The US has some crazy toilet regulations and customs.

No lids. In many places the law requires weird U-shaped open seats. Paid toilets are verboten in most places, too. And the cubicles of public toilets typically don't got all the way to the floor nor ceiling and even have vertical slits to peek.

Apparently, the reason the doors don't go all the way to the floor is to meet stipulations in the Americans with Disabilities Act which are to allow wheelchair users to turn[1].

[1] https://travel.stackexchange.com/a/62354/19042

Yesterday I was in a Boston, MA bathroom where the stall doors were floor to ceiling. Even the wheelchair accessible stall had a floor-to-ceiling door.

I've always understood the difference to be cultural and economics driven: US stall partitions are cheaper than walls and floor-to-ceiling doors; so the (cough) pooping closets really are only in upscale bathrooms.

(BTW, in the 1990s a Boston-area radio station used to broadcast bits where they would sit in a stall and strike up a conversation with whoever sat next to them.)

Also apparently, the toe clearance (the gap) isn't a requirement if the stalls are wide enough. Maybe that's why?

> (BTW, in the 1990s a Boston-area radio station used to broadcast bits where they would sit in a stall and strike up a conversation with whoever sat next to them.)

I'm British and I think we have just found the most important, deepest cultural difference between the UK and the US there is!

As a Brit, you should tell them about your carpeted (private) bathrooms.

When I was a kid, we had a carpeted bathroom toilet area.

What lunacy. Mold grows easily (carpet was always damp in high humidity summers, due to condensation, near the toilet), and worse, one bad flush and your carpet is now literally encrusted with human shit.

How do you feel comfortable keeping it clean?!

West europe uses a separate disabled toilets, typically much larger, have plenty of places to hold and grip, larger toilet seat, a "help me" cord to pull, friendlier taps, etc.

An example: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VQ-IG8pFfcs/WQYWuWexVmI/AAAAAAAAd...

No, too much work? Instead just infringe on the privacy of everyone else.

Honestly...

I understand we all have different cultural norms, but I have never felt that my privacy was infringed on by the potential that a stranger may see my shoes while taking a crap.

But then again, I went to plenty of bars in college with trough urinals, so maybe I have a different point of comparison.

That's what's really weird in the states - there's a partition between urinals, but turn around and there's half-inch gaps between the door and rest of the cubicle!

There's not always partitions, i.e. the troughs I referenced.

The clearances around the stall doors have never occurred to me as an issue. Nobody stands outside of a stall door with their face stuck in the door crack.

That pattern preceded the ADA, as far back as I can remember. Wouldn't surprise me if this law locked it in after it became standard, though.

Probably started in saloons so that the local sheriff could walk through and check for any fugitives by looking at their cowboy boots.

Low rep poster, no citations. I'm going to call [citation needed] on that. The door is often perpendicular to the toilet so the explanation doesn't even really make sense…

I thought it was bunk as well, but there is a comment actually quoting an ADA building guide directly that confirms it:

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

"Toe clearance at the front partition is not required in a compartment greater than 62 inches (1575 mm) deep"

No, I don't, and I don't think I've suffered any negative consequences. But I've also never lived in a place that had the toilet placed in the bathroom. I guess if I were flushing the toilet next to my sink and my toothbrush, I might think differently about it.

> I've also never lived in a place that had the toilet placed in the bathroom.

Where is your toilet?

Can't speak for OP particularly, but many newer houses in the US have the toilet in its own small room separate from the rest of the bathroom where the sinks, shower, and soaker tub are.

Though in my household I can say the door to the small room rarely gets closed and I can't convince anyone else to put the damn lid down. Until slurp-slurp-slurp the dog starts drinking it, in which case there's a "stop drinking from the bowl!" followed by closing the lid. I'm not bitter. I try to choose my battles, and "turn the fan on when you poop" is a hill more worthy of dying on. Still haven't really succeeded with the kids yet.

> Can't speak for OP particularly, but many newer houses in the US have the toilet in its own small room separate from the rest of the bathroom where the sinks, shower, and soaker tub are.

I hate this type of setup, because it means I have to walk to another room before I can properly wash. Then again, I believe many people only use toilet paper in the US, so they are probably used to it..

> turn the fan on when you poop

Windows also work well.

A window might blow air out, but it also might blow air in. This would result in drawing your bathroom air deeper into the house instead of exiting it. A proper vent fan will undoubtedly move the air outside.

> A proper vent fan

I don't think I have ever, in my life, been in a bathroom with a "proper" vent fan. AFAICT by observation, regulations must require a fan that makes seems to only make "chugchugchug" noises while seemingly doing nothing to the air.

Lots of vent fans in houses tend to not actually vent anywhere, or they're covered up with insulation. I know I had to dig my vent fans out when I moved into my house. Uncovering them led them to be much quieter and actually exhaust from the bathroom.

Good bathroom ventilation is important. Controlling humidity is a big thing, but also properly ventilating things like acetone or hairspray or other things along with bad odors is important.

> Lots of vent fans in houses tend to not actually vent anywhere, or they're covered up with insulation.

I do a lot of house repairs. I don't think I've ever seen a bathroom fan that goes outside except in mobile homes. They just vent into the attic. Same with many kitchen fans. They should all go to the outside otherwise they could cause moisture issues in the future.

In the water closet, of course.

Public/industrial/commercial toilets in the US generally do not have lids, only seats.

They also seem to flush a lot more violently than residential toilets, relevant to the issue raised by TFA.

It is strange to me that there are two parallel systems. I imagine the commercial ones require less maintenance but are more expensive?

> It is strange to me that there are two parallel systems. I imagine the commercial ones require less maintenance but are more expensive?

There's a lot more laws and regulations for the 'commercial' toilets. Eg the U-shaped open seat is mandatory for public toilets in many places in the US. It's not a choice they make for commercial considerations.

Btw, 'commercial' toilet is a bit of a misnomer: it's against the law to run a toilet business in most of the US. (Specifically paid toilets are outlawed.)

It's fascinating to me how often things get codified into law or standards[1], but the reasoning behind it becomes legend.

Apparently the u-shape is intended to allow women to wipe without touching the seat, and maybe also reduce male contact with the front. But you have to take a bunch of people's word (which I suspect to be guesses) for that.

[1] and I've been on standards committees where people are trying to imagine what the previous generation were trying to say, since standards usually only tell you what, and are short on the why.

Where is the "commercial toilets must have U-shaped seats" law found?

Most "commercial toilets" are designed to be easy to clean and run off of "mains" pressure - commercial buildings have enough flow that they can flush directly without storing a buffer in a tank. And many commercial businesses have normal "home" toilets, at least around here.

A tiny bit of Googling gives https://www.rd.com/article/public-toilet-seat-u-shape/ gives:

> This is an open-front toilet seat, and thanks to the American Standard National Plumbing Code, it’s the go-to for most public restrooms. This code was created in 1955 and further cemented by the Uniform Plumbing Code in 1973 by the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO).

You can follow the links in the article I linked, or do a bit more Googling.

It's not a single uniform law, but a code that then got (and gets) adopted by lots of localities using different legal mechanisms. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Plumbing_Code

A lid is not a panacea. The force behind a toilet flush, especially a commercial one, just blows the particles out the sides under the seat and lid.

You pee on a metal sheet? Fascinating. Does nobody wear shorts in Sweden? ;-)

>You pee on a metal sheet? Fascinating. Does nobody wear shorts in Sweden? ;-)

Average bar urinal: https://www.sweppomn.se/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/14800038_...

Also yes, we do wear shorts, that's how no one sees that we've peed on our own legs :-).

Complete with art! Looks almost exactly like a bar I go to here (in Oregon), all the way down to the blue walls and graffiti. But most of our establishments have regular toilets, by far. Another local bar has a pretty spacious bathroom, the requisite graffiti and such, but a lone lidless toilet. Concrete floor and a drain, too, which is good because it seems that drunk people like to use the open toilet as a challenge, to see if they can hit it from afar. They often miss.

About your later point: Isn´t pee supposed to be a mostly sterile liquid?

Its not sterile at all. Why do you think they test it for bacterial cultures when you've got an infection?

it's not likely to be harmful but that it is sterile is a falsehood probably popularized by Fight Club

No, this belief goes way back, like pre-WW2.

My father would tell a story explaining why one foot was scarred and ticklish that involved the neighborhood kids pissing on his bleeding foot after stepping on a broken bottle while playing soccer barefoot in the plaza back home in Italy. All the kids knew to piss on the wound to sterilize it. He was born in '42.

> popularized by Fight Club

And Lawrence of Arabia in the Seven Pillars of Wisdom. In which the young men piss on wounds.

"The other wounded men were seen to at the same time. Mifleh brought up the youngest lads of the party, and had them spray the wounds with their piss, as a rude antiseptic."

Last paragraph of chapter 78: https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/seven-pillars-of-wisdom-ebo...

I hate it, but loads of people don't close the lid at all, it's just some sort of decoration to them, I don't know.

You can often tell these people without ever sharing a lavatory with them - they'll joke about the woman/women in their life training them to 'put the seat down' (or similar from the female perspective) - as if that's all there is to put down, and consequently the women using it have nothing to close.

(It sounds like a weirdly niche thing to joke about, but for some reason it seems to be popular. I suppose such people think it's very relatable, not realising how exposing or even class-determining it is.)

Ultimately the hygiene benefits of closing the lid when flushing are negligible in most situations. These studies always show evocative images of aerosol spreading from toilets when flushing, which understandably elicits a disgust response in certain individuals, but they fail to show that e.g. homes where the lid always stays up have higher rates of disease, or that the pathogen exposure from flushing has any real impact on health.

Also given that the majority of people flush without closing the lid (I suspected this but just confirmed with a quick search) it's a bit weird referring to them as "these people" whose type you can tell. I don't think this habit is constrained to those who publicly joke about it.

> Ultimately the hygiene benefits of closing the lid when flushing are negligible in most situations.

I wasn't commenting on any supposed benefits for flushing, purely aesthetics and manners.

> [studies fail to show they] have higher rates of disease, or that the pathogen exposure

Nor did I claim anything of the sort.

> it's a bit weird referring to them as "these people"

Are they not people? They are certainly not all people. What would you have me say?

> I don't think this habit is constrained to those who publicly joke about it.

Nor do I, I said you can 'often' tell. The public joking happens often (enough for it to come to mind, evidently) and you can tell that about those people. I made no claim about the others - though if they're laughing at the joke that's probably a good indicator too.

Playing devil’s advocate in this important topic… There are arguments to have the lid down or up, and I get that you find it vulgar, but exposing your class?

Yes, that goes hand in hand with finding it ill-mannered or vulgar, doesn't it? To be fair, in turn caring at all I suppose 'exposes' me as someone who shares lavatories, and without a chap to give them a once over before (and perhaps after) hand.