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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Urinals. What the actual fuck are they all about?

46 replies

Reality · 07/08/2013 11:36

Just been reading on FB about my local shopping centre, it's grim. You step out of the lifts into the miasmic stench from the loos.

I hadn't really given it much thought, but apparently (and DH has just confirmed this), the mens urinal is a fucking grate to stand on and then a gutter to piss in.

What the hell? That is barbaric! No wonder it stinks to high heaven. Apparently that's normal for public loos? I thought urinals were individual flushable things.

I am really properly dicusted of tunbridge wells about this and tempted to not let DS1 go in there ever again, he can go in the ladies where it smells of air freshener and soap. Except he's nearly 11 and people woudl freak.

Why on earth, in the developed world and the twenty first century, do men have to piss down a gutter in the floor? I might start a campaign.
AIBU?

OP posts:

AnnabelleLee · 07/08/2013 11:38

is your local shopping centre located in the 18th century? thats no what urinals look like everywhere else out in the civilised world

You don't live in Blackpool do you?

Northernexile · 07/08/2013 11:41

A urinal is more like a long trough that they stand in a row to piss in normally. no miss-spent youth nipping into the mens bogs to avoid the quere here

ThisWayForCrazy · 07/08/2013 11:45

In most modern toilets they are individual.

Original poster

Reality · 07/08/2013 11:47

Right, DH has just clarified that you stand on the grate and piss into the trough.

That is fucking vile. All that piss just sloshes about. And that's without the animals who just piss down the grate . Why on that earth is that even a thing? vommy vom vom.

OP posts:

chesterberry · 07/08/2013 11:47

A grate and a gutter? The only time I saw urinals like that has been in India where they have outdoors in little alleys just off the pavements - they really do stink!

Most urinals I have seen are either a long trough that they all stand in or individual porcelain urinal-shaped urinals (not sure how else to describe them!). Never seen or heard of a urinal that flushed, although I am female so haven't seen that many (am also a person who will nip into men's toilet to avoid cues!).

chesterberry · 07/08/2013 11:48

queues*

AMumInScotland · 07/08/2013 11:49

The advantage of the gutter version I suppose is that you don't have to worry about diffreent heights, but individual ones are more usual I am sure.

If I was you I'd be complaining about the stench, rather than the details of how their urinals are set up.

ViviPru · 07/08/2013 11:49

I have just found a New Favourite Word.

MIASMIC. Miasmic miasmic miasmic. Miasmic.

Thanks Reality

Original poster

Reality · 07/08/2013 11:50

I honestly had never given this a thought before but I am really freaking out at the thought of DS using them.

The more I think about it, the idea of men standing at a trough with their dicks out, pissing communally, has really given me the massive wiggins.

Ugh.

OP posts:

BaronessBomburst · 07/08/2013 11:53

The Romans used to poo communally. HTH

CoffeeandScones · 07/08/2013 11:54

I'm a man, and can confirm the range of such services is very very wide. At the lower end, yeah it can pretty much be a room with a piss trough. Nice, eh?

Also (sorry if TMI) but the proportion of men that wash their hands afterwards is lower than you might think or hope. That's assuming there is a working sink to use - or that you are confident you won't catch more germs from using it than are already on your hands.

Men's loos are not the most glamorous aspect of life.

AnnabelleLee · 07/08/2013 11:55

not just the romans, much more recently than that. The 19th century french court, in fact.

filee777 · 07/08/2013 11:56

Men like pissing up a wall, they are designed for it. I seriously wouldn't worry about it too much.

Chopsypie · 07/08/2013 11:56

You can get urinals that flush, but most rely on gravity and a good cleaning regime. (I deal with toilets and things for work, so many an hour has been spent in the gents)

Original poster

Reality · 07/08/2013 11:57

IT really does pong.

And it's right by the lifts, so visitors to our fair town are greeted by the miasma.

I love that word, along with effluvia and stench. Very evocative. I wish there was a word like onomatopoeia to describe words that sound like they smell. Also coruscate. It's a word that sounds like it looks.

OP posts:

SalaciousBCrumb · 07/08/2013 11:58

I remember going on holiday to France. At the park needed to use we the loo. Signs pointed to the toilets, led to a typical public loo block with frosted high up windows and just one door in the middle visible, marked ladies (well, in French obviously). Gents arrow pointed round the side for what we assumed was the entrance. Turned out in fact the arrow led round the back of the building and invited the men to piss against the wall, in full view of all park users (no pissoir type screens going on).

Original poster

Reality · 07/08/2013 11:58

I actually gagged at 'poo communally'. And I am a happy shower pisser. i am not squeamish in the slightest about bodily functions, usually. I clearly have a thing about mass evacuations.

OP posts:

Oldraver · 07/08/2013 12:01

I think all mens loos used to be like this. My Mum had a pub and club and they were nearly always of this type and did stink, even though they were cleaned regulary.

One club I went to (Brixton Academy) you stepped up when you went in the mens loos and it was a large room with 'urinals' on three sides. the walls were totally porcelain though. On the third side were cubicals

ImNotBloody14 · 07/08/2013 12:01

i'm a cleaner.

i have decided (tongue in cheek for those that need it spelt out) that all men's toilets should be fitted with individual tubes or pipes, maybe with a supply of disposable bits to stick in the end that your penis touches, just big enough to fit a penis in to pee into and that should be connected to the urinal and be the only option for peeing unless they use an actual toilet. i swear i think some men must try and write their names on the walls. it's disgusting

BaronessBomburst · 07/08/2013 12:02

I once confessed to my colleagues that I like cleaning the urinals at work (we take it in turns to do the toilets) because I like to stand in front of each one and do a manly hip thrust to make it flush.

They all know I'm mad already though.

CoffeeandScones · 07/08/2013 12:18

In Holland (I think?) they solved the "men pissing all over" problem by etching a small bumblebee on the urinal, at the best spot to avoid splashback.

Men then aimed at the thing because, well, it's almost like a sport. Hence minimal splash.

Simple, but then so are we.

CoffeeandScones · 07/08/2013 12:19

(Btw blue loo blocks are a terrible idea, because we aim at them to make them move about in the urinal - sad but true

I feel like I'm giving away trade secrets here :-) )

wanderings · 07/08/2013 12:21

"Oh pull yourself together, it's only a bit of poo."

(Johnny English, crawling up the waste pipe while a communal pooing session is in place further up)

wanderings · 07/08/2013 12:23

Also the blue "toss blocks" (I kid you not!) are not good for the plumbing, because they dissolve and re-solidify in the waste pipes.

ImNotBloody14 · 07/08/2013 12:43

those urinal blocks are vile! all they do is collect urine and stop it all getting flushed away.

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