>It seems, Americans don't trust one another to sit alone in a toilet; I still don't know if it's for security purposes (to check if someone has a heart failure?) or puritanical reasons (make sure people aren't having sex?) but it sure feels strange, and very difficult to get used to when one comes from a different culture.

I've always thought it was far less interesting than that:

they're cheaper and faster to install. Minimal thought was probably given to the people using them.

There's regulations on minimum gap size (had a client in the industry)

https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/26620/why-do-publ...

So the clearance is needed for the footrests found on wheelchairs, and if you make the stall big enough, you don't have to provide the floor gaps. It's interesting that the ADA regulations have become an important factor in design starting in the 1990s, yet I remember that public restrooms have had those floor gaps since much earlier than that. I wonder if the logic went like this: floor gaps have existed since at least the 1960s --> people with wheelchairs found the gaps useful to maneuver in the restroom --> the ADA codified this into a regulation in the 1990s.

To save everyone from having to wade through stack exchange, here is the ultimate link[1]:

"604.8.1.4 Toe Clearance

The front partition and at least one side partition shall provide a toe clearance of 9 inches (230 mm) minimum above the finish floor and 6 inches (150 mm) deep minimum beyond the compartment-side face of the partition, exclusive of partition support members.

EXCEPTION: Toe clearance at the front partition is not required in a compartment greater than 62 inches (1575 mm) deep with a wall-hung water closet or 65 inches (1650 mm) deep with a floor-mounted water closet."

[1] https://up.codes/viewer/ada/chapter/6/plumbing-elements-and-...

The gaps underneath also make it way easier to mop the floor, and minimize corners and crevices for gunk to collect in.

Source: was a janitor for a while in my youth.

Minimum gap size for the gap at the top and bottom, right? A minimum gap size for between the different wall pieces and the door would be crazy.

Ok, so cost and cleanability might be incentive so have doors like that, but not incentives to make regulations.

Those regulations likely there for "decency and safety". E.g. to discourage people having sex, or to make it more obvious if someone passes out. That is: the regulations really are there to make reduce privacy.

There might be good arguments for reducing privacy, but that is still the proximate goal of the rules.

I think the end goal is making it harder to do heroin in a bathroom.

Haha, probably cocaine as well. Some public restrooms seem designed to minimize flat surfaces, private access to clean water, and secluded locations, while others (like in some night clubs) have randomly placed shelves with hard, easily wipeable surfaces, etc.

Not entirely random: you need a place to set your drink while using the restroom.

In a public restroom, if there's a place to set a drink, trash cups will accumulate there. Then someone will have to be paid to clean them up.

Indeed, this one of the many reasons some night clubs have bathroom attendants.

I can understand this in a public restroom, but why do the bathrooms in my 30-story office building have to be this way?

I've heard that they were more to discourage illicit drug use than "indecency".

Who in their right mind would have sex in a public restroom? That's just disgusting. I very much doubt it has anything with reducing privacy.

We learn something every day

Whether we want to or not.

It's also easier to mop the floors since you can go under the partitions.

That makes sense, but it would still be a huge improvement to eliminate gaps everywhere but the floor. The cost argument makes sense, but it doesn’t explain why it’s ubiquitous in the US but not in Europe, since the cost-saving incentive should be roughly the same in both regions.

Perhaps it started in the US because of safety or puritanism, but has now simply become a de facto standard in the US building industry. I doubt most building developers still think about safety or puritanism and specifically request this type of bathroom walls.

The gaps are an improvement. I take it you never had to piss in a trough? :P

My favorite: when the only way to tell the handwashing trough from the urinating trough is the height on the wall.

> but it would still be a huge improvement to eliminate gaps everywhere but the floor

It would, but then in larger bathrooms you'd have to be able to hang some of the weight off the ceiling, and you'd still have issues with things swinging or bending.

If you visit an upscale hotel, the "public" restrooms in the lobby typically have larger stalls with fully enclosed doors/rooms. I think you're right. It's mainly a cost cutting issue.

I always thought it was for ease of mopping?

This is the 6th post I have seen this week along the formula

(1) I am from Europe and I went to America.

(2) Americans do things in a way I find unusual and/or distressing.

(3) The cause must be a character flaw shared by all Americans (security and puritanical reasons...?).

Replace with:

(1) I am from $region_X and I went to $region_Y

(2) $region_Y'ers do things in a way I find unusual and/or distressing

(3) The cause must be a character flaw shared by all $region_Y'ers (<insert stereotypes of choice here>).

and your statement is still valid about this formula.

I think we tend to preferentially notice them when we're in one of the two regions involved, but in general the world (and so the internet) is full of this sort of semantically null comparisons about culture and stereotypes. I've started seeing these as idle chatter akin to "Hey, look at that weirdly painted bus". At most I'd respond with "oh heh cool" but I'm not going to spend any more of my energy trying to explain choices of bus colors to anyone.

PHP dev? ;)

Another stereotype? It could be Perl or Bash.

Or Ruby, or TCL...

I didn't know that there are still people out there that program in Perl or Tcl??

Booking.com is mostly Perl and doing gangbusters. Tcl is, for example, the lingua franca for F5 load balancers. I have more examples, but both are far from dead.

Tcl is a household name in the field of EDA tool scripting.

Virtually all software tools designed by Cadence, Synopsys, and Mentor include a Tcl REPL/console.

Any task performed in the GUI is actually executed in the REPL, making it easy to replicate a specific flow by just copy/pasting the commands displayed in the REPL into a Tcl script.

To load a script, you simply pass it as an argument when running the software.

There are. There's even a Perl 6 that is production ready: https://perl6.org

or PowerShell

I thought Perl was the only language that has ' as a valid character in variable names along with the $. Ada allows the quote, too.

First thing that came to my mind too! But it could also be bash...

bambax's comment is particularly silly too: "It seems, Americans don't trust one another to sit alone in a toilet". One could just as easily remark that "It seems Europeans must be so childishly shy about normal bodily functions that they must build walls from floor to ceiling in order to pretend that they don't happen". But obviously, both versions are stupid.

Both may be stupid, but perhaps also true of a large enough portion of the population as to provide the reason for those differences?

There are a million possible reasons, some cultural but very many economic or historical accident. In principle it would be possible to try and infer something about culture from this, but it's overwhelmingly obvious that this excercise is indulged in so people can gleefully confirm their existing beliefs.

Eh, when someone says "it sure feels strange, and very difficult to get used," it doesn't have to be negative. You can take it as a "character flaw" jibe, but it's really just an observation.

source: American that is still in shock by septic tank users that have to throw their feces-paper in the trashcan.

That's only if your septic tank is improperly sized or otherwise malfunctioning.

Around 20% of homes in America have their own septic tank. And essentially all of them flush their toilet paper like everyone else.

My home is on a septic tank. We flush TP. No problem so far (18 years).

I grew up near Tacoma, WA with a septic tank. Every house on the street has one. We had to have a septic truck come out and pump it every few years. Otherwise it was just like sewer.

They did put sewers in about 15 years after the houses were built, and mandated hooking into it on the next septic tank pumping. But the tanks are left underground, as removing them would leave a 20 foot hole in the backyard of each house.

In short, what's this about tossing your stool in the trash?

When I lived in a house with a septic tank, I was shocked at how much of a non-issue it was. Even with a family, the tank really didn't need to be pumped more than every 5+ years at the most, and was very inexpensive. Never backed up or had any issues.

> source: American that is still in shock by septic tank users that have to throw their feces-paper in the trashcan.

What? Where/when/why is that necessary?

Greece/present day/crap plumbing.

https://www.worldnomads.com/travel-safety/europe/greece/toil...

When you have an undersized septic tank, this can become necessary. But not necessary for most.

I lived in the Dominican Republic for a few years, and it was a little weird to me at first, but after a while you get used to putting dirty paper in the trash. I never once had to deal with a clogged toilet.

After moving back to the USA it was just as weird to put paper in the toilets (though drinking the same water you bathe in was the weirdest part).

I think people exaggerate the weirdness and difficulty of adjustment, because in both instances it took me a week at most to get used to either way.

> though drinking the same water you bathe in was the weirdest part

Surely you mean the water that enters the house via plumbing, is used for both bathing and drinking from via a faucet. As opposed to drinking bath water.

Is the weirdness of that because they don't drink tap water in the Dominican?

> Is the weirdness of that because they don't drink tap water in the Dominican?

Yes, almost nowhere in Central America would you (or locals) drink water from the tap. Things like brushing your teeth are a grey area.

Unless you are on well, you don't drink tap water in most places in the DR

The fact that the vast majority of people don't travel more than a week or two (if ever) probably contributes to the lack of perspective.

Puritanical reasons would be a character flaw, maybe, but not security. From the other comments it seems the main reason is easiness to clean.

But my point was about the fact that the author of the article was shocked that latrines in Pompei were public and shared, while in the US toilets are almost as public as in Pompei (not exactly as much, but still too much for someone from a different culture).

I'm from America, lived in Europe, and definitely prefer European toilets at the office. It's an actual room that gives you real privacy.

This notion of privacy probably results in people taking way longer to do their business. Americans don’t have time for that shit.

lol - that reminds me of the quote from the boss baby justifying wearing a diaper.

I'm interested in knowing what percentage of users are not in America. It seems that it's increasing.

We've always enjoyed here to mean America. I guess it won't be for long.

Apparently the very private Puritan outhouses were really time machines which they used to time travel to the 20th century and help pass the ADA.

>Pretty sure HN is suffering from serious forum sliding, and it's just time to move on to some other aggregator.

Has to be a better solution than this imo.

If there is, it's been a long time coming. The Eternal September started in 1993, and has been repeated across every social site or service ever created since then. The only way to avoid the flood is to leave before they arrive.

No doubt diversion of purpose clashes as well. I don’t particularly care what the owners thought HN would be or how they think it should be run. I found a better reddit (because tech and politics was already most of what I was interested in) and so I stayed here doing what I did on Reddit. The whole ‘SV startup’ thing is just an annoying undertone I have to filter out (yes I know what ycombinator does) as I navigate the site.

Thank you for your comment! It confirms so much of what I've been thinking for the past few years that someone with your stated interest in politics and disinterest in "The whole ‘SV startup’ thing" would see this site as a "better reddit".

The HN I once loved is well and truly dead. May this site serve its current demographic well.

which reddit?

Perhaps NSFW, but being frank so it's clear what I'm saying.

There's cultural differences the other direction. German toilets catch feces on what we called a "shit shelf" instead letting it fall and submerge in water. Which, of course, made for a pretty bad odor situation.

And in Turkey, the "toilet" was a hole in the ground. Even in the Hilton, it was a fancy carved marble and gold leaf "4 inch diameter hole in the floor". My quads and other muscles aren't accustomed to that, and neither was my aim :)

I just shrugged both off and figured there was some history I didn't understand.

> There's cultural differences the other direction. German toilets catch feces on what we called a "shit shelf" instead letting it fall and submerge in water. Which, of course, made for a pretty bad odor situation.

You get the odor anyway, that difference is quite negligible, but the "shit shelf" also serves a purpose: It "breaks up" the log by curling it and thus prevents clogging the toilet/the log getting stuck. Which, depending on the size and consistency of it, can happen quite often.

These toilets also ain't universal in Germany, the one in my flat sadly doesn't have a "shit shelf", which leads to the situation that I sometimes (after eating too much for a while) have to flush several times until it's gone. That's not just a waste of water, it's a rather nasty process having to go through.

Squatting toilets also ain't reserved to Turkey, many Asian countries have them. Using them depends a lot on technique, here's a rather humorous tutorial [0].

I can see the advantage of them as minimizing skin contact with the toilet's surface, which depending on the hygienic state of the toilet might be quite preferable.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCTKDn3Q8xQ

Appreciate the details, but disagree strongly with "You get the odor anyway, that difference is quite negligible".

Submerging it in water made a huge difference. Maybe some chemical engineer can confirm my layman observation.

Native German who has lived in the U.S. for many decades here. I agree with you, tyingq.

Also, when I try to squat with my feet flat on the floor as shown in that video, I invariably fall over backwards.

People who need to squat multiple times per day to poop throughout their lives have much better ankle flexibility than western office workers who spend their lives sitting on chairs, car seats, and chair-style toilets and never squat ever.

I also fall over when I try to squat flat on my heels. Friends who do yoga and friends from countries with squat toilets have no trouble with it though. All children under about 10 years old can squat just fine. Lesson: get your kids a squat toilet if you want them to have standard human levels of ankle flexibility when they grow up (also very helpful for improving jumping skill, if they plan to ever play sports). ;)

Probably more confidence from a native German confirmation than a chemical engineer :). You guys aren't much into pandering.

I'm sure submerging it in water makes some difference, but I'm not sure it's really that big of a difference. The odor is there whether submerged or not because the odor doesn't just come from the "product" itself.

Considering the kind of odor we are talking about here, I just don't think the difference is really that huge because when it stinks it stinks, and it pretty much always stinks.

Tho, how to quantify odor sounds like an interesting question.

> but I'm not sure it's really that big of a difference

Isn't filtering volatiles through water part of the logic of a water pipe/bong/hookah?

It’s mainly about cooling the smoke.

Not all diets produce such odoriferous feces. When I'm eating mostly plain raw produce like a vegetarian, a typical western flush toilet is pretty successful in minimizing poop odor. Meat in my diet makes odor suppression a whole lot more challenging.

For the last few months I've been using a urine-diverting style waterless toilet, where the solids land in a bucket with dirt. This means the solids are uncovered until completion, when more dirt gets poured over. The dietary feedback in this arrangement can be brutal, odor being a significant component until covered.

The "shit shelf" allows a large shit to adhere vertically, temporarily becoming a pillar. The shit may then tip over, with the lower part acting as a joint. If it tips forward and the shitter is male, then it smacks the scrotum.

It's a weird surprise, suddenly getting touched there when not expecting it. Then there is an additional body part that needs cleaning.

Lol. I skipped that part, fearing downvotes. That was also part of why I was mystified about these toilets.

When I was in Guangzhou squat toilets were the norm.

You also had to bring your own toilet paper too which I found out much too late in the process

0/10 Experience for sure

Been there...done that. It doesn't help that the cuisine is so delicious.

I've always found the shit shelf so bizarre, but they seem to be on their way out. On recent trips to Germany it was quite uncommon to see one-- in fact, I don't think I saw one last time at all; I think the last time I saw one was in Vienna.

Was it maybe a water conservation thing? That was always my best guess. Did seem bizarre. Happy to hear perhaps they've been phased out.

I think I remember reading somewhere that it was for self-inspection. E.g. after your paperwork you can ensure you have a healthy colon, no blood, half digested food, etc.

I read somewhere that the shelf was there so people could examine their crap for health reasons (is there blood in my stool? has the consistency changed? etc.) I have no idea if that is true, but it makes more sense that it exists to break up the poop before it's flushed.

When I lived in France in ‘98 a good 30% of the toilets were the porcelaine hole. My guess is they are less expensive and easier to clean.

That's surprising. All the times I've been to Turkey, I've only seen a couple of squat toilets. I saw far more in Japan.

Hmm. Lived in Izmir for a couple of years, and the gilded hole in the floor was specifically the (otherwise posh) Izmir Hilton and the toilet in my apartment, at Kushadasi beach, friends house's etc. It was early 90's, so maybe something changed?

I did end up buying a normal toilet and mounting it over the hole in my apartment.

Only premium toilets have this shit shelf here in Germany. The advantage is to prevent a big splash making your butt wet ;)

Perhaps, maybe you can also explain "Dusch Das, das dusch, ass...ahh" to me :)

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1481387945255625...

Ass (pronounced with a short A, rather than the long A as in english) means Ace in German. (Before 1996 it was spelled As I believe)

Dusch Das is the brand name of the shower gel, Dusch means shower, Das is one of the three articles, so by turning the words around and into a rhyme, and says: "Dusch Das, the shower ace."

Perfect. Though, for a native English speaker, this commercial (and others of the same genre) left me with hard to resolve giggles. I still remember them fondly 20 years later. Also the German TV show Tutti Frutti (https://youtu.be/RZeQ-b1z_6c)

In many public places, it's a homeless / drug deterrent. There's a perception that a private stall creates an opportunity for drug use among the indigent population. It's an interesting commentary on the "world's richest nation" when public stalls are made uncomfortable to deter homeless from having a place to defecate. By contrast, look at the number of coffee shop bathrooms (for example) that use a code system to further keep out the riff-raff, and in exchange generally offer a more private setting - maybe not European standards, but more private nonetheless.

> By contrast, look at the number of coffee shop bathrooms (for example) that use a code system to further keep out the riff-raff, and in exchange generally offer a more private setting - maybe not European standards, but more private nonetheless.

Makes sense if you’ve been responsible for a bathroom that has been defiled. I worked in a retail shop where a homeless person bathed himself from the sink and made things such a mess that the bathroom had to be closed off from both customers and employees. It was, bluntly, gross.

Being homeless should not rob people of access to basics such as a bathroom. At the same time, businesses should not have to fill in for this need. The solution, as I see it, is improving access to city resources with a budget designed to serve the homeless. I don’t know how to accomplish this; it just seems most appropriate to me given my limited knowledge.

I agree with everything you've said. My point was not to discredit those retail shops, more to add to the discussion about the oddities of our public / semi-public bathroom situation here in the US, especially as it is contrasted with the very private and clean facilities found throughout Europe.

Like so many things Americana, it's about quantity over quality. Our bathrooms aren't as well engineered as European bathrooms, but they are plentiful and spacious. It's MUCH harder to find a public bathroom in Europe, and I am sure cost is an issue.

And I actually prefer the American bathrooms. I often refer to European toilet stalls as "fart coffins" given how claustrophobic and un-ventilated they are. If you can get over the idea that other people in the bathroom are pooping (gasp!), they are perfectly fine.

Wait, we're the Puritans for not requiring a private, hermetically sealed room for doing our business?

You probably wouldn't like the cross-stall conversations that also take place.

> That's a funny thing to say for an American, because, to Europeans, American toilets are much too public: doors don't go to the floor or ceiling, and even "walls" are thin sheets of wood/plastic loosely joined together with huge spaces between them.

... or exactly as public bogs in high use areas such as motorway service stations are generally built across the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus. I've only listed some of the countries I have directly been to. Can't say I've noticed much difference in general between bogs in the US and anywhere else these days. Some do have gaps to aid cleaning and some don't.

~35 years ago I did have a bit of a shock on discovering my first "stand and deliver" style toilet in (somewhere) with a floor to ceiling pole to assist with accurate and steady arse positioning. These are rather rarer these days but still to be found.

As an American, I'm curious what the typical practice is elsewhere for determining if a stall is occupied. I know the little colored marker on the outside of the door is common, but sadly I don't imagine all of our own population being careful enough to notice it. The doors not going all the way down in the US may serve as a more visible indicator of which stalls are occupied without having to bang on the door and get the awkward "occupied!" shout. Not that it completely prevents that rudeness mind you.

In Europe we mostly rely on the indicator. If you are unsure, you just try to open the door, and you will see if it is locked or not. When it is locked, it is obviously occupied or out of order. No awkward shouting or other kinds of human interaction needed, so you can shit in peace.

One of my pet peeves is people who rattle the toilet door before checking the engaged indicator.

That's intentional. By doing so you are interrupting the occupant's peaceful moment, make him anxious, and as a result he will get out faster.

I thought it was so that the occupant had warning in case the lock wasn't properly engaged.

Or slow the person down.

Usually it's not possible to close the door flush without locking it, so an open stall will have the door ajar. People only push on the door when they are all occupied.

Well, for one thing, it's not a "stall", it's a (very small) room. With a door. You can either look at the marker, or try to open the door. If the door is locked, it won't open. That's it. No need to bang or yell?

I don't understand the tradeoff of constant decreased privacy just to avoid a few moments of "awkwardness" (if it's completely private, what's awkward? Is there a big issue with non-functioning locks?)??

As well as the “engaged” sign, toilet doors swing open when they are not latched.

I think one main reason is it facilitates cleaning--also can see if it's occupied or the latch is just stuck if you call out an get no answer.

I've seen them just turn on a pressurized hose and get all the stalls in one strafing action.

You all don't have 'trough' urinals either. The US and Australia both use them frequently in high traffic areas, but the Aussie floor-to-wall version is a lot 'easier' to use and clean.

I feel like these have gone out of style in the US and most stadium renovations are removing them.

It's been a long time since I've seen one - but they used to be everywhere! Years ago I went on a tour at the University of Nebraska and one of the "highlights" was telling us about a building with the world's longest trough urinal. Unfortunately the building was closed that day and I didn't get to see it.

Those things make me feel like an animal. Especially when the floor is a metal grate overtop of part of the trough.

I'm 'meh' about it. We're all just mammals, albeit without the good olfactory sense so many others seem to have. It's not like any of us spend a lot of time in there.

I don't exactly agree with you ( Europeans have public toilets too)

https://www.tripsavvy.com/how-to-use-toilets-in-france-15179...

And some other examples you didn't know about :) --> https://rickzullo.com/bathrooms-in-italy/

PS. The hole in the floor toilet is also in france.

> doors don't go to the floor

We had a guy try and propose this for Yankee Stadium, but it didn't take.

On the other hand, I could never get over how many German washrooms I have see that had urinals in a corner such that they couldn’t both be used comfortably. I have never seen anything like it in the states.

Far from the most extreme example:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8329oawvs9utt4n/german_urinals.jpg...

Oh god, or the having to 'tip' (pay) to use the toilet. Like, dude, I don't need you to wipe everything inbetween every use, you're holding up the line, it's cool.

Yes! Even in malls and airports (Tegel specifically). And the cleaner often seems to be spending 90% of their shift guarding the collection plate. There’s a lot of “customer use only” activity in the US, but people will make exceptions, while in Germany an exception will usually come with a $0.50 charge.

Though, there’s actually a pretty interesting history on how pay toilets were banned in the states, partly due to women’s lib.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets...

Cozy.

>or puritanical reasons (make sure people aren't having sex?)

Nope, many of our airports have stall walls that go to the floor to discourage cruising.

Americans don't like toilet stalls either, they are utilitarian.

I've heard (but not confirmed) that it is expense related. If you wholly enclose the toilet in a room, now that little room needs its own fire extinguisher nozzle (and maybe other regs?) but if it's mostly open, you only have to make the overall room safe.

Not ask European toilets are enclosed to the same degree either. Many walls don't go all the way to the ceiling for example. This should enable sharing a fire extinguisher nozzle. Almost all of them have properly closing doors though.

I seriously doubt that - sprinkler heads are under $5/each.

https://www.supplyhouse.com/Fire-Sprinkler-Heads-Hangers-100...

> doors don't go to the floor or ceiling

Bad design. With today's pervasiveness of smartphone cameras, it's difficult to not be afraid that someday, somebody will pull a prank and make a shot from above or below; and of course post it on Facebook.

> Someday

My SO is a teacher, it's been going on for a long while now.

I suppose the same could be said about the occasional "hole in the floor" I've encountered in europe, with footprints on either side so you know where to squat. WTF.

You're over-thinking the situation... it's simply cheaper. This is America we're talking about after all, if we can do it cheaper, we will.

Very interesting observation. I wonder if there is a corelation between how one feels about privacy in general and how one feels about privacy in the bathroom. If americans dont care about privacy in the bathroom, they must not care abouy privacy at all.

Interesting - you describe most of the public bogs in Britain when describing those in the US.

I guess you've never been to the US?

I'm from the UK, and OK, sometimes there is a small gap between the door and the floor and ceiling.

In the US, sometimes the stall door is literally just over waist height while sitting on the shitter curling one out... I've never come across anything remotely like that anywhere in the UK.

> puritanical reasons (make sure people aren't having sex?)

Puritanical, yes, but more likely to make sure people aren't using drugs.

Americans don't like their own public bathrooms, either.

> or puritanical reasons (make sure people aren't having sex?)

I hardly think deterring people from having sex in a public restroom (if that's even actually the case) so that everyone - young and old - can go to the bathroom without having to be privy to people screwing around, and not wanting to risk exposure to yet another bodily fluid in addition to all the others that public restrooms have way too many of, is "puritanical".

You would truly struggle in China, then.

In my high school, the stall doors were removed because kids were smoking in them.

That reminds me of an interesting tidbit from my youth. In elementary school, the stall doors were removed, I suppose for the same reason. Because of that, nobody ever used them. You just had to hold it. One day, I just had to go. One of my wonderful classmates walked in on me in there, and I was mercilessly mocked for quite a while afterwords. Good times.

The "open" design makes sense in schools in my opinion, but not really in, e.g., a professional environment.

At least in a professional environment nobody would mock you. School is already full of social awkwardness. Do we need to make that even worse to the point where you can't even go to the bathroom in piece? If a kid wants to smoke they'll find a way anyways and they won't die from it either. I find removal of bathroom doors inhumane.

The Puritans had outhouses.

> make sure people aren't having sex?

Or doing drugs.