Why are Kiwis so hard on our public toilets?
As though these conveniently located, Government funded ablution blocks have somehow wronged us, in New Zealand we seem to have a vendetta against public restrooms.
It seems no sooner than the Council has established a new block of these emergency waste stations, someone, some pathetic cretin of a human, attempts to destroy them.
Additionally, as though the act of walking into a public toilet block causes people to mysteriously lose the ability to cleanly relieve themselves, in New Zealand these public facilities are frequently left with lengths of toilet paper strewn about, or sometimes even with urine/faeces/vomit littering, the floor.
Our Government, our Councils hence us, the people, taxpayers, the intended recipients of the benefits of public toilets, employ further people – marvellous people – to maintain and to clean these stations, and oh my, maintain and clean them we, the payers of the tax, the wreckers of the Godsent, ensure they must.
After the aforementioned caretakers/childminders have done their bit though, even they cannot rectify some of the damage inflicted upon New Zealand’s public toilets by the people; as a long-haul cyclist who often relies upon the operation of rural restrooms to make it around my circuit with dignity intact (alas, gorse hedges and verdant countryside foliage notwithstanding, public urination is a decidedly frowned-upon practice), I have seen cubicle doors torn off hinges, I have seen holes kicked, seen urinals ripped off walls, I have seen plumbing beneath sinks mutilated to the point of fracture…
Granted, that’s mindless vandalism and we all know the brainless dick-wads who partake in that kind of desecration yet, funnily enough, it’s not even so much this variety of misconduct that gets me; it’s the fact that when someone crosses that threshold into a public toilet block, generally (I can only speak for what I’ve seen) I am referring to male users, as mentioned above, upon entering a public restroom, it’s as though we forget how to go potty.
…Continuing, in the course of my cross-countryside excursions, I often encounter public toilets unflushed but with a good amount of waste in the bowl; honestly, would someone do that in their home? Or through improper butt placement excrement smudges are left on the upper ridge at the back of the bowl; again, who would do this at home, and if someone would, who would just walk away, I mean without cleaning it? (It is your poop, after all; it’s not someone else’s, meaning that it only really becomes disgusting once you’ve left it there for somebody else to find.) Finally, toilet paper, used or unused, I don’t suppose it really makes a difference, seriously, if at home, is there anyone who would just drop it on the floor?
Therefore why, when using a Government funded, public facility (for which, of course, we the people are funding), do so many of us insist on relinquishing a lifetime’s worth of domestication and ultimately, become cave-dwelling dung-smearing faeces-throwing oafish imbeciles?
Honestly, how do we let ourselves get away with that kind of shit?
Article by Tim Walker
Edited by Missy Pauper
Photography by Van Dell Lost