Books in the toilet....

[alphabetsoup1980]

Just euugghhh Or is it just me???

My grandad always kept a pile of crossword books on the windowsill next to the toilet and it made me really uncomfortable 😂😂😂

Please say I'm not the only one who thinks it's a bit grim??

If anyone is sitting on the loo long enough to do a crossword/read they need to see a doctor.

My dad and my ex husband both used to bring a newspaper to the toilet with them and then spend a good 15/20 minutes in there. I just assumed all men did it 🤷🏻‍♀️

@BikeTyson

Am I the only person who closes the lid to flush? I don’t keep books in the toilet because I don’t get 2 minutes peace in there anyway (toddlers) but I don’t really see the problem.

No you’re not. The Iid always goes down pre flush in this house so as to not contaminate the pile of Private Eye annuals in the corner.

Does no-one else realise that by closing the lid all you're doing is ensuring particles get fired much further at higher pressure? Instead of a smaller plume around the toilet, if you close the lid you'll just make sure even more of your bathroom gets a good coating.

@Lockheart

Does no-one else realise that by closing the lid all you're doing is ensuring particles get fired much further at higher pressure? Instead of a smaller plume around the toilet, if you close the lid you'll just make sure even more of your bathroom gets a good coating.

And yet we all live and in this house nobody gets ill. Amazing, isn’t it?

Imagine it's a bit like a hosepipe. If you leave it alone, water just keeps coming out in a stream. If you pinch it closed with your fingers you get a high pressure spray which has quite the distance.

That's what you're doing to your bathroom when you close the lid on your toilet to flush.

@VinylDetective of course it doesn't make you ill. I haven't mentioned anyone being ill.

Whether you close your toilet lid or not, it's not actually harmful. Otherwise we'd still have outside toilets.

I suppose it depends if people wipe then go back to turning the page (hopefully not kicking a finger!) If you put the book down then wipe, followed by flushing there are no germs getting transferred on the book?

Now I'm thinking there are people licking their fingers it's making me queasy!

Meh. Every room in our house has books in it, including the bathroom. Oddly enough i don't wipe my arse then pick up a book, it's the other way around, so what exactly is the problem?

It used to annoyed the hell out of me when I lived at home. I would buy an book/magazine and it would disappear. It would eventually be found in my parents bathroom. My Dad always had the inability to put the lid down when he flushed.

Oddly enough i don't wipe my arse then pick up a book, it's the other way around

You wipe a book and pick up your arse?

I can't see the problem with books in the toilet - a peaceful place to browse. As long as you wash your hands afterwards, what's the problem?

Recently, I started putting the lid down before flushing having heard about "plumes", but now I'm being told that's worse! This is the whole toilet brush debate all over again.

But don't you clean your toilet regularly? Not quite as bad as several people touching the same book, flicking through the pages whilst having a poo! 😂😂

I assume you’re not shitting directly into your own hands, so why is it any more grim to touch a book in the loo than anywhere else? At most a person having a shit has touched their own jeans, possibly the outside of their pants.

And yes, flushing the loo without closing the lid is grim.

Hang on. If you flush with the lid up, germs go up in the air, yes? If you put the lid down, they may come out rocket-powered but they're not going up in the air: they must be coming out sideways, low down. So they're contaminating less of your bathroom & landing on fewer objects.

I must admit to doing puzzles in there, sometimes. Seems to me, as Keeping2 says, that my hands are clean when I go in there, then I do the necessary, put the puzzle & pen somewhere above the level of the loo seat/lid, then clean up & put the loo lid down before flushing, & then wash my hands. So the puzzles & pen stay as clean as they would anywhere else in the house.

My excuse? I have Crohn's & so I have learnt the phrase 'slow transit'.

What was the toilet brush debate???

The act of simply doing a poo does not somehow magically make your fingers and hands dirty. Flush with the lid closed. Don't really see any issue apart from for people who are very squeamish about poo.

What was the toilet brush debate???

According to some MNers owning a toilet brush the the equivalent of cleaning your house with a used nappy.

Even if particles of some kind get on this imaginary book of funny German phrases and their origins anyone reading it will wash their hands after, right? So they won't be contaminated.

@DadDadDad

I can't see the problem with books in the toilet - a peaceful place to browse. As long as you wash your hands afterwards, what's the problem?

Recently, I started putting the lid down before flushing having heard about "plumes", but now I'm being told that's worse! This is the whole toilet brush debate all over again.

It really doesn't matter, it's harmless.

It just amuses me when people think flushing with the lid up is gross when they're actually doing something which makes it worse.

What was the toilet brush debate???

It comes along as regularly as the shoes on or off indoors debate. They’re both equally tedious with each side becoming more entrenched until they mercifully reach 1000 posts.

My SIL has books in the toilet in her house. She's a paediatrician with a PHD in infectious disease.

Closing the lid actually makes it worse, fyi

Ah, the things Mumsnet drives me to google...

"C difficile was recovered from air sampled at heights up to 25 cm above the toilet seat and up to 90 minutes after flushing, at concentrations 12-fold greater with the lid up than with the lid down. They concluded that lidless conventional toilets increase the risk of C difficile environmental contamination and thus discouraged their use."

From www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4692156/ (conveniently open access, yay!)

(But I do like a good book of cartoons in the loo, I must admit, hygiene considerations aside.)

Does no-one else realise that by closing the lid all you're doing is ensuring particles get fired much further at higher pressure? Instead of a smaller plume around the toilet, if you close the lid you'll just make sure even more of your bathroom gets a good coating

You have any link or evidence of this? My lid closes to pretty much a seal, so it's more like bending a hose than pinching the end (aka the water doesn't come out)

I keep magazines in the bog, always have, and I've always been a bog reader.