Am I being precious or would this not bother you?

[Pinkpanther6878]

In large DIY department store today,needed to use loo, and which are located through a door in corner of store that then opens into corridor (about say 7/8 meters long) with female and male toilet doors separately going off this corridor, and disabled toilet at end of corridor. Except now the separate male and female toilets (usually for customer use) are locked and only for staff use, not sure why but anyway signs saying to use disabled toilet, of which there is only one, so therefore unisex. I proceed down corridor, the disabled toilet door of which is wide open (and wide open into corridor, it's a pull door to get in not push). I become aware of sound of someone urinating,so I stop well before door,and shortly after a middle aged man walks out,still messing with his fly. I give him slightly unapproving look but he just carries on past me in corridor looking totally vacant. To add he also didnt bother flushing the toilet, so I was greeted by toilet full of dark slightly frothy urine,nor did he put seat down,but I probably am being picky on that latter point.
Anyway more I think about it the more I am feeling bit disturbed,even violated by the whole thing. Like this man didnt care about closing let alone locking the door, so anyone could have walked in on him plus the lack of respect not flushing afterwards, just seems really gross and off. Also as a single 30 something female am feeling especially conscious at moment of needing safe space etc, and be nice if men were conscious of this too, not actively making no effort. Just to add, this man was a member of the public/customer, not a staff member.
Yes YABU - thinking too much into it,get over it.
No YANBU - it is concerning

He was being gross, and it's possibly illegal?

Did you mention it to a member of staff? They could put a sign up saying "close and lock the door"

I'm not in favour of making the single available toilet open to all - it is an accessible toilet for a reason. However, a self contained toilet with its own sink being used for everyone isn't "sharing" facilities, is it?
You can go in and lock the door. You don't have to share with anyone at all

@BoxOfDreams

The race to the bottom continues. It is disgusting OP, and all of those saying "so what?" are part of the problem. We need standards in society otherwise life is just a free for all. Expecting those using a public loo to close the door and flush the loo is kind of minimum standard.

Closing the toilet door isn't just for safety as someone claimed up thread, it's for privacy and politeness. My family and guests close the door when they use the loo in my house, I'm sure they don't feel I may assault them if they don't.

A woman after my own heart ❤️

I would have shouted after him! Men are gross

Ugh threads like this make me so grateful l only work with women.....at my last job, the nightshift who were all men used to use the ladies' toilets and they were filthy animals.

Yanbu op about the part where he didn't flush especially.

It’s inconsiderate and unhygienic (I assume he didn’t wash his hands), but I think you’re over reacting to say you feel violated by it. It was just someone taking a piss. The worst loo I’ve been in was a unisex loo in a restaurant in Germany, which had a couple of urinals and a single cubical. Using that felt awkward and uncomfortable, but not disturbed and violated.

I do agree with PP that is was disgusting (not flushing, not washing hands and seat being left up!) but also agree that 'violated' is a rather strong reaction to seeing nothing, and something that could also have been done in a ladies only loo (some women are dirty! At work our toilets used to have poo on the floor occasionally, and as PP said toilet paper with poo on shoved in the sanitary bins! 🤢). When you say he looked 'vacant' is there any possibility he was an adult with additional needs?

I think people in public should be held to higher standards, especially in shared spaces! There's no need for this short of behaviour in general, and although ladies toilets can be filthy, I'd still rather not share with people who can't flush or put lids down!

I use the men’s loos sometimes when there’s a ridiculous queue for the women’s and none for men’s… so I think you ABU for caring that a man used the ‘wrong’ toilet.

But definitely NOT unreasonable for disliking the parts that essentially just incredibly bad manners - not closing the door, not flushing and leaving seat up.

The whole thing is gross, but leaving the door wide open is disturbing.

At work we have separate loos for men and women - and the men regularily sent e-mails round complaining about the state of theirs - usually after the new group if interns arrive.
Same for us women.

There are just some people - of all types of gender and both sexes - who are very badly brought up.

Bloody hell. A bloke didn't flush the toilet. Is this all you've got to worry about?

@Dillydollydingdong

With all this woke thinking, it looks like lots of public loos are likely to go unisex very soon. I think we're all going to have to get used to the idea of men sharing public loos. And many of them are likely to be thoughtless, casual, and uncaring. I don't like it either.

Which “woke thing”? What does that mean?

@WorraLiberty

No-one should be using a public loo with the door wide open

It really is that simple!

It’s gross from a hygiene point of view but I wouldn’t have felt violated from a “safe space” point of view.
I voted YABU but if your question was “I think this is digusting, Aibu?” I would have said YANBU.

I use the men’s loos sometimes when there’s a ridiculous queue for the women’s and none for men’s… so I think you ABU for caring that a man used the ‘wrong’ toilet

That isn't what OP is talking about. Everyone was obliged to use the disabled loo because the single sex loos were locked. That's something I'd be complaining to the store about.

And you are out of order to use the men's toilets - it's their space.

@Palladin

The whole thing is gross, but leaving the door wide open is disturbing.

Considering it was the disabled toilet, maybe he was disabled and had a genuine reason to leave the toilet door open

I think its a bit of an overreaction tbh- there are times when women fail to lock the door- I'm sure everyone has pushed open a door to see a woman sitting on the loo (and vice versa)
Its more an issue of toilet design- eg there's only one door between the toilet and the street tbh

I don't want to share a bathroom with a man.

This isn't sharing a bathroom with a man other than in the sense that it's the same room used by people of different sexes at different times - which is, after all, what happens in the average home. It's a single room that you can lock men out of when you are using it. If anything, you are in rather less danger than you would be in a public toilet because the access is not an enclosed space.

And anyone who has been in a ladies', particularly in places like pubs, will know that disgusting behaviour in toilets definitely isn't confined to men.

Agree with you on everything apart from putting the seat down.

For every man that doesn't leave the seat down, there's a woman that doesn't leave it up.....

As different sexes, we just need to accept that sometimes we have differing requirements.

@nanbread

I put YABU but I'm slightly on the fence. Obviously it's not ideal but men are used to urinating in main bit of loo which door opens onto, and also not flushing if using urinals.

So when they are home or visiting friends, they also ALWAYS leave the door wide open so anyone can see them/walk in them, never flush the toilet (or wash their hands) too?

I don’t think so.

If they are able to behave in their own homes or at other people houses/work, I’m sure they can do it a shop too

@DorsVenabili

I think its a bit of an overreaction tbh- there are times when women fail to lock the door- I'm sure everyone has pushed open a door to see a woman sitting on the loo (and vice versa) Its more an issue of toilet design- eg there's only one door between the toilet and the street tbh

Not locking the door is different from leaving wide open though… that is not a mistake vs thinking you’ve put the lock on and you haven’t.

I put yabu as although I don't think you're being unreasonable to find this disgusting, I personally think violated etc is a bit dramatic. You may feel that way of course but I do think that is overthinking it way too much. You didn't see anything, you weren't unsafe, he didn't even communicate with you. He was just rude.

I think you are BU for being "uneasy" etc. He was rude and behaved coarsely, but that's related to basic manners, not gender politics or "safe spaces", which I think get a bit mixed up sometimes in these discussions.

There is nothing unreasonable about being grossed out by somebody with zero ability to show even the most basic common courtesy to people around them.

I don’t like that either.

It reminded me of a time when I was travelling and there was one shared toilet block where we were staying. I walked in and there was a young man there with the door open - he turned round and I saw his penis as he was zipping himself up, he didn’t seem bothered and I felt uncomfortable and had a gut feeling he had done it on purpose.

A few days later, when I was alone on an very quiet part of the beach, he came and lay down beside me and started talking to me - and then pulled his shorts to the side, exposing himself and then started to masturbate while asking me if I was scared

So, that was the first thing that came to my mind when I read your post OP. Unisex toilets give men like that far too much opportunity for “accidents” than they can then explain away.

@EishetChayil

This is what we have to look forward to if self ID comes in. Now can you see what the issue is? It's men like this, who get kicks out of intimidating or just plain disrespecting women.

What a reach. You know nothing at all of this particular man's thought processes and intention. Wouldn't want you on a jury making such huge assumptions. Yes he may be rude but to say he gets kicks out of intimidating or is plain disrespecting women is a bit much. He was wrong to leave the door open etc but no evidence at all of either (and even if you just mean disrespect in the sense of leaving the door open etc, that is disrespectful to men too actually so no need to label a man you don't know as specifically disrespectful to women as a whole sex)

@WorraLiberty

We have public toilets at work (as well as private staff loos) and honest to God you should see the shit (literally) that's left down the loos and surrounding them.

The latest issue is people over stuffing the sanitary towel bins with shitty toilet paper, so it sticks out the top and looks disgusting. We've had to go from weekly collections by the sanitary company to twice weekly, as it's become such a problem.

I wish everyone would have the decency to leave toilets as they found them and yes, he should've remembered to close/lock the door.

We had this at work recently. It was absolutely gross. The sanitary bins are really close to the toilets so you were practically sitting on the stinky toilet paper that was creeping out of the bin.

Eventually I stuck a note on each bin stating that they were for sanitary products only and should not be used for toilet paper. Problem solved.

We reckon it was a new member of staff who had recently moved from her home country where it is the norm to put toilet paper in a bin rather than the toilet but obviously we were all too embarrassed to say anything directly in case it wasn't her.

OP - yes, the not flushing and not closing the door are both gross but I think feeling violated is a slightly ott reaction.