When I had a restaurant, I gave the same careful attention to cleaning the loos as I did to cleaning and scrubbing the kitchen. I always felt there should be no difference in the standard of cleanliness.
Each deserves attention and, with toilets, it's not a matter of out of
sight, out of mind. If the cleanliness of toilets was a condition for the granting of a health certificate from the local council, I believe some bars, cafes and restaurants would be shut down. We are grateful to business owners who provide their customers with restroom facilities. And these don't have to be flash. Old, and tired looking is okay. But dirty smelly toilets are not. And I think it is men who are being short changed.
Theo was in a wheelchair for two years and, during that period, I got to see the inside of many crappy toilets men put up with. This wasn't the case for all bars, cafes and restaurants, of course, but it was more than just a few. Enough to suggest to me that men should be making waves. I can't believe they don't particularly care about the state of the toilets they use when out and about in town.
With Theo, I would often have to assist him to manoeuvre his wheelchair into the disability toilet. That's if we could get into it. Many were locked and it appears used for storage. There were chairs, crates, gas bottles, and one restaurant even had boxes of vegetables piled up in the toilet. These disability toilets looked as if they hadn't seen the cleaner for the past 12 months.
And large hotels should know better too. Recently, at a function out of town, I walked past the men's toilet as I was heading to the ladies' restroom. The smell of urine emanating from the toilet was very noticeable. I couldn't see how any man could comfortably use the toilet. It must have been overpowering in the cubicle. The ladies' restroom, on the other hand, was bright and very clean.
