AIBU to feel uncomfortable with a male cleaner in women’s toilets while they are operational?

[Brood]

There’s a restaurant slash service station that I regularly stop at on the way home from work. For the last several months, there has been a male cleaner servicing the women’s bathroom. I raised it with management that during late hours women are often alone in the bathroom with this man who has likely not been police cleared and has access to women only spaces. They then put a sign up to say that the bathroom is serviced by male and female cleaners.

The other day I was in there when the bathroom was very busy. This male “cleaner” was marching in and out of the bathroom entering cubicles opening toilet roll holders that were half full. I waited for as long as possible for him to be finished but after 40 minutes he was still walking in and out. I went into the cubicle as far away as possible from the cubicles he was servicing. Within seconds, he started to stick the sweeping brush under the door and into my cubicle. This was terrifying.

When I came out there was a queue to use the sink and he was standing watching women wash their hand, then he started approaching women and showing them how to use the tap. I gave him daggers to in the mirror and he met my eyes and watched me the whole time. He did not appear to need to be there and instead seemed to be lingering

Am I being unreasonable for feeling uncomfortable in this situation? Usually when bathrooms are being serviced, they are closed to the public for a short time. This is the third time I have gone in there and found a male cleaner in the bathroom constantly.

There doesn’t appear to be a need for him to be there so excessively as I checked the cubicles and every toilet roll holder had at least one full roll and I’m not sure women need his help to use the sink or that the floor needs to be swept so much, especially when someone is in the cubicle

I left a bad review for the business but I feel like my complaints are falling on deaf ears. This is the only place en route home for miles but I’m more annoyed that women should have to put up with this in the first place and have no peace and are being stared at and intimidated by a man even while using the women’s bathroom - which I feel should be a women only space

What would you do?

That was one of my thoughts 😀 may have just saved money and not put taps in there at all

It’s surprising how quickly the rolls can run out, especially when some women cover the seat with paper. I’d rather overzealous checking of the toilet roll holders than not enough.

No, I’m talking about different times. I was using the facilities in there late at night alone one night. I heard someone kind of trashing around the bathroom and when I came out of the cubicle, this man was in the bathroom with me alone. The place was deserted at this time and there was no sign up to say a man was going to be entering. I thought maybe the toilets are cleaned early in the morning and late at night.

A different day, in the evening, I went in to get petrol, do shopping, get a coffee and food (there’s a restaurant and shop three - people stay there for hours, truckers stop off there and could stay for hours, commuters travelling on long journeys. It’s on the motorway,) I went in to use the bathroom while waiting for my food order. I seen the man there. There was a sign up this time to say male and female attendants could be servicing the toilets. That’s when all this played out. It’s not unusual for people to be in this establishment for hours. It’s the only service station for miles and people often use the bathroom when they arrive in and before they leave. It was busy in the evening. The time he came in when I was alone was late at night and the place was dead.

Personally, I just wanted him to get out and stop making a nuisance of himself. I have rarely seen men servicing a woman’s bathroom while it’s in use, never mind hanging around like that - he was standing with the brush facing the mirror and taps. He was clearly staring and then started showing women how to use the taps and invading personal space. He was already doing what felt uncomfortable

Those taps that are a tap, soap dispenser and dryer all in one can be confusing.

Pushing brushes beneath cubicle doors and actually touching women's arms while mansplaining how taps work does sound like extremely odd/ creepy behaviour on his part.
I don't understand why most people's replies have been quite so hostile towards the OP.

Who is responsible for hiring the cleaners at this service station/ restaurant place? Is it a company contracted by the service station? or by the (chain?) restaurant? Are there other cleaners from the same company there, or is he now the only one?

OP: Why not tell us all where this place is - it's hardly going to 'out' you, especially if you've stopped going there yourself - so other MNers can go and check out this guy's behaviour for themselves?
That might give you a better idea - if they have the same gut feeling as you then it indicates that your intuition is probably spot-on.

Having recently found out more about how many men are hiding cameras in public toilets and changing rooms, and posting the resulting footage online, or just live-streaming it, I would be utterly unsurprised to learn that some of these men are now deliberately taking jobs that make it easier to set up such covert cameras.

Service station bathrooms are usually checked hourly, this is both to ensure cleanliness (you've said yourself it's busy) and safety (no one has collapsed or taken ill)

How long is your journey home that you need to use a public bathroom on the way? I avoid service station toilets at all costs.

If the toilets are as busy as you suggest then I would be thinking thank goodness they employ a cleaner who takes the job seriously and does it properly.

How weird must you have looked pushing open cubicle doors to check for toilet paper!

I) Assuming all women share your POV is weird.

2. If you'd posted on the feminism, sex and gender board, you'd have got the response you were looking for. In real life, most women aren't hysterical about the presence of men or about toilet policing (and I say this as a rape survivor).

3. I'm a woman (vagina and womb at birth). I would have just ignored him.

4. The position of toilet cleaner in a motorway services is not exactly aspirational. I imagine the company has to take whoever they can get, male or female.

All sounds very odd to me. If you were lurking for 49 mins why do you think he was staring at you esp if you were staring at him. That’s more strange than his behaviour.
I’d go in, have my wee, quickly wash hands and out again without even registering a cleaner. If you were that bothered about a male cleaner in there just hold in til you get home.

There were a few reviews left on their business page to complain about a female cleaner in the male toilets while they were operational. There is also a complaint about a male cleaner wiping down the urinal next to one a man was using while “mid stream”. In the same complaint the cleaner reportedly used the same cloth used to wipe the urinal to wipe down the sink. Someone from management replied to say this was not their usual practice. So I guess I’m not the only one who feels uncomfortable with this set up.

I don’t see why they can’t close the bathrooms for cleaning for 10 minutes like they do in most places or have male cleaners cleaning the male bathrooms and female cleaners cleaning the women’s.

People supporting this OP need to read the entire thread and all of their comments/updates. She is unreliable and irrational to the point where I will no longer bother to answer her directly on this thread.

Yes, it is perfectly reasonable to be uncomfortable with a man in the women's bathroom. You can ask them to step out while you use the bathroom. My mum does it all the time. It's fine. They don't care. They just leave and come back after.

The OP has changed their story several times throughout the thread adding additional elements each time when not receiving the response expected, been confrontational and argumentative with any commentors questioning/criticising her multiple different stories and additions. If we are to believe her full story, she is the obsessive person behaving in a creepy manner not him.

Now in her latest update, we have a public bathroom in a random service station that has 25-30 bathroom stalls. Come on. Last week I went to Leeds for work and went through London Kings Cross station, have also recently visited Birmingham and Manchester city centre stations for the same reason. None of these places had even 20 stalls in a single bathroom.

We need to stop villanising all men for existing in our presence or all of our dads, brothers, sons and husbands will need to be accompanied everywhere in case they look sideways at a woman.

You're getting a lot of stick here but I would say trust your intuition here, particularly in a women's bathroom which as you say can make you quite vulnerable late at night.

Not sure what your options are - there are things that you can use to have a wild wee standing up or camping type things but honestly you'd probably be quite vulnerable faffing about with that late at night. If you're worried, I'd wait for another woman to go in and dash in and out whilst the other woman is around.

Many busy places have cleaners of both sexes cleaning the toilets, and they obviously do so during operational hours to keepmthem.clean and stocked essentials like toilet paper and hand soap.

A lot of places will put a notice on the door saying that staff of both sexes clean these toilets, presumably to prevent people like you from over reacting and complaining.

Agree with all this! It’s well known that men have been known to slide / covertly place mobiles to film women unaware in toilets and changing rooms.

I doubt it. People push open toilet cubicles all the time if they encounter one that’s not ready for use. I wasn’t going to use the ones where he had opened out the locked toilet roll as it looked like he was planning on coming back to them. had opened about ten of them and left them open. All of them had at least one full toilet roll in them - the industrial sized ones.

Would you care to clarify?

This same person keeps commenting yet says they’re done with the thread. Apparently adding to the story after being asking for further information is “changing the story”. I’m happy enough with this person not addressing me now or ever. It’s extremely patronising to tell someone that they know more about an experience than the person who experienced it

That's always the way on here, you're automatically a man if you disagree, didn't you know?! 😁
If it's real, the OP is entitled to her feelings, but I'm of the opinion he's just doing his job.
I also don't get why the OP is hanging around for 40 minutes to go to the toilet after work at a service station?! That's a long time for the OP to be hanging around, and a cleaner too - I've never known one to be in that long, and to be sticking a brush under the door of an occupied cubicle!

I only stop at service stations because I absolutely have to pee. If I went in and it said 'closed for 10 minutes for cleaning' I'd wet myself.

Do you want dirty toilets? He's working there

It is OBVIOUS why not a man for the male and a woman for the female.

Horrible minimum wage job. They will be desperate for staff.

Yabu, he’s a cleaner. All public toilets have warning signs that opposite sex cleaners may be working there.

OP posts on a free and open website. And then wants to police who can reply.

I sense a bit of a common theme here. And not just in relation to men.

On the 25-30 cubicles you are wrong. There are many service stations and large venues with a similar number.

It's normal these days (unfortunately) for toilets to be cleaned by a person of the opposite sex. A decent business has a sign up to warn of this. Usually such cleaners keep a low profile and keep out of the way of the women using the facilities. Even so, I do find it a bjt uncomfortable and would certainly be apprehensive if I was the only woman using the bathroom at the time.

In OP's scenario, yes he does sound a bit odd. There is absolutely no way his broom should have been anywhere near her cubicle while she was in there.