To ask my wife to stop using blue cistern blocks?

[Breadandwine]

Which are absolutely unnecessary and environmentally unsound.

But apart from this, I've been following the 'If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down' dictum for some years now. (The lid of the toilet is always kept down.) If my wife doesn't use cistern blocks (these things appear intermittently), everything is fine. However, when she puts the blocks in, there is a reaction between the urine in the bowl and the chemicals in the blocks resulting in a crust forming around the sides of the bowl.

This can't just be wiped or brushed away. The best way I've found to get rid of it is to use a (dedicated) pan scrubber. But it's a pain in the arse, to coin a phrase.

Stale urine (especially male urine) absolutely stinks. Just flush the toilet! I feel sorry for your wife, the stench must be awful. In our house we all flush when we use the toilet and use bleach / toilet cleaner once a day in each toilet. Can't stand a smelly toilet.

Maybe you could pee in a big jar? One with a lid. Then empty in the loo when you are prepared to flush it. Your wife will probably want you to keep this jar away from anything else, garage or shed perhaps? It'll save your loo and you won't need the blocks.

Fit a grey water recycling system.

You've no chance of winning that argument with the hygiene obsessives on here OP.

It is The Law that toilets are 100% spotless inside and out at all times and they must be dowsed in bleach daily to ensure there is never any evidence of their purpose.

Thank god I don't live in your house, unflushed loos make me gag.

Get a dual flush on the bog.. Indeed you should have one...a small flush for yellow and a big one for brown...

So a visitor to your house has every chance of encountering a toilet filled with piss? I'm with other posters - if you want to save water then fit a grey water system for flushing.

And a toilet with a turd that's a few hours old is even ranker.

Get a Hippo bag for the cistern to save water.

It's too warm to let anything mellow at the moment.

Flush the bloody loo and clean it yourself!

I'm sure not too long ago with the whole sharing

There is nothing to stop you fitting a grey water recucling system into the house... It will probably be quite cheap... a couple of thousand or so.. Then your loo worries will be over.

Of course spending thousands to save pounds may not make much financial sense?

I don't like them, and neither does anyone else in the family. Fortunately.

What an utterly utterly bizarre op!

What a strange thing to post about at 1 in the morning.

Just flush the loo.

Oh crap pressed send too early

I'm sure not too long ago with the whole sharing bath water debate MN was all hippy dippy environmentalists on a one way mission to save the planet
Now it's all disgust at a bit of stinky piss
Can't help wondering if it's because the op comes across as a man - his first sentence explains it really he's looking out for the environment nothing more than some of you guys do when sharing the bath water. If you can stand that I don't see what the problem is with a bit of piss smell.
I don't think male urine smells different to female they both smell equally disgusting.

OP speak to her, if you don't like them for whatever reason you should both be able to have an adult conversation about it.

Personally I flush every time I go but then I'm a brazen earth killer anyway since I don't use my family's dirty bath water......

Sharing the bath water is a little bit different to a toilet full of piss though.

We live in the 21st century and are lucky to have flushing toilets. Just flush the blooming thing!

Good grief. OP this was never going to go well - there are lots of women people out there who are plain weird about weeing and pooing. You can't be sure what specific darkness is lurking in your wife's psyche about this so you are just going to have to ask her.

We are nonflushers too but tbh it is fairly rank if nobody poos for a while, so have moved to only flushing during the day. What about if you all drink a lot more so that the wee is paler? Would she stop the blocks then?

Actually, playing devil's advocate, there is nothing in the OP that makes it absolutely certain that the OP is a man. Breadandwine could be part of a same sex couple.

I don't flush all the time, and rarely at night. If there are any Australians on this thread, or anyone else who isn't as cavalier with precious clean drinking water that many people on this thread are, they will be in agreement with the OP.

We all take separate showers here. We have a bathtub but hardly ever take baths.

I am 100% sure that when the DCs were small and shared bathwater they were in fact sitting in a bath full of comingled pee.

We flush the loo every time we use it, night or day, or I find the culprit and march them back to the bathroom.

Invest in a low flow system if you can't bear to waste water. There are lots of options, from rainwater to grey water. No doubt every single other aspect of water use is carefully thought out with waste minimisation as a priority?

It is really not a problem of darkness of the psyche to object to having to live with a midden in your house. Nobody has to live like that any more. Nobody should have to just because someone they live with has a bee in their bonnet about water use.

There's only two of us here so we generally follow the "mellow" method, with the occasional flush.

This is the point at which I repeat my recommendation for Method toilet cleaner. It's environmentally friendly, smells of peppermint (so no nasty loo-cleaner smell) and best of all, actually works on limescale. I live in a really really hard water area, and left to itself, the loo goes black under the waterline in days. It's revolting. I have tried every loo cleaner under the sun, including blocks, and nothing really works apart from Method. It's amazing.

(Waitrose sometimes stocks it, but it's also available in Robert Dyas. It's in a tall turquoise conical bottle, if you are looking for it.)

OP, we let the yellow mellow in this house too, well mostly anyway. We have a duel flush toilet, so I just give it a quick press so the sides of the bowl have been swilled at least. I drink a lot of water so the urine isn't concentrated, when it is it can honk, we don't flush through the night due to the noise and waking everyone up, so in the morning it's not great sometimes.
I think if you get your rain water directed to be used for flushing your toilet that could solve the problem. I agree with others, your wife might be buying the blue blocks to disguise the stink.

I moved house a few months ago, where the previous occupants never flushed the loo unless it was brown. Within one day the toilet blocked and I had to invoke my insurance cover. The toilet guy who called said the toilet was heavily scaled around the u bend, and basically needed a new toilet pan, as eventually the flush holes would also block completely. Although this effect would happen eventually anyway, leaving urine to sit and not flushing does accelerate this process.

(And all this talk about "living with a midden" is ridiculous. It's a few tablespoons of waste, diluted in a bowl of clean water. Unless you have a serious medical condition, or never clean your loo, it's not going to stink. Anyone who lives in a flat with noisy plumbing is already used to not flushing at night, in order not to disturb the neighbours. You don't need to never flush it, just not every single time!)