Mystery at work

[Yorkshirelass09]

This is my first post - please be gentle! In my office we have one large bathroom, which is shared by about 15 people. It’s a large room for a bathroom, and in it there is a toilet, sink, hand dryer and lots of empty space. 2-3 times a week for the last six months (!) I have found an entire toilet roll, on the floor, soaking wet having been pushed up to the wall (complete with footprint of the person who put it there). The sink is too small for a full toilet roll to be submerged, and it can’t have fallen down the toilet because the roll is too wide to actually reach the water. There are only a couple of spare toilet rolls on a stand in the corner - they cannot just ‘fall off’. I am totally and completely baffled as to why and how this happens so regularly. I’ve asked a few non-work friends who are just as confused as me 😂 and the person who I suspect does this is too shy for me to ask - I don’t want to make her feel awkward. Has anyone got any idea of what on earth is going on here?! It’s taking up far too much of my brain power!

😂 have loved reading some of these replies - thank you all for helping me! To answer some of your additional questions.. Because it happens so frequently and has gone on for so long, by process of elimination I’ve worked out who it is (from when other people are on leave / wfh). The bathroom is always very clean, and is shared by both men and women. The toilet roll is always left in the same place, against the same wall. It’s wet, but still soft - not totally sodden and mushy. The shoe print matches the suspect’s shoes as well (casual trainer type shoes). I’m sure an email around the office would put a stop to it but I’m not hugely bothered by it, more just completely bewildered!

Maybe she is being passive-aggressive. Not happy at work but not being able to express it to anyone there, so wrecks the loo roll all the time. Maybe stamps on it rather than just standing on it.

Where I work, the whole place would be speculating about who was doing it. Has nobody else commented?

This is a possibility. I worked somewhere where a staff member would smear faeces over the cubicle walls and the managers had to install blue lights due to evidence of staff's intravenous drug use. These were staff only toilets with no public access.

Hi OP,

I work in HR and you wouldn't believe the number of people who do bizarre, unpleasant or antisocial things in loos.

Occasionally it's someone who doesn't think, or understand how to behave in a shared bathroom. Eg the man who'd shave in there and not clean the hair off the basin.

Mostly it's a deliberate passive-aggressive act by a disgruntled employee. This seems likely here. Deliberate waste of paper and making a mess for someone else to clean up. At least it's just paper and hopefully water.

Stern notice in the loos and email all round, stating you believe you have identified the culprit but will take no further action if it stops immediately.

Could they be trying to clean the soles of their shoes ?!?

A couple of out-there theories...could it be possible that it's related to OCD, e.g. a ritualistic thing the person feels they need to do 'otherwise x bad luck thing might happen'...alternatively a marker as a means of knowing when the toilets have been cleaned when it has been removed, a sense of safety again relating to OCD.