Compulsory lids in public toilets?

[ChinkBlink]

I don't know if this is a Covid legacy, or if it started earlier, but motorway service stations, shopping centres, etc have been installing compulsory toilet lids ... compulsory because you can't flush the toilet unless the lid is down. This is apparently to protect our delicate health from those pesky 'aerosols' that threaten us whenever we flush our pee away with fresh water. Anyone else hate these, or just me?

1. I can't see whether the toilet is clean or not before I commit to a cubicle ... who knows what horrors will lurk beneath the lid when I open it!
2. A lot of people use tissue to flush public loos, not their fingers, then throw the tissue into the loo as it flushes. But now they can't because the lid is closed so there are increased piles of tissue on the floor.
3. If the lid is closed, how do you know if it flushed properly? Unless they somehow managed to invent a toilet that flushes succesfully every time, will you be lifting the lid to check before you leave?

Your hand bag is more at risk if the loo has been flushed with the lid up

@ChinkBlink

I don't know if this is a Covid legacy, or if it started earlier, but motorway service stations, shopping centres, etc have been installing compulsory toilet lids ... compulsory because you can't flush the toilet unless the lid is down. This is apparently to protect our delicate health from those pesky 'aerosols' that threaten us whenever we flush our pee away with fresh water. Anyone else hate these, or just me?

1. I can't see whether the toilet is clean or not before I commit to a cubicle ... who knows what horrors will lurk beneath the lid when I open it!
2. A lot of people use tissue to flush public loos, not their fingers, then throw the tissue into the loo as it flushes. But now they can't because the lid is closed so there are increased piles of tissue on the floor.
3. If the lid is closed, how do you know if it flushed properly? Unless they somehow managed to invent a toilet that flushes succesfully every time, will you be lifting the lid to check before you leave?

Re your fist point, I always lift the lid after flushing to check it’s clean, and leave it open so the next user can see it’s clean.

And with the new ones I think they are vacuum flushed like on aircraft so there is no spray.

I hate public toilets, before COVID and now. Shopping centre toilets are always filthy and you're guaranteed to find an absolute state in the cubicle you choose. Touching the lid to open it makes me want to heave. Someone has just wiped them self and closed the lid. I want to touch as little as possible.

Only dirty sods flush with the lid up. It’s disgusting.

And the faffing around with bits of tissue is ridiculous. Just wash your hands properly.

@XenoBitch

YANBU How on earth did we survive as a species before toilet lids? I don't recall ever seeing one on a public loo, especially the metal ones. I like to have a glance to see the toilet is not blocked etc before parking my arse on it.

I mean, you do realise that as we've developed hygiene systems, health and life span have both improved, right? Think back to Tudor times when people just threw excrement from their windows into the street .. it wasn't the healthiest, was it? Plagues galore!

I think the point with these toilets is that they're far less likely to be blocked, due to the pressure used to remove the waste.

I've certainly never found one. And I've probably used more service station toilets this month than many people on here in the last five years.

@Createdjustforthis

Only dirty sods flush with the lid up. It’s disgusting.

And the faffing around with bits of tissue is ridiculous. Just wash your hands properly.

That'll be me then!

I'm happy to be a dirty sod, thanks, as I said 55 years of flushing without the lid down has resulted in a strong immunity. I'm not going to start now.

But why, given the evidence of particles being propelled would you leave the lid up in a shared toilet? It’s absolutely disgusting.

People do poo in public toilets too, you know. This stops faecal matter being sprayed around the cubicle, so I think it's a step forward, especially in service stations which are travel hubs, lots of people coming from different directions and travelling to other places. I think they mostly have non touch flushes, too?

I was really fastidious about shutting the lid before flushing and still am about toilet hygiene in general. To the extent that even as a child I would refuse to use a toilet I deemed too dirty much to my mom's embarrassment

But I watched a programme a few years back that did tests on toothbrushes to see if they really did contain faecal particles or if it's an urban myth. It's not, and there are particles that come out when you flush but this happens with lid up or down. They also found faecal particles on a control toothbrush, fresh out of the packet and never used, in another room down the hallway from the test toilet. So apparently the buggers are everywhere and you can't really avoid them 😂