Office toilet problems

[jellybeanjc]

My office is off a main corridor and through two fire doors. There is a single toilet cubicle between the two fire doors and so there is no ventilation from the room. This means that, at the best of times, it's not a very nice toilet (damp, cold...) but the nearest other is a minute or so walk away so it's well-used!

The issue is that someone (or a few people) keep doing really smelly poos in the toilet and not cleaning up after themselves. While I understand that if you've got to go, you've got to go, the smell and the mess is starting to really make me feel sick. If I could avoid this toilet, it wouldn't bother me, but I have to walk past it to get out of my office and the smell in particular hits you as soon as you open the office door. Other colleagues mention this to me every day - everyone is disgusted by the smell and the mess.

Would I be being unreasonable to try to tackle this in some way while making sure not to embarrass the people doing it? And does anyone have any idea of how to go about tackling this in a reasonable way?

YABU- stop complaining! This happens everywhere and the person is entitled to leave a mess and a smell behind!

YANBU - it's reasonable to try to do something about this as long as nobody is deliberately embarrassed in the process.

Ideas very welcome!

Of course gown adults shouldn't leave a toilet in a mess!

I'd put a sign up asking people to check the state of the loop before they leave it and buy some vipoo to put in there. Or some air freshener. Or something.

If it doesn’t have any ventilation it should probably just be taken out of service.

Does VIPoo actually work?? If it does, I'd happily buy some to take the problem away!

And perhaps a toilet brush if there isn’t one in there.

Put up a sign. Ask the employer to put In proper air fresheners/neutralisers

That's interesting- it was recently built like that! Are there any regs on this?

There is one.... but maybe a new one would encourage its use!

Do you have an office manager or similar who could send out an email regarding toilet etiquette? Could they put some air freshener in the toilet?

No we don’t... I think a sign might be a better approach than an email.

With no ventilation it’s never going to be great. Any air freshener in my experience just creates a synthetic sickly smell on top of the already gross smell.

Mess is entirely unacceptable and I can’t believe people would leave a work toilet in a state. Ok smell is harder to avoid but any visible sign of shit left behind is grim and those people probably won’t care even if you raise it.

I wouldn't take on the role as official Lavatory Lady, OP.

As staff members can't seem to control their bowels, and you can't control the staff I would dump put it in managements' lap. You could also mention it to HR as the smell is interfering with your ability to do the job.

Can you lock the door from outside? If so just lock it and no one can use it!

Smell is probably unavoidable in an unventilated loo, but there is absolutely no excuse for leaving it in a mess.

I would second the suggestion of a common courtesy email being sent to everyone.

It needs some sort of extraction fan fitting if the budget will stretch, it won't provide fresh air but it will suck out all the smelly air

As well as what’s been mentioned you can get air fresheners that give bursts of freshener when walked past. A sign “please leave toilet as you would wish to find it, please clean after use”

I’d say some cleaning stuff should be left and a loo brush but that’s probably a health and safety no. It needs ventilation.

This says “adequately ventilated and lit”

We had a similar issue and after lots of deliberation a sign was made explaining how smells from this toilet travel to nearby desks and so to use the other available ones for number 2s. It’s a wee only toilet now.

Are the doors leading off the corridor access restricted at all? After lots of issues in a similar situation we had the card access removed to everyone but those working down the corridor. Signs, emails, emails from management didn't work. Literally the only way we did anything was effectively ban people from the corridor.

The offender clearly doesn't care about embarrassing other people.
So no need to be too delicate in the public shaming

Lock the door and throw away the key.

Leave a note. I pasted up a sign after rank male colleagues kept pissing all over the toilet seat saying 'are you in a primary school? Why are you incapable of cleaning up after you piss on the toilet seat?' And it did the job.

Sometimes a bit of shame (private, as opposed to calling them out in front of people) is what is needed.

"While the law doesn't state you must install an extractor fan in your bathroom, it is illegal not to have a source of ventilation inside. This will depend on the structural make-up of your home, but if there is no openable window in place, then an extractor fan must be installed. This is described in more detail in Building Regulations Document F, which lays out the full requirements for ventilation in bathrooms."

I would imagine the same (or more severe) rules apply to offices.

Haven't used vip poo but poo pourri definitely works. We have it in all the toilets at work and even the men will come and say "it's run out can we order more"
Usually on Amazon

We have problems with the ladies loos in our office, not sure if it is just some women are filthy or men don't complain about the filth in theirs.

We have a facilities manager who doesn't hold back at raising the issue as and when needed. The loo doors are plastered with instructions. Once he even tagged it onto the end of a mandatory H&S meeting (with a presentation and pictures 🤢 ) and directions on how to use a toilet brush that was provided and if you had problems how to contact the onsite cleaner 🤦‍♀️😂

They eventually got to the point they opened all the loo windows first thing in the morning so no one lingered in there!

Still didn't help. Unless you ban unsupervised visits to the loo I am not sure what the answer is!!