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Where did all the public bathrooms go?

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Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#391

Post by Frieren »

nradov wrote: post #270
LoganDark wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antisocial people who destroy the public facility don't just come out of nowhere. People get driven to this. Not to say that you can simply ignore them when they're already everywhere, though.

People aren't driven to this, they escalate to this when there are no consequences attached to lesser antisocial behavior.

> no consequences

Usually if you are extremely poor or extremely rich there are no consequences for you. The extremely poor are desperate and have nothing to lose, society already took everything from them. The extremely rich are above the law. As inequality increases crime increases with it, from vandalism to financial crimes.

This is why equality is so important. When the average Joe has a good job, good salary, and a home then can lose things that society has helped him to get and can take away.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#392

Post by lotsofpulp »

lovich wrote: post #208
lotsofpulp wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try hiring someone for a job where the job could sometimes be cleaning up bodily fluids and odors in a bathroom. Even the government deems it infeasible. Or, think about how much someone would have to pay you to do that job.

Was a cart pusher at target and was frequently shanghaid into cleaning toilets. I think you might be giving away the class you were raised in if you think it’s infeasible to pay people to clean toilets.

I think it is infeasible because I saw restrooms become less numerous and more restricted over the past 4 decades. If it was feasible, the OP’s article wouldn’t be describing a real phenomenon.

As for the class I was raised in, my parents worked 24/7, my mom cleaned 20+ bathrooms every day, and my parents, myself and my sister slept in one room until I was 16 years old. I have also worked at places where public restrooms were obliterated, and caused quite a bit of rancor among the staff, resulting in restrictions on who could use them.

But that is neither here nor there on the current supply and demand of people willing to do that job.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#393

Post by handle584 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #156
pyreko wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China > toilets are... clean Okay I'm going to have to say that this _really_ depends on where you are. Sometimes, yes, especially newer buildings, but man I have seen some horrors there in the past few years when it comes to bathrooms in terms of cleanliness and smell (the frequent smoking in a lot of bathrooms doesn't help). This is coming from someone primarily experiencing Canadian and American bathrooms, for r…

The worst toilet I ever saw was in China, but at 5000 meters in Sichuan, it was two slippery two by fours that you had to straddle on over a big open pit (don't slip or lose balance!). That was such an awesome trip circa 2005.

> 5000 meters in Sichuan

Pretty sure you were in Tibetan areas at those altitudes, a large part of Sichuan is actually Tibetan.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#394

Post by vkou »

socalgal2 wrote: post #348
justin66 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess if you don’t have a massive population of antisocial people who destroy the public facility, you can provide them. It’s a shame we in the west surrendered that. What a weird way of stating the problem. There is too large a population of homeless, mentally ill, and drug addicts wandering the streets. We didn't surrender anything, at least not during the last half century in the United States. We did as littl…

> We did as little as possible to deal with homelessness and mental illness SF would beg to differ. They have a budget of $100k per homeless person. They can't solve the problem because the problem is not money

I assure you, if they stopped spending that money tomorrow, things would get dramatically worse, as all the people that money keeps off the streets would be on them.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#395

Post by bschwindHN »

ghaff wrote: post #281
bschwindHN wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where? 11 years living in Japan and I've never seen this once, and never heard it from friends or family.

It was in Tokyo. Couldn't tell you the specific hotel. But it had our event coordinator livid and she simply ignored them.

Not that I don't believe you, but don't take that to be a common occurrence in Japan at all. By and large, Japan is a safe haven of clean and comfortable public restrooms. There are always exceptions, of course.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#396

Post by ang_cire »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #151
mym1990 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is maintaining public restrooms a "massive liability"? Surely its an inconvenience but massive liability seems a bit of a hyperbole.

Try hiring someone for a job where the job could sometimes be cleaning up bodily fluids and odors in a bathroom. Even the government deems it infeasible. Or, think about how much someone would have to pay you to do that job.

What are you taking about? Literally every restaurant and retail worker has had to do this. I was cleaning toilets in high school. You think restaurant restrooms are clean before the workers go in to clean them? You think people aren't shitting in urinals in Best Buy?

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#397

Post by nrr »

dripdry45 wrote: post #366
ipaddr wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America has a low social cohension because of global immigration instead of targeted immigration compare to China. America use to share a culture because people came from the same places and shared the same religion and had a common history going back to the Romans.

....sadly more true than anyone here would probably like to admit. I love having Indian coworkers and there’s a large Indian population where I am at, but they are just completely separated in every single way from everyone else. and they keep it that way. my Pakistani coworkers are absolutely wonderful. Sweet, hard-working, very enjoyable to talk to, but their families and lives are just a totally different universe…

> The honestly very poor black community around the area? they fucking hate us white people. like actively, all the time, no what no matter what you have or haven’t done they don’t like your ass one bit.

Did you replace folks' smoke detector batteries for them?

The way I found to get around this prejudice was to go to church most Sundays and walk around with a sling bag full of 9V batteries and knock on doors to offer to maintain smoke detectors. (It probably didn't hurt that I was also good for bumming cigarettes off of and slowing down to have a chat.)

YMMV, but showing up and doing work was apparently what my neighbors in East St. Louis and Atlanta wanted.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#398

Post by vkou »

nradov wrote: post #319
fzeroracer wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Seattle, people focus a lot on the homeless because it's an obvious problem. The guy screaming at the corner, or the people sleeping on the sidewalk. But I personally think people miss that its a symptom of greater social rot. I've had more issues with antisocial car drivers than any homeless individual. People screaming profanities because I'm crossing the street with the walk signal active, people narrowl…

In a lot of large cities, local governments reacted to the 2020-2023 protests against police brutality by drastically reducing traffic enforcement. Aggressive drivers can get away with a lot more bad behavior now and have little fear of consequences. When voters elect leaders like Katie Wilson this is one of the inevitable consequences.

1. The cities didn't 'react' to those protests by reducing enforcement, cops started quiet-quitting.[1]

2. Katie Wilson was elected last fucking year, replacing a pro-cop, pro-establishment incumbent, whereas the usual suspects have been bitching about Seattle for decades. Par for the course, of course, the usual newspapers were running hit pieces about how her failed policies have ruined the city a day after she took office, without a shred of self-reflection.

[1] Wasn't so long ago that Seattle's top-paid cop ($390,000/year!) was caught collecting overtime by napping in her car... Illegally parked in the middle of a bus-only lane. (I guess that's also Katie's fault, despite it being a year prior to her election.)

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#399

Post by lotsofpulp »

ang_cire wrote: post #396
lotsofpulp wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try hiring someone for a job where the job could sometimes be cleaning up bodily fluids and odors in a bathroom. Even the government deems it infeasible. Or, think about how much someone would have to pay you to do that job.

What are you taking about? Literally every restaurant and retail worker has had to do this. I was cleaning toilets in high school. You think restaurant restrooms are clean before the workers go in to clean them? You think people aren't shitting in urinals in Best Buy?

Obviously, it is priced into operating a restaurant, where there have to be restrooms. In the context of the comment I replied to:

>How is maintaining public restrooms a "massive liability"? Surely its an inconvenience but massive liability seems a bit of a hyperbole.

The labor costs of having a bathroom be cleaned (in certain regions) might very well be cost prohibitive, hence the OP’s linked article. For example, Best Buy has to spend money to keep bathrooms clean, whereas online only vendors don’t. Maybe it can make sense for Best Buy (or smaller operations like coffee shops) to not have a restroom.

Re: Where did all the public bathrooms go?

#400

Post by Brian_K_White »

annzabelle wrote: post #388
b0rtb0rt wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in japan the homeless people clean up after themselves and don’t destroy everything what’s the difference here?

Japan will lock people up for a long period of time if they show the sort of anti-social behavior that the most visible homeless people in North America are famous for.

The trains run on time sure enough.
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