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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ask my wife to stop using blue cistern blocks?

247 replies

Breadandwine · 06/08/2016 01:32

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.

OP posts:
AntiHop · 06/08/2016 20:37

We also don't flush after each wee.

SandyPantz · 06/08/2016 20:43

I actually think womens wee smells worse than mens, mens wee just smells of wee
womens wee smells of wee and something else, some sort of musk, I dunno must be hormones or something

whattheseithakasmean · 06/08/2016 21:51

Well, in relation to the animal kingdom, I know that mare's wee is absolutely rank, v strong smelling. So I am unconvinced by the posters who think men are smelly beasts while women just gently waft a gardenia aroma.

Catsize · 06/08/2016 22:14

Do you think if we all ate Sugar Puffs all of the time, then our wee would smell of Sugar Puffs regardless of being male/female? _-please tell me it's not just me--

Have I potentially solved a global issue?

Will our hotel rooms no longer stink of (very obviously male) wee?

Will the streets of France smell of Sugar Puffs?

Theydontknowweknowtheyknow · 06/08/2016 22:19

OP your mantra only solves two out of three possible scenarios!

Please complete:

if it's yellow let it mellow
if it's brown flush it down
if it's red ...........???????

Passthecake30 · 06/08/2016 22:24

If it's red....pass the chocolate?

I guess your wife is buying the blue blocks as can't stand the wee smell/look, there must be a compromise, a short flush?

Original poster
Breadandwine · 07/08/2016 01:07

If it's red

Not a consideration in this house - hasn't been for 25 years! Grin

If you're worried about the water go vegan, if you're not already. That'll save LOADS more water than leaving pee to sit.

I've been a vegan for 13 or so years, so I feel I'm doing my bit for the planet. Doesn't mean I shouldn't try and do more, does it?

I began this thread just to see how many posters agreed with me - I had no expectation of changing my wife's mind. Haven't ever been able to do that in over 40 years! Grin

And just to set the record straight, my wife has been using cistern blocks on and off for years before I began my 'mellow/yellow' routine.

But I'm genuinely surprised by the shock and horror expressed on this thread.

For Chrissakes! This is Mumsnet, right? Where practically everyone here has thought nothing of changing the shittiest of nappies several times a day for years! And you're worried about a whiff of urine. Confused

OP posts:
Sallystyle · 07/08/2016 01:20

HCA here.

I have smelled a lot of pee. Male's pee always smells stronger to me as well.

WellErrr · 07/08/2016 01:20

Well, parents HAVE to change the nappies of their children due to the fact that, you know, they can't do it for themselves.

As a grown man I'm assuming you are capable of looking after your own toile ring needs, which is why any woman would balk at having to encounter your stale piss.

It's very telling that you think the two are comparable though.

WellErrr · 07/08/2016 01:21

*toileting

Original poster
Breadandwine · 07/08/2016 01:53

It's very telling that you think the two are comparable though.

Tells you what, exactly, WellErr?

Not that I think the two smells are comparable - just that if you can tolerate one, the other shouldn't worry you too much - IMO!

OP posts:
mathanxiety · 07/08/2016 02:43

Yes, we change the nappies.

We try to change them as soon as possible after they are filled, because if left a while the stench is horrible.

Then we throw them out.
We do not leave them in a festering heap in the kitchen.

AaronBleurgh · 07/08/2016 03:03

If it's yellow, let it mellow?! Not in my bloody house! If you go to the loo, flush it! And then it reduces the amount of fish killing chemicals I need to pour down there!

mathanxiety · 07/08/2016 03:57

Punkrocker, you are absolutely right.

I did cleaning when I was a student. I could also tell blindfold whether a bathroom was used by men or women and this is for the most part without any evidence left in the loo.

OP - Please get yourself a nice big mason jar, as suggested above, but if you tip it down the sink please rinse the sink really, really thoroughly.

KittyKrap · 07/08/2016 04:08

Pissing into jars?!! Really?
I used to be a cleaner, men's wee really does smell rank.

acdcfan · 07/08/2016 05:36

Why can't you just flush the fucking toilet???

Drives me mad if I have to sit above stinking piss every time I have to go (6 year old often forgets), plus it usually smells rank - I'm the only female in the house.

We often use the blue cistern blocks - no crust here...

sashh · 07/08/2016 05:52

Why don't you start cleaning it, then you are responsible for the colour of the water.

Fomalhaut · 07/08/2016 06:04

My problem with a partner leaving pee in the loo is that's it's ...hmm... It's a bit of a 'fuck you' thing to do. It's marking your territory really isn't it? I peed here, you don't like it but I'm doing it anyway.
I think male pee does smell more, but pee smells anyway. And it's not nice to come across someone else's in what should be a relaxing clean space.
Install a grey water system if you want to save water. Leaving your pee for others to encounter is a bit like rubbing your anal glands on a tree in the boundary of your territory the sofa. Its dominance writ large.

Flush the loo, you mucky pup

dangermouseisace · 07/08/2016 09:24

breadandwine glad to hear you are already vegan. Yes there is always the room to do more for the planet, but then there is a point where it's ok to not do the most environmentally friendly thing possible for the sake of social cohesion. I think flushing the loo for the sake of social cohesion in your household might be that point!

You probably already know this…but if you're just doing a wee apparently it's good for the compost heap…might be a better use of the mellow yellow.. Or you could always build a composting toilet (admission here- I really want one in our garden...)

candybar007 · 07/08/2016 10:00

Coloured cistern blocks will over time rot away rubber seals causing a leak and Caustic soda has been known to crack a toilet pan.

Feilin · 07/08/2016 10:14

Buy poo pourri online and use that instead .

brambly · 07/08/2016 14:12

I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand - I almost always appreciate people's efforts to be eco-friendly. I'm a "hybrid" myself: superficially not hippy-dippy-seeming at all but have a number of proclivities others might find very granola (reusable sanpro etc).

I'm unfussy and generally very relaxed about bodies (always the friend called upon to tend to group members who'd overdone it and were spewing into the pub gutter as I didn't mind getting sick on me, don't demand military penis cleaning effort before every blowjob, etc etc) but have to be honest - answering the call of nature in a bog filled with stale piss gives me full body shudders.

The effect would be mitigated by very dilute piss, but if there is one smell that is worse than shit, it's festering urine. By which I do admittedly mean "dried on" or on the floor urine, but anything that has the capacity to smell that dire when drying out still isn't exactly going to smell pleasant as it grows ever more concentrated in the lav.

Those blue plugin things are basically pointless and I loathe the chemical whiff so I'm with you on that, OP. But I have to admit that I would be driven round the bend (so to speak) by a partner/house member who consistently let their piss fester - and I'd probably render their whole operation entirely counterproductive by preemptively flushing by default every time I needed to use it.

brambly · 07/08/2016 14:22

To add, I also agree with the poster that mentioned the "fuck you" factor. Even if unintentional (and obviously so), at a visceral, pre-intellectual level it does (regardless of whether the culprit is male or female, needless to say) somehow communicate a "I woz 'ere and don't feel the need to clean up after myself for your comfort so sod you, PS I woz 'ere" message.

I cannot stress enough that I'm not the precious sort - have drunkenly pissed down plenty of drains in my time and even pissed in glasses (long and desperate story!). But the thought of an adult (or suitably "sentient" child) just leaving their urine to build up in the bog is pretty unpleasant.

Particularly for those of us with stressful home lives and shoddy jobs, sitting on the china is the sometimes the closest thing to a break one can get - why marr it with unpleasantness?

djc148 · 07/08/2016 17:22

On a more serious note, checking the colour of urine in the loo can help determine if you have infections/health problems, so a blue block will more than likely prevent this.....!

gemma19846 · 07/08/2016 17:28

Is this all men have to worry about in life? :/ Flush the chain after you pee easy peasy problem solved