrhoids or whatever everyone's afraid of catching from toilets. Then again of course I do have that nasty oozing rash all over my ass...

AMEN!!!!

Many years' of xposts, but

t's the common name for the travelling outhouses that everyone has to deal with if you go to a big group event in the U.S.

They are branded as Honey Buckets.

Whatever, I was trying to be funny. I thought everyone knew about Honey Buckets.

― aimurchie, Tuesday, August 14, 2007 5:50 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark

I heard of a "honey bucket" from a friend's brother who is living in the woods in Alaska. To him, it was an actual bucket with a lid modified to be a seat. In the winter when it's -50ºF, it's too cold to go to the outhouse in the middle of the night, so you keep a honey bucket right outside the door, which you take inside to shit in. He said that obviously the shit very quickly freezes solid, so before long you have quite a collection.

That is what I thought people were talking about before, not a comparatively cushy, luxe porta-potty.