Forcing guests to close toilet lid before flushing

[MerryBlimminXmas]

In our house, we close the toilet lid before flushing. Reason being is that the poo/wee water spray will go absolutely everywhere if the lid is left open (lots of videos available online if anyone is interested).

The issue we have is that pretty much ALL guests don’t do this. Now, I don’t mind what people choose to do in their own homes and appreciate that the majority of the population are happy for everything in the vicinity of their loo to be covered in urine and faeces don’t bother to close the lid. However, I would much prefer it if they closed the lid before flushing in our house.

How can we make it happen? In a previous home, the flush button was literally behind the toilet lid, so it should have been easy to close the lid just to get to the button and people STILL left the lid up every time.

Don’t really want to put a sign up (would be annoying the majority of the time when we don’t have guests), nor to speak to people about it (cringe). Any ingenious ideas that could work? Surely we’re not the only people who prefer the lid closed - how have others made it work with guests?

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1244282808/please-put-the-lid-down-before-you-flush

good old Etsy never fails to deliver!

You are clearly not alone Op.

You do you in your own home, I just don’t understand how seeing the inside of a toilet offends you, it doesn’t make any sense to me. Life is too short to worry about how other people use the toilet when they visit my home.

But there’s a difference - if you leave the kitchen bin lid open, it’s likely that you would get a smell from waste food, but once you’ve flushed the toilet there should be nothing to smell. I did get into the habit of putting the lids of my toilets down a couple of years ago when I got a new kitten, but I would never expect guests to even give it a second thought.

Closed lid on a loo between uses makes me feel uncomfortable. Anything could be in there! Especially if you have young kids I like my toilets ready to use and open so they are visibly clean at all times. Nothing worse than opening a toilet lid to find someone’s half-flushed shit has been quietly stewing in there for three hours. So I generally flush and then lift lid after so it’s ready for the next bottom.

There's no point in putting up a twee, slightly passive-aggressive Mabel Lucie Atwell-style sign. Just something gentle, subtle, discreet and straight to the point is all you need.

I agree it’s not hard to note what the obvious norm is and comply with it.

@MerryBlimminXmas · Today 09:15

"In our house, we close the toilet lid before flushing. Reason being is that the poo/wee water spray will go absolutely everywhere if the lid is left open (lots of videos available online if anyone is interested)... "

It really won't, you know, and I'm a committed shitophobe with OCD.

I suggest that rather than forcing your guests to do anything you stop watching nonsense videos online

You forgot the one about dancing in the rain not waiting till it stops, though I appreciate this may have the opposite effect.

Who said anything about being offended??
Why the need to try to ridicule people who explain that they like to close the lid between uses?
I genuinely don’t understand. I don’t care what you do in your house, why can’t you respect what I do in mine without trying to make fun of it?

Seems a bit extreme employing somebody to stand in the corner of your bathroom 24/7 to maintain order.

I presume a lavatory lady is like the toilet guy in The IT Crowd?

I would put a sign up (doesn’t have to be a cringey one).

And when someone asks to use the toilet say yes but remind them to put the seat down before flushing as it can sometimes spurt out over the top (even if it doesn’t).

Do you have toothbrush cases etc?

I prefer the lid closed for the same reasons as you but I always have a case for my toothbrush anyway, so if someone didn’t close the lid then I wouldn’t be too bothered about it.

Well I live on my own so it's just my preference not to have to lift the lid before using the loo.

Nobody has died as a result of this, ever. So, yes maybe a biy annoying for you, but you will live to tell the tale.
Just put a sign up if it bothers you, but I can't say I would give this issue headspace.

I think you’re taking this a little too seriously, I have absolutely no need to respect what you do in your home as I don’t know you. Many posters are just having a bit of fun with the thread, but you seem to have forgotten what fun is. We’re talking about toilets, not the end of the world.

Glad to see I'm not so odd after all!

Same. I haven't had a stomach bug since I was about 6.

I just looked up a study about it. Lid down doesnt stop the contamination anyway. Op then you need to get your guests to go in a bucket in the garden.
Contamination of household restroom surfaces by MS2 was also evaluated after flushing with the toilet lid up and down (Table 2). The floor and the walls of the restroom were contaminated after toilet flushing, but no significant differences were observed between the contamination occurring with lid position up or down. Wall contamination was minimal, regardless of lid position, and there was no significant difference in contamination level between the surfaces assessed, but data indicated that the trajectory of the aerosol plume contamination may have changed (Table 2). Floor contamination was not found to be reduced consistently by toilet lid closure prior to flushing. However, averages for the left side and front floor contamination levels were higher if the toilet lid was closed prior to flushing, while right floor contamination levels were lower in that case,

In our house, we close the toilet lid before flushing. Reason being is that the poo/wee water spray will go absolutely everywhere if the lid is left open (lots of videos available online if anyone is interested).

This has actually been debunked recently that putting the lid down makes zero difference.

It's interesting to see that around the UK, new toilets in stores and motorway service stations have done away with lids. Moto have removed all the toilets that had lids (and where the loo could not be flushed with the lid up.)

This is partly because by touching the lid (with potentially dirty hands,) it's creating another area of contamination.

You are being very unreasonable.

I know this has been done to death but I just don't understand this! If you buy the flat silicone brushes, clean the bowl, rinse it under the flush.... nothing sticks to them, seriously. Keep some bleach in the holder. Job done. I'd hate a guest to be caught short and the poor love trapped in there endlessly flushing/trying to clean the bowl with loo paper!

Apart from the people who assume the flush doesn't work...

Toilet brushes are disgusting, never had one and never will.

A bit of loo paper does the job or a glug of bleach - or a double/triple flush when at someone's house.

Rinsing aloo brush under the flush does not remove shit. It's gluey and sticks even if you can't see it.

I think you either have to not have guests or put up with it really. Or say something as it's not a standard thing people do, but then there's no guarantee they will.

I once stayed with someone who insisted on this and I tried but I usually forgot.

Realistically a sign or speaking to people are the options available. Even then its no guarantee guests will do as you wish. Like others this is not something that bothers me in the slightest as I have over 60 years of living with toilets being flushed with the lid up and suffered no ill affects. When I was a child growing up in rural Oxfordshire there were still some houses around without indoor flush toilets who used the old method of a privy in the garden where a bucket collected the weeks waste for the household before it was dug into the vegetable patch at the weekend, my grandparents house was like this, I remember one elderly relative who thought indoor toilets were completely wrong, funny how times change.

Our flush is behind the loo seat such that you have to close it to flush it.

OP, you want your guests to ensure that they close the toilet lid before they flush as you are worried about poo and wee spraying everywhere if they don't.
You don't want to ask them to do this.
You don't want to put a sign up either.
Are you seriously expecting your guests to be telepathic and cross that they're not???