To not want people to poo in my downstairs toilet?!

[Scornedwoman67]

I will start by saying I am a fairly relaxed person when it comes to the house. I like tidy, but am not obsessed about cleaning etc.
A few years ago, after my divorce, I bougt my current house & had a downstairs toilet installed. Because of space constraints, it is off the kitchen. I have a rule that basically it's only for No.1's. I sort of assumed that most people would realise that anyway, firstly because it is near the kitchen, and secondly because it isn't exactly soundproof
Anyway, a friend & her DH visited yesterday. I will add that he has history - he has on at least one previous occasion taken himslef upstairs & sat in that loo for a 'session' ( apologies if you're eating ) but yesterday he excelled himself. We were sitting in the lounge chatting & he disappeared out of the room. I went in to the kitchen a few minutes later & he shouted through the door to announce where he was. His DW rather nervously reminded him about my rule ( knowing what he is like, I suspect) to which he replied 'oh dear'.

Whilst I can see the funny side of it, I do think it is rude....or AIBU?!

I'm thinking of putting a bloody great big sign on the door now!!!!

but do all adults really know their bowel pattern? It's not something I've discussed at great length with people obviously, but even before I developed IBS, I could never have known what time of the day I would need the loo, or how urgent it would be.

I used to tie myself in knots to avoid using the loo at work because I was so anxious about it, or going even further back, at school. It makes me wonder now if I could have avoided the long term problems if I hadn't forced myself to hold on. I remember sitting at my desk fighting back the tears because of the discomfort I was in because I really needed the loo, but I wouldn't have used the loo in work because I didn't want to be labelled weird or disgusting. Can that really be a good thing? To be in utter agony because of some social convention that says an adult should be able to 'train' their bowels?

To put a different slant on the social c

Some people are truly welcoming some are not. T'is what it comes down to. There are some anally retentive people and it's not the guests .

As for timing/knowing when you have a bowel movement, that is all well and good when you are spending a few moments in someone's home but not so convenient when you are there from 8-6 pm. And not everybody has a set the clock by it bowel timetable.

AS for the 'no defecating workperson' attitudes, do you think they shit toxic waste or something? Or that being a tradesperson automatically means you are unable to make a direct stool hit? I bet the average five year old is smearier than most adults. Would you ban them too?

Sorry - and following on from the above post...what about all the dc's who won't poo at school? I know mine won't, and as adults are you all happy to go at work? I hate it!

sometimes it really is 'marking territory'
(seen all those grim fly on the wall documentaries about rogue tradesmen?)

Yanbu. We have a loo off our kitchen and definitely a 'no poo in the downstairs loo' rule. I have never announced this to guests of course, but like you I would kind of expect them to not want to poo in close proximity to the social gathering.

takeiteasy
no that's not the regulations. They are recommendations. It isn't possible in this instance & the individual concerned knew the set up before he went in. As I've said several times already, he goes & uses the upstairs loo on s regular basis. That's why I was annoyed!

kudz you haven't read the thread. He regularly uses the upstairs loo & I don't have any issues with anyone doing so!

It varies on the tradesman I find. Some of course have good toilet manners but I have been scarred for life by 4 days worth of a painter and decorator who turned up here promptly at 9.00 am, after answering the door to him with a friendly 'morning' he would come in, put his tools in the room, then proceed with newspaper to the toilet and stay there for 20 mins. Every day for 4 days. I can still smell it now..

I have read the thread and am commenting generally upon the posts left here by other posters too.

However i am still that somebody installs a downstairs toilet near a kitchen and then complains when somebody uses it as, well. a toilet.

This thread is absolutely fascinating. I would have thought it was a Hyacinth-Bucket style joke if it wasn't clearly so heartfelt an issue for many posters! I am now taking notes on British attitudes to bowel movements. I may write a Kate Fox style book.

I am a foreigner and I was completely unaware that it is, according to at least one poster, accepted social convention that you don't move your bowels in someone else's house unless sleeping over!

Is this a class thing? Have I accidentally offended against middle-class social norms by wrongful pooing, rather as if I said 'toilet', 'serviette' and 'lounge'?

And OP, on a forum where many posters think it is insanely rude for a host to ask guests to take their shoes off on entering the house, I remain intrigued as to how one politely conveys to a guest that s/he is only allowed to visit the downstairs loo for one of the two purposes for which one generally goes to the loo? Doesn't this mean in practice that someone walking towards the downstairs loo, suddenly turning on their heel and going up the stairs is made to feel rather uncomfortable about announcing their intentions? And where do you stand on tampon changing, or loud male peeing in the downstairs loo?

It isn't an accepted social convention that you don't open your bowels in another person's house as far as I know Burren thank goodness.

I would be very sad to think that my friends (or any visitor for that matter) felt judged by their toilet habits or too inhibited by the rules of the owner to feel they could use any bathroom.

I have raised a lot of children with a lot of friends so in answer to another poster, no I don't mind random children defecating in my toilets. That is what they are for. If you don't like the physicality and general grossness of kids, then don't have them over at all.

My view on the situation is like so: I would want to avoid creating a poo smell in a social situation. It's not a class issue, or a tradesman issue.

I thought it was pretty normal for people to poo mostly in the morning, maybe the afternoon, totally normal for work, but pretty rarely at night (when I'd say 80% of social engagements take place... right?).

If I had a loo off the kitchen, I would make people feel very free about using the upstairs loo for this very reason, using whatever pretext ("if you prefer to go upstairs, feel free, that downstairs loo is freezing....etc).

yes there is definitely a book in here somewhere
i am equally fascinated by the people who dont share this convention. i really want to know who does and doesnt have this 'rule'.
is it middle class? i dont know. maybe and thats why the whole 'tradesman' issue crops up. maybe regional? gender based? its only via mumsnet that you even find out that it is ok in other circles

put egg cartons on the walls :D. Problem solved!

That sounds wonderfully Howard Hughes aGirlDownUnder1.

He used to shuffle round the house with Kleenex boxes on his feet instead of slippers. I don't know why. He apparently used to piss and shit in bottles and save it as well. That strikes me as even less hygienic than a kitchen with an en-suite bog.

I don't think its a matter of not sharing the convention. I think probably about 95% of people would prefer to use their own toilet. I know I would.

But its the general disgust that is aimed at people who just find they can't wait that worries me. I honestly don't think most people enjoy creating an unpleasant smell in someone else's house, most people are horribly embarassed by it. Which is why I automatically assume that they only did it because they felt they couldn't wait until they got home.

If someone comes to visit, only stays fifteen mins and spends ten of those mins in the loo then comes out laughing about it, that is a rather different situation to the 'oh, I can't stand it when someone poos in my toilet, ever' discussion.

My friend's mother had the opposite rule to you OP. You were only allowed to shit in the downstairs loo. If she thought you were having a sneaky shit upstairs she'd bang on the door.

It wasn't what you'd call a welcoming atmosphere.

a kitchen with an en-suite bog

My friend's mother had the opposite rule to you OP. You were only allowed to shit in the downstairs loo. If she thought you were having a sneaky shit upstairs she'd bang on the door.

WTF?

burren
I don't convey it...nobody has ever done it before!

Everyone knows I'm not fussed about guests going upstairs & as ive already said, this bloke normally does. So I just don't get why he would go in to the loo next to the kitchen & a few feet from where everyone was sitting and shut himself in there for ten minutes

Omg a worse thought...what if he was having a wank instead???

Yes truffleoil. My friend was one of those poor people who can't shit anywhere but her own home and had dreadful bowel problems and piles that needed hospital treatment.

I wonder if there was a connection, eh?

YABU for having a poorly ventilated toilet built next to your kitchen. The whole idea is totally yucky, you cannot ban people from using it.

Building regs used, very sensibly, ban this sort of thing, insisting on a ventilated lobby and proper ventilation via window or extractor in the toilet itself. I suppose the government wanted to allow some freedom but unless you want a kitchen stinking of shit then you shouldn't have put the toilet there.

I'm also laughing at the poster who ordered the visitor to wee more slowly.

There's an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry develops an uncontrollable disposition to Niagara-like wees.

He's visiting someone and accidentally splashes the picture of Christ they have hanging in the loo - like you do.

They mistake the piss-splash for a tear and think it's a miracle.

I don't know what I'd find more off-putting. Jesus staring at me while I was on the loo or embroidered sampler warning me not to poo.

But Scorned - how long has the downstairs loo been there? Are you saying that no one has ever moved their bowels in it before, despite the fact that you've never actually told guests this is the rule?

Actually, this thread is getting even more fascinating. I'm intrigued at treacle's point that 95% of people would prefer to move their bowels in their own loo - really? I must be in the other 5% then, because I have never given it a thought...

Truffle, without oversharing, I think the 'normal' timings of one's bowel movements may vary a lot! I can't speak for all vegetarians, and I've been one for two decades so can't remember what it was like before, but it's probably a fairly accurate generalisation that as meat is digested more slowly than vegetables, people whose diet consists largely of pulses and greenstuff go more often simply because food moves through our systems more quickly. I probably go once for every meal, though I imagine a vegetarian whose diet was strongly carbohydrate-based might not obey those timings...