Flush the toilet. As college freshmen, I thought we would all know how to act in the restroom. To my shock and horror, I have discovered people still can’t flush their pee. This is ironic, given the many restrictions on what we can and can’t flush. We all know you can’t flush wipes, paper towels, and sanitary products; there are signs in every bathroom about it. Yet I still walk into the women’s bathroom on my floor and find an unflushed toilet with urine or an unflushable pile of toilet paper. Not only is this unsanitary, it’s annoying. We all must share the bathrooms, and flushing someone else’s doodoo is not what I want to do. Do.
Below is a list of bathroom manners I was taught as a child to serve as a quick reminder:
Wipe after finishing your business.
Wipe your bum, wipe your seat.
Flush the toilet.
I don’t care to know about the state of your urine or feces, but I can tell you’re dehydrated and not eating enough fiber.
Only flush the 4 P’s: Poo, Pee, (toilet) Paper, Puke.
Anything else busts the pipes and makes everyone’s life harder. If touching the handle is gross to you, flush with your foot.
Wash your hands, even if it’s just pee.
Everything that exits your body is waste. Dirty hands are dirty hands all the same.
If you clog the toilet, call maintenance.
No one in your dorm will know it was you (unless there’s a witness), and leaving it there means there’s one less toilet for everyone.
While it’s true there are signs in every bathroom telling people what not to flush, there are no signs talking about what is appropriate to send down the toilet. Toilet paper is the only non-waste thing allowed to be flushed. Toilet paper is designed to be sent through sewage pipes and disintegrate in the system; no other paper, cloth, or material will do that. ‘Flushable wipes are not, in fact, flushable.
They do not break down as quickly and are a main cause of the plumbing issues here at Ursinus. Piles of these wipes and other various items have to be removed by facilities whenever there’s a clog. To do this, they shut off the water, creating a problem for anyone who has to use it.
Having to wait for an unspecified amount of time to shower or use the bathroom because there’s no water is extremely annoying considering students already feel pressure to be in and out of the bathroom quickly.
Obviously sharing a bathroom with a bunch of random people is not an ideal situation, but carelessly (or intentionally) making it worse is funny to nobody but yourself. I don’t think anyone takes pleasure in flushing another’s waste, but they can now find pleasure in knowing they didn’t make anyone flush theirs.