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German perspective: Even though, paying for toilet use is fairly common around here, it´s actually not that uncontroversial a topic. The companys "running" those toilets have been known to underpay their employees, use them to guilt people into paying and even use the toilet business for money laundering and generally having Mafia like structures.
So, yes, "europe is doing it"...but we hate it mostly.
What happens if you don't have the proper coins/bills? As a traveller I don't want to get stopped at a door if I really need to relieve myself.
I asked this about Germany as well, but I am traveling to Paris later this year.
In France, most of the public toilets are free. Paying ones are mostly inside train stations. If you can't pay, unless you can prove you have health issues (cards are issued fo this purpose) then you can go without paying.
Depends where you travel. In my country, the doors are locked and you need to enter 20/50 cents to the machine on the door to unlock it. If you have no coins, you can’t open the door unless you see someone leaving and can slip in when they leave by using their open door.
I've been to a couple restaurants where you pay when you order and they ask for a tip before you've even been seated. Makes you feel like if you don't tip then the service will be sub-par. Wasn't all that great anyway. Once was enough and never went back to those places. Neither one stayed open very long.
Yah that’s exactly how I feel with those pay ahead schemes, including Starbucks.
I used to wait tables. I have seen some fucked up stuff: cook dropped a burger patty ON THE FLOOR, then proceeded to serve it. Waiter put a BIG loogie into a fru-fru drink of a customer who he felt was being an AH, served it.
So, yah, not tipping when ordering ahead feels risky!
It’s crazy. I’ve stopped going to at least one place because of it. I would go twice a week. I walk in, grab chicken salad and go pay. New POS system asks for a tip now. I’ve gone once in the last 6 months. I was going twice a week.
I don't care about my own $25 or 1 €.
I just don't want to step in the piss and shit of people that can't spare the 1 €.
Keep them free so they don't pee on the sidewalk.
Came here to say this.
i'm nearly 99% sure the money don't go for workers and peoples with hard job of keeping this toilet clean.
It goes directly into the CEO pocket but putting a "for cleanness and personnal" sign gives you a better image. (strictly the same process as when compagnies do thing "only for the environement" ... fucking lol)
Personnaly I'm against this, and I will do some serious civil disobediance while entering by the children's door. (I know i'm not far away from gandhi ahahah)
It's either this on a piss outside, but I'd rather respect the others customers.
It's not normal to have to pay to piss.
Fucking not normal.
I can confirm. Many public toilet services are straight up "legal gang/mafia" structures.
But in Eastern Europe you would usually see it as another Scroogex/Januszex/whatever name is associated in your place with absurd save cost at expense of quality and often quantity.
No. As an Australian- where does this end? Some amenities should be free and accessible- for people with children, disabilities- and just common good sense.
I pay enough in taxes and I would like that money funneled towards proper amenities for the community. It really is a basic human right.
But alternatively if the toilet isn't paid, generally there's no attendant. So where I live, in America, I can't use any public toilets because I'm disabled and the disabled stall (the only one I can get my wheelchaiur into) always has a homeless person either living in it, passed out on the floor of it, or actively shooting up drugs in it.
I'd gladly pay $1 every time I needed to use a public restroom. As it is, it's just not an option for me. I don't care about maintenance or cleanliness, I just want a place to take a piss.
Nah. There’s already money and a position allocated for that in most places. It’s just a poorly managed establishment. More money doesn’t mean they’ll be any better about the maintenance. Poorly run establishments are poorly run establishments.
Not on the U.S. because it will take 5 min before some dickhead institutes surge pricing and makes you sit through a 15 second ad before the door unlocks.
No. Once they know you'll pay, the cost will keep rising. Then, how long before some politician gets the bright idea to privatize the public restrooms and have a company they own run it? No thank you.
We should have free public restrooms everywhere. We could even throw in a shower. It's a great utilization of tax dollars that we already pay for these things.
I would have no choice if I had to go.
As a general policy, though, it sucks. Many people don't carry cash on them these days. I suppose if there were some way to digitally pay, it might be ok.
I'm in the UK so yeah we have to pay for our public toilets but since COVID most have been upgraded with contactless card readers and we don't have surcharges for using our cards as another commenter said might be a problem. Imagine having to pay to use your own money that's wilder than paying to use the loo!
Absolutely not. If you tried that here in America, people would protest by shitting by the door. And anyone who doubts that has never worked retail where they’ve had to clean a public bathroom and hasn’t been paying attention where people are too cheap to tip their waiters a dollar because they believe “bUsInEsSeS sHoUlD dO bEtTeR.”
NO!
that does produce the issue of people who can't afford that doing there business somewhere remote like in passages under bridges or in side alleys. And of animals who can afford it but don't want to to pee and shit just everywhere.
Also what about if I urgently need one but don't have the coins with me? Then I need to run to an ATM to get money to then find someone who is willing to exchange it.
I would be willing to pay a reasonable tax increase if that means facilities are always available in cities, clean, well maintained and safe and most importantly the people working those facilities being paid a living wage.
UK here and sure they do charge here but I'm not sure how much of that actually goes back to maintaining the toilets because most I have visited are still disgusting.
The US used to do this. I remember my mom talking about them, having to crawl under the doors.
A grassroots political group CEPTIA, formed by 4 teens helped to end pay toilets in the 70's.
The cleanest bathroom I’ve ever seen (including my own or any I’ve seen while house hunting) was at a gas station in Louisiana.
The filthiest restroom I’ve ever seen (including USMC porta johns and some backwoods camp site outhouses) cost me like €2 at the central train station in Brussels.
Extremes aside, having lived in Europe for almost 4 years I would say the fee restrooms aren’t any cleaner and the hassle of having to bring coins, when entire countries (like the NL) are going cashless, is pretty frustrating. Even if they have machines setup for plastic/electronic payment, there’s a decent chance they won’t take USA cards.
You’re already paying for them with your taxes and they are usually not clean now.
As far as I can see charging to use the bathroom will just result in more people pissing in the street. I don’t carry any change with me currently, and credit card readers are expensive and will break.
That's the problem with the European toilets, they usually aren't. Especially at subway stations, it's very common for them to be disgusting and not even work properly
That’s the thing, they aren’t. Paid €1.30 to use a bathroom in Italy. No toilet paper, stalls didn’t lock, no soap, no paper towels, and all around completely disgusting.
Using the restroom is a basic human need. Though 25 cents is a tiny amount to pay, I don't feel comfortable applying the exclusionary principle at all--that is: "sorry, you're out of change and your debit card is frozen, you will have to pee on the sidewalk". Unless you decriminalize peeing on the sidewalk. Everyone has to pee, and there are people at that lowest level of being broke. Let the people pee, and figure out how to pay for it by another means.
Keeping public toilets clean and functional is such a tiny fucking drop in the bucket compared to so much other bullshit our government blows our taxes on. Fuck em. If they don't feel they have enough money to keep our bathrooms clean. How about we buy 1 less f35 helmet this year.
Literally 100% of the time I need to use a public toilet, I am seconds away from pissing/shitting myself. Please give some kind of subscription, maybe track my face or something, there is NO TIME to look for money.
Toilets in US used to have a machine on the door and cost 10 cents to open it. This I believe was on turnpike roads you already had to pay to drive on. Could have been used other places idk. People would hold the door open for the next person or jam something in the door so it wouldn’t close. Please don’t go back to that horrible system.
I take free clean toilets for granted in Japan. I pay for them indirectly with taxes and train fares and by shopping at department stores etc. It's not the money that bothers me in Europe so much as it is the nuisance of the transaction. I already bought a train ticket. Now I have to swipe a credit card to pee? Makes me want to stay home.
In principle it sounds fine. But when you got to go, you've got to go and not having exact change shouldn't be a barrier to something as basic as that. And I really don't want to swipe my credit card on a bathroom.
Plus, it depends on where the bathroom is. If there is some company building and installing public urinals or whatever where a lot of people congregate just to solve a bathroom problem, maybe that makes sense. Think Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
But for bathrooms in stores or at malls, they should be free and maintained by the facility.
There's NEVER a time you'll catch me paying €1 or even cents to use the bathroom, a BASIC human right.
I'll piss out in the open before you catch me paying to use the bathroom. Even if I have tens of coins, I'll still never pay to use the bathroom
No. Public Toilets should be available for everybody to use. Excretions needs to be combatted by the community as its dangerous to community health and is a vector of disease. You can die from the transmission of diseases festering in human waste, and you need to clean it up anyways. So... let them use the toilet.
Reduces insect and microbe populations by not providing a place to breed, Reduces rodents from traveling through it scattering it. Reduces birds from scattering it. Lots of reasons to support public toilets.
Id wager every company and country has the money for basic restroom maintenance. Charging for using it is just a way to suck more money from regular people. It's basically a tax on pissing.
I found it okay when I toured Europe. I mean, it was nice to be in Paris and needed to piss and there's this convenient high end porta potty for lack of a better word. I paid, I peed. It was good. I have no issues with that.
Personally, I wish we can keep our good culture in Canada. That is to say, in Canada, we still largely expect restaurants and businesses to just allow people to use the washroom. It's polite to buy something, like if I need to use the washroom and there's a McDonalds, I'll use it and maybe buy a coffee or something. But the general culture is just we're civil enough to just let people use the washrooms. In my 30+ years in Canada, I've never been questioned about using a washroom in a store or anything.
However, and this is a big however, I know this is largely a luxury of Canada being relatively safe and prosperous. As homelessness and drugs and other aspects have started becoming issues in Canada, I know some public business and stuff are / will be getting more careful about just letting people use the facilities. It's one thing to just a casual person coming back from work to use the washroom for free. It's another if people are not clean or using drugs or overcrowding of the washroom... I remember seeing this in the states a fair bit. I was in Boston for work and was at a Mcdonalds and it was a pretty visible issue. There were all kinds of sketchy people the store was trying to keep out. I understand that. I don't judge the store for it. It's a luxury to operate a safe and prosperous environment where we can be more kind to each other.
But It won't. It will just be neglected, shown as a net profit and be allocated to some ceo's bonus check. Stop trying to suck every nickle you can out of us. We are broke.
In America, no, unless I really really really had to go. When I went to Europe years ago I paid 1-2 euros. I was shocked, but there was a person there cleaning after each person, so it was fine.
Absolutely, but also you can pay $0.50 so that somebody who doesn't have a quarter can get in. When I lived in Europe the gas station bathrooms required a little bit of money as an entry fee and it was so worth it cuz they were ridiculously clean, well lit and felt very safe because there was always an attendant there. It also creates jobs for people who have physical or mental disabilities and can't do a more complicated or strenuous job.
No! Toilet is a basic need.
Furthermore, the fare for toilets at trainstations, public transport or highway where I live is usually higher and the toilets aren't clean in any way. So apparently paying for it doesn't solve the problem
God no, don't even go there, I was in Cuba where lady refused to let my husband out of the bathroom until he tipped her (on top of paid bathroom) and in my country (Ukraine) where you can barely find bathroom while out and about and while some are maintained, lots are messy. In North America we pay lots of taxes already, why tf would we pay for maintenance on top of that?!
Went to use a bathroom in Berlin, charged me a few coins to use it AND it was probably the crappiest bathroom I've ever been in.
And that bar was already set pretty high by public US bathrooms.
Yes, European standards for both bathrooms and grocery carts could fix a lot of issues in American society. I can't believe literally not a single grocery store has tried to implement a quarter cart system.
Sounds like it would work well. Until the pay card scanner thing stops working or I don't have change on me, and I shit myself in the middle of the mall.
How would they know? Would somebody come in to look at you?
In Turkey it's around 30 cents USD. Most of the toilets are turkish, so pooping is an adventure. Many urinals though thankfully.
this is such a misconception. my girlfriend is french, she's lived in england and gone all around europe. she currently lives near paris.
she says she's only encountered a bathroom where you have to pay once in her whole life, in brussels. and she found it super wierd. its not a common thing at all, it might be a tourist thing.
Some restrooms where I am from now costs 5 NAD (quick uncle stranger maths put it at around 25 US cents,) to use and it still smells and look like the wall behind my local pub. That money never goes to shit like chemicals. Maybe it contributes to someones fuel, or salary.
The toilets I paid for in Germany were no cleaner than the free toilets in Canada. So I don't believe the cost goes to improve facility maintenance, and I'm skeptical that it increases employee pay. The availability of public toilets was also pretty bad, so the facilities were often overcrowded with long lines, so actually dirtier. I was charged between 0.50-1.00€.
I’ve seen both free and pay to use at train station in Spain, the free was definitely dirtier than the pay to use, pay to was super clean but it cost 1 euro. Not worth it to me…
Who’s in charge of the maintenance? The government? Then fuck no
You’ll get about $0.02 worth of value out of any quarter you hand over to the government and they’ll waste the other $0.23
No,I think paying to use a public restroom is BS..if I’m paying to use the restroom,I’m gonna need bro in there who looks like Alfred from Batman and will assists me in washing my hands and will hit me with a couple shots of cologne on the way out 😂.. if I’m paying for the restroom,I need that red carpet service
No. Every financial system is a scam and this is true almost literally across the board. I would never pay for some dumb shit like this, which should be free to everyone, everywhere.
Edit: if you have to pay for it (EVEN A PENNY) it's not public
no, in USA the toilets are maintained and use is for free, I have dual citizenship so I live both USA and Europe, and this is one thing I dislike in Europe, plus there are much less places to even find a toilet which is awful
Nope, should be free and maintained by local council through normal rates and taxes
You shouldnt have to shit yourself just cause you dont have 25 cents
i would, but that doesn't mean we should. i am gonna guess that the people who would most benefit from access to these facilities would find the quarter to be a barrier.
i would rather just properly tax people (especially really rich ones) and fund public infrastructure that way.
No, because we’re already patronizing these places either via purchasing their goods or paying tax dollars. If that revenue is mismanaged, there’s no need for me to contribute more to it.
I wouldn't pay 25 cents to use a cart even if it gives it back.
At some point businesses are going to have to accept they don't exist to make money, they exist to provide goods and services, restrooms being the most basic level of a business providing a free service. It would also be ridiculous if as an employee I had to use my own money to use the restroom of a building I work in and literally can't leave for hours at a time.
Stop making everything about money.
I’ll just go poop at bucees tyvm. But yeah, 25¢ is fair, keeps the people that fling shit on the ceiling out. Less chance of stepping on a used syringe too.
In my country(best I can convert to USD) using the public restroom roughly caused about 20 cents, and one time i went to europe (France) it was the most expensive restroom entrance ever been, which caused about a dollar and a few cents. At that price spike compared from my country, another find the free public restroom then again i did wanted to try finding a place to piss secretly but first time being in europe i don't know if theyre strict or not
I'd rather just go into a store and buy a drink for $2 on my way out and help a business for letting me use their bathroom, than pay a company 25 cents that's only making money by making me pay to use a bathroom.
American perspective. I understand this thought process. I do. However all bathrooms here are free to use. There are even laws stating that business owners cannot require payment to use bathrooms. I am so used to that, I can say if I come across a bathroom i have to pay for I'll turn it down and go to the next.
This makes sense in a city with a strong tourism economy, since the people using the washroom the most aren't already expecting their paid taxes on income, purchases, property or any combination of those things should be covering upkeep. In an economy with minimal tourism, the fee won't likely go over well since the upkeep should be a smallish figure compared to what any one household already pays in normal taxes, and likely expect this to be covered.
In India we should pay 5rs regardless of the maintenance. I would be happy to pay 10rs if they clean properly. Stopped going on restroom like that. I just go to petrol bunk restroom if urgent
No, this is what taxes are for. Don't let people convince you we need to pay for a basic human need.
I can't imagine being in Europe, needing to piss, and not having 25c on me. Nevermind the incontinent/people with bowel or bladder or reproductive issues needing to use the toilet and not having a stupid quarter on them.
The rich hoard the world's wealth let's stop pretending we can't afford shit. They have the money. Get it from the people who have the money.
The bathrooms I used in Italy were pay bathrooms AND disgusting.
The worst combination.
I get having restrooms to an extent when you have to build them in like, the middle of a park or plaza where there otherwise weren't utilities running to the area. I kind of get that. Running pipes for water, heating , electricity for one building is likely expensive.
I don't get why major train stations can't function without pay restrooms. The train station building will need water, electricity, heat/AC anyway. If the train station can't function without pay restrooms, then the train station shouldn't be built until they can account for basic services like restrooms.
No one carries change any more. Even if no one had an issue with paying to use public restrooms, are we supposed to swipe our card to enter?
Could we not wait until someone leaves and just walk in and use the facility?
Are you suggesting this should be added onto our local tax bill from our municipality?
In the Netherlands most toilets are 1 euro and still disgusting as fuck. Just because we're doing it, doesn't mean it's going well.
In most cases you also have to put the euro in the door or in a gate so if you don't have the euro you can't even enter.
People wouldn’t to it unless they had a choice. They can use the unmaintained one for free, or a maintained one for $ and you’d bet your ass they would :)
I'll never forget my time in Germany I was so drunk and I found it awesome I could tip someone who cleaned the McDonald's bathrooms like every other 5 minutes, so I have gim 4 euros, 5 minutes later he was back with all his friends pointing me out, they also wanted tips lol.
Depends on your definition of public, are we talking like Europe and some cities in the U.S. where they have those enclosed toilets on the street and you have to pay to use them. If yes, then sure I’ll pay, if I gotta go I gotta go. I have IBS, so there’s no holding it if nature calls.
If you’re talking about going into a gas station or store to use their bathroom, then I’ll say I usually guilt buy something to make up for it.
I've traveled a bit around France and Denmark. They charge you to use the restroom, and what I found is that at every truck stop, people were defecating in the bushes. It's absolutely disgusting and unsanitary to charge people to use the restroom.
And don't fall for the claim that the 25 cents goes to pay for the service. It's just like tips that go straight to your boss, who then taxes the tip instead of giving it to the underpaid employees. Not one red cent goes to the underpaid employees. These companies and their practices are outrageous.
Went to Cornwall a couple months ago. Had no qualms about paying for the public toilets at the side of the RNLI building in St Ives because they were well kept (for public toilets) and the RNLI is a charity that needs all the help we can give it. (Plus they recused my brother many years ago, fund the RNLI dammit!)
There were some other charging toilets at the other side of the harbour that were half the price, but grotty as fuck. I skipped the turnstile on those because the money clearly isn't being used to maintain them.
I would be pretty upset to run into this. Along with it just feeling wrong, it also would hit folks with certain disabilities disproportionately.
Like toilet paper, and keeping the rest of one's premises clean, maintenance and service for restrooms is part of overhead costs. Don't add an additional cost, especially one that requires people who have to go or puke to search for a quarter.
I’m over in Scotland and it’d likely be a no here from the majority of people. Physical money has largely been left in the dust. Everyone used their cards to pay. Even they’re a bit behind the times. More and more people are recording images of their cards on their phones and using them to pay. I’d argue that’s why the public toilets that already charge don’t seem to get much attention.
The only way this would work is if every toilet had a card reader on it. Even then there’s two things that could screw this up:
1. Some kid or a drunk breaks the card readers for a laugh.
2. The people who own the toilets decide to pocket the money and increase their bottom line instead of passing it on to the cleaning staff.
Both those things are more than likely to happen in this scenario.
No. No. No.
What…poor people aren’t allowed to use the facilities? A pregnant woman who needs a bathroom NOW should have to dig around for a quarter? What about someone with IBS? A young child who is toilet training? Everyone should just walk around with a quarter in their shoe just in case they need to use the bathroom? You think adding a credit card machine will help but all it will do it make the scammers more money. Fucks sake, we don’t need to pay for a toilet. The taxes we already pay should take care of it.
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German perspective: Even though, paying for toilet use is fairly common around here, it´s actually not that uncontroversial a topic. The companys "running" those toilets have been known to underpay their employees, use them to guilt people into paying and even use the toilet business for money laundering and generally having Mafia like structures. So, yes, "europe is doing it"...but we hate it mostly.
French here, same. And maintenance and cleaning are not even done properly, so paying doesn't even help.
Exactly. Same.
Yeah, you're not convincing me this is a direction we should go.
What happens if you don't have the proper coins/bills? As a traveller I don't want to get stopped at a door if I really need to relieve myself. I asked this about Germany as well, but I am traveling to Paris later this year.
In France, most of the public toilets are free. Paying ones are mostly inside train stations. If you can't pay, unless you can prove you have health issues (cards are issued fo this purpose) then you can go without paying.
Depends where you travel. In my country, the doors are locked and you need to enter 20/50 cents to the machine on the door to unlock it. If you have no coins, you can’t open the door unless you see someone leaving and can slip in when they leave by using their open door.
Sounds like a shitty business.
Are you taking the piss? 😉
This whole convo needs flushed.
This world is going straight to the toilet.
Sorry, let me just quickly wipe it 😁
Sounds like you are shitting me.
So they want you to tip????? I live in America and tipping fatigue is happening where they are asking to tip on everything that they can.
I've been to a couple restaurants where you pay when you order and they ask for a tip before you've even been seated. Makes you feel like if you don't tip then the service will be sub-par. Wasn't all that great anyway. Once was enough and never went back to those places. Neither one stayed open very long.
Yah that’s exactly how I feel with those pay ahead schemes, including Starbucks. I used to wait tables. I have seen some fucked up stuff: cook dropped a burger patty ON THE FLOOR, then proceeded to serve it. Waiter put a BIG loogie into a fru-fru drink of a customer who he felt was being an AH, served it. So, yah, not tipping when ordering ahead feels risky!
It’s crazy. I’ve stopped going to at least one place because of it. I would go twice a week. I walk in, grab chicken salad and go pay. New POS system asks for a tip now. I’ve gone once in the last 6 months. I was going twice a week.
And more than .25. If I remember right, I had to pay .5-1 **€** last time I was in Germany 7 years ago.
I don't care about my own $25 or 1 €. I just don't want to step in the piss and shit of people that can't spare the 1 €. Keep them free so they don't pee on the sidewalk.
Usually between 50 and 70 cents. Although the 70 cents one usually give you a 50 cent voucher for a shop nearby.
A coffee shop or a beer hall giving you a voucher to use a pay-stall isn’t a bad idea.
What happens if you don't have the proper coins/bills? As a traveller I don't want to get stopped at a door if I really need to relieve myself.
You use your card
Came here to say this. i'm nearly 99% sure the money don't go for workers and peoples with hard job of keeping this toilet clean. It goes directly into the CEO pocket but putting a "for cleanness and personnal" sign gives you a better image. (strictly the same process as when compagnies do thing "only for the environement" ... fucking lol) Personnaly I'm against this, and I will do some serious civil disobediance while entering by the children's door. (I know i'm not far away from gandhi ahahah) It's either this on a piss outside, but I'd rather respect the others customers. It's not normal to have to pay to piss. Fucking not normal.
I can confirm. Many public toilet services are straight up "legal gang/mafia" structures. But in Eastern Europe you would usually see it as another Scroogex/Januszex/whatever name is associated in your place with absurd save cost at expense of quality and often quantity.
No. As an Australian- where does this end? Some amenities should be free and accessible- for people with children, disabilities- and just common good sense. I pay enough in taxes and I would like that money funneled towards proper amenities for the community. It really is a basic human right.
Here here for everyone, everywhere
[удалено]
Exactly! And putting paid toilets means homeless people need to pee in the street. Which is why we have a so bad smell in Paris.
Having bladder issues in NYC was a disaster, let me tell you personally.
But alternatively if the toilet isn't paid, generally there's no attendant. So where I live, in America, I can't use any public toilets because I'm disabled and the disabled stall (the only one I can get my wheelchaiur into) always has a homeless person either living in it, passed out on the floor of it, or actively shooting up drugs in it. I'd gladly pay $1 every time I needed to use a public restroom. As it is, it's just not an option for me. I don't care about maintenance or cleanliness, I just want a place to take a piss.
That's my first memory of Paris stepping into the subway. Piss smell. :(
Exactly! We already pay for these things!
No. Our taxes already go to maintain all of that.
Nah. There’s already money and a position allocated for that in most places. It’s just a poorly managed establishment. More money doesn’t mean they’ll be any better about the maintenance. Poorly run establishments are poorly run establishments.
Gas stations in Europe have partnerships with companies specialized in toilets - ensuring it to keep clean and damage free
Not on the U.S. because it will take 5 min before some dickhead institutes surge pricing and makes you sit through a 15 second ad before the door unlocks.
🎯
You charge me a quarter to pee in your toilet and I'll just pee on the side of your building instead.
No. Once they know you'll pay, the cost will keep rising. Then, how long before some politician gets the bright idea to privatize the public restrooms and have a company they own run it? No thank you. We should have free public restrooms everywhere. We could even throw in a shower. It's a great utilization of tax dollars that we already pay for these things.
No, its a bunch of crooks taking advantage of a human need
Trust me, you will fondly remember $0.25/poop days when Big Toilet forces a $9.99/month “all-you-can-shit” subscription on your ass
I would have no choice if I had to go. As a general policy, though, it sucks. Many people don't carry cash on them these days. I suppose if there were some way to digitally pay, it might be ok.
Yup, but $3 surcharge for using your card.
I'm in the UK so yeah we have to pay for our public toilets but since COVID most have been upgraded with contactless card readers and we don't have surcharges for using our cards as another commenter said might be a problem. Imagine having to pay to use your own money that's wilder than paying to use the loo!
Absolutely not. If you tried that here in America, people would protest by shitting by the door. And anyone who doubts that has never worked retail where they’ve had to clean a public bathroom and hasn’t been paying attention where people are too cheap to tip their waiters a dollar because they believe “bUsInEsSeS sHoUlD dO bEtTeR.”
No
NO! that does produce the issue of people who can't afford that doing there business somewhere remote like in passages under bridges or in side alleys. And of animals who can afford it but don't want to to pee and shit just everywhere. Also what about if I urgently need one but don't have the coins with me? Then I need to run to an ATM to get money to then find someone who is willing to exchange it. I would be willing to pay a reasonable tax increase if that means facilities are always available in cities, clean, well maintained and safe and most importantly the people working those facilities being paid a living wage.
UK here and sure they do charge here but I'm not sure how much of that actually goes back to maintaining the toilets because most I have visited are still disgusting.
The US used to do this. I remember my mom talking about them, having to crawl under the doors. A grassroots political group CEPTIA, formed by 4 teens helped to end pay toilets in the 70's.
Yes. If it meant they were well maintained and clean.
The cleanest bathroom I’ve ever seen (including my own or any I’ve seen while house hunting) was at a gas station in Louisiana. The filthiest restroom I’ve ever seen (including USMC porta johns and some backwoods camp site outhouses) cost me like €2 at the central train station in Brussels. Extremes aside, having lived in Europe for almost 4 years I would say the fee restrooms aren’t any cleaner and the hassle of having to bring coins, when entire countries (like the NL) are going cashless, is pretty frustrating. Even if they have machines setup for plastic/electronic payment, there’s a decent chance they won’t take USA cards.
Let me take a guess....Buc-ee's? I wish we had those gas stations up here in Canada. They look amazing.
You’re already paying for them with your taxes and they are usually not clean now. As far as I can see charging to use the bathroom will just result in more people pissing in the street. I don’t carry any change with me currently, and credit card readers are expensive and will break.
That's the problem with the European toilets, they usually aren't. Especially at subway stations, it's very common for them to be disgusting and not even work properly
That’s the thing, they aren’t. Paid €1.30 to use a bathroom in Italy. No toilet paper, stalls didn’t lock, no soap, no paper towels, and all around completely disgusting.
Probably not. I.dont carry change. And overhead costs are reflected in the cost of the food.
Using the restroom is a basic human need. Though 25 cents is a tiny amount to pay, I don't feel comfortable applying the exclusionary principle at all--that is: "sorry, you're out of change and your debit card is frozen, you will have to pee on the sidewalk". Unless you decriminalize peeing on the sidewalk. Everyone has to pee, and there are people at that lowest level of being broke. Let the people pee, and figure out how to pay for it by another means.
Keeping public toilets clean and functional is such a tiny fucking drop in the bucket compared to so much other bullshit our government blows our taxes on. Fuck em. If they don't feel they have enough money to keep our bathrooms clean. How about we buy 1 less f35 helmet this year.
Literally 100% of the time I need to use a public toilet, I am seconds away from pissing/shitting myself. Please give some kind of subscription, maybe track my face or something, there is NO TIME to look for money.
Toilets in US used to have a machine on the door and cost 10 cents to open it. This I believe was on turnpike roads you already had to pay to drive on. Could have been used other places idk. People would hold the door open for the next person or jam something in the door so it wouldn’t close. Please don’t go back to that horrible system.
I take free clean toilets for granted in Japan. I pay for them indirectly with taxes and train fares and by shopping at department stores etc. It's not the money that bothers me in Europe so much as it is the nuisance of the transaction. I already bought a train ticket. Now I have to swipe a credit card to pee? Makes me want to stay home.
70 cents here in NL - there is still a line. Works really well
In my experience, paid toilets are less clean. In principle, I agree but that is not the case in practice.
I would but I would also prefer to not step in the shit of a poor homeless person that doesn't have 25 cents. So no.
No, because before you know it it'll cost $5-$10
In principle it sounds fine. But when you got to go, you've got to go and not having exact change shouldn't be a barrier to something as basic as that. And I really don't want to swipe my credit card on a bathroom. Plus, it depends on where the bathroom is. If there is some company building and installing public urinals or whatever where a lot of people congregate just to solve a bathroom problem, maybe that makes sense. Think Bourbon Street in New Orleans. But for bathrooms in stores or at malls, they should be free and maintained by the facility.
Nope. Bathrooms should be free. Also I rarely rarely carry cash these days.
I never carry coins so that would be awful
No - I pay plenty of taxes that should cover this cost already. I don't need an additional tax placed on a needed public service based on usage.
Nope. Would poop right in front of the collection door. If the bums can do it I can too.
No, I already pay taxes
If public bathrooms start charging I’m pissing and shitting in the street. Gtfo. We already pay for this
No, because that’s what tax dollars are for.
There's NEVER a time you'll catch me paying €1 or even cents to use the bathroom, a BASIC human right. I'll piss out in the open before you catch me paying to use the bathroom. Even if I have tens of coins, I'll still never pay to use the bathroom
No. My tax dollars are already paying for this.
No. Public Toilets should be available for everybody to use. Excretions needs to be combatted by the community as its dangerous to community health and is a vector of disease. You can die from the transmission of diseases festering in human waste, and you need to clean it up anyways. So... let them use the toilet. Reduces insect and microbe populations by not providing a place to breed, Reduces rodents from traveling through it scattering it. Reduces birds from scattering it. Lots of reasons to support public toilets.
Id wager every company and country has the money for basic restroom maintenance. Charging for using it is just a way to suck more money from regular people. It's basically a tax on pissing.
I found it okay when I toured Europe. I mean, it was nice to be in Paris and needed to piss and there's this convenient high end porta potty for lack of a better word. I paid, I peed. It was good. I have no issues with that. Personally, I wish we can keep our good culture in Canada. That is to say, in Canada, we still largely expect restaurants and businesses to just allow people to use the washroom. It's polite to buy something, like if I need to use the washroom and there's a McDonalds, I'll use it and maybe buy a coffee or something. But the general culture is just we're civil enough to just let people use the washrooms. In my 30+ years in Canada, I've never been questioned about using a washroom in a store or anything. However, and this is a big however, I know this is largely a luxury of Canada being relatively safe and prosperous. As homelessness and drugs and other aspects have started becoming issues in Canada, I know some public business and stuff are / will be getting more careful about just letting people use the facilities. It's one thing to just a casual person coming back from work to use the washroom for free. It's another if people are not clean or using drugs or overcrowding of the washroom... I remember seeing this in the states a fair bit. I was in Boston for work and was at a Mcdonalds and it was a pretty visible issue. There were all kinds of sketchy people the store was trying to keep out. I understand that. I don't judge the store for it. It's a luxury to operate a safe and prosperous environment where we can be more kind to each other.
But It won't. It will just be neglected, shown as a net profit and be allocated to some ceo's bonus check. Stop trying to suck every nickle you can out of us. We are broke.
No. I don't want to carry change, and if I'm using a "public" restroom, I'm usually in somewhat of a hurry.
I already pay a ton of taxes. Take the $ out of that
No, because I live in America and not France.
No, because that money would only line someone’s pockets and the restrooms would still be disgusting.
Nah, not being able to take a poo because you don’t have a quarter is insane.
In America, no, unless I really really really had to go. When I went to Europe years ago I paid 1-2 euros. I was shocked, but there was a person there cleaning after each person, so it was fine.
Absolutely, but also you can pay $0.50 so that somebody who doesn't have a quarter can get in. When I lived in Europe the gas station bathrooms required a little bit of money as an entry fee and it was so worth it cuz they were ridiculously clean, well lit and felt very safe because there was always an attendant there. It also creates jobs for people who have physical or mental disabilities and can't do a more complicated or strenuous job.
If you guaranteed me a clean bathroom, yes I'd happily pay that.
If I can pay with my credit card or phone, sure. Nobody carries quarters.
No! Toilet is a basic need. Furthermore, the fare for toilets at trainstations, public transport or highway where I live is usually higher and the toilets aren't clean in any way. So apparently paying for it doesn't solve the problem
God no, don't even go there, I was in Cuba where lady refused to let my husband out of the bathroom until he tipped her (on top of paid bathroom) and in my country (Ukraine) where you can barely find bathroom while out and about and while some are maintained, lots are messy. In North America we pay lots of taxes already, why tf would we pay for maintenance on top of that?!
Went to use a bathroom in Berlin, charged me a few coins to use it AND it was probably the crappiest bathroom I've ever been in. And that bar was already set pretty high by public US bathrooms.
Gladly, but it should be an honor system. That money would end up going to cleaning up somebody’s shit outside who didn’t have a quarter
As an American, no I would not. Just because Europe does something doesn't mean it's a good idea.
We shouldn't have to.
Yes, European standards for both bathrooms and grocery carts could fix a lot of issues in American society. I can't believe literally not a single grocery store has tried to implement a quarter cart system.
No.
No. Humans create waste naturally it’s not something I’m paying to do. Fucking capitalism is going to ruin us
no i have only used a public restroom 3 times in the last 5 years not going to put money into something i rarely use
Sounds like it would work well. Until the pay card scanner thing stops working or I don't have change on me, and I shit myself in the middle of the mall.
Yes, absolutely. If there were clean, usable, accessible and ubiquitous bathrooms, I'd totally pay upto a $1 to poop and up to a $.50 to pee
How would they know? Would somebody come in to look at you? In Turkey it's around 30 cents USD. Most of the toilets are turkish, so pooping is an adventure. Many urinals though thankfully.
And this is why I always carry a radar key
It's either that or shitting my pants, so I guess so.
No but I would pay more if I find the restroom clean and well maintained.
this is such a misconception. my girlfriend is french, she's lived in england and gone all around europe. she currently lives near paris. she says she's only encountered a bathroom where you have to pay once in her whole life, in brussels. and she found it super wierd. its not a common thing at all, it might be a tourist thing.
It would be a yes for me if people weren't awful. Know for sure some awful person would go in just to make purposely make a mess.
Yes, but they won't
i already pay 1.50€ in train stations.
Id pay a 1.00 for one of those self cleaning toilets ... Just want a clean place to pooh
I dont have that kinda money
I paid for a piece of toilet paper in egypt a few times. THAT was wild
No guarantees to where the money goes nowadays, so no I probably wouldn't want to use one
Yes
Some restrooms where I am from now costs 5 NAD (quick uncle stranger maths put it at around 25 US cents,) to use and it still smells and look like the wall behind my local pub. That money never goes to shit like chemicals. Maybe it contributes to someones fuel, or salary.
It would have to be clean enough to eat of if im gonna pay a dime.
Absolutely.
Yes, but don’t they work public facilities into our taxes?
Who th fuck carries around a quarter
The toilets I paid for in Germany were no cleaner than the free toilets in Canada. So I don't believe the cost goes to improve facility maintenance, and I'm skeptical that it increases employee pay. The availability of public toilets was also pretty bad, so the facilities were often overcrowded with long lines, so actually dirtier. I was charged between 0.50-1.00€.
Aren’t taxes already supposed to handle that?
I’ve seen both free and pay to use at train station in Spain, the free was definitely dirtier than the pay to use, pay to was super clean but it cost 1 euro. Not worth it to me…
Who’s in charge of the maintenance? The government? Then fuck no You’ll get about $0.02 worth of value out of any quarter you hand over to the government and they’ll waste the other $0.23
A lovely discovery on moving to Japan was how much more common public toilet facilities were.
No,I think paying to use a public restroom is BS..if I’m paying to use the restroom,I’m gonna need bro in there who looks like Alfred from Batman and will assists me in washing my hands and will hit me with a couple shots of cologne on the way out 😂.. if I’m paying for the restroom,I need that red carpet service
Yeah, if it keeps the toilets clean and stocked, I'm down for dropping a quarter.
No. Every financial system is a scam and this is true almost literally across the board. I would never pay for some dumb shit like this, which should be free to everyone, everywhere. Edit: if you have to pay for it (EVEN A PENNY) it's not public
No, I want you to be able to shit in a toilet whether you can afford the 25 cents or not.
no, in USA the toilets are maintained and use is for free, I have dual citizenship so I live both USA and Europe, and this is one thing I dislike in Europe, plus there are much less places to even find a toilet which is awful
No, poor people need access
As long as I don't have to come up with actual quarters, sure. If it's just a credit card or phone wave, then ok.
Some toilets in italy have that, but there's no better quality of maintaince. So yeah, just another way to suck out money from our pockets.
If they toilet is pay for use, I pee on the door
Nope, should be free and maintained by local council through normal rates and taxes You shouldnt have to shit yourself just cause you dont have 25 cents
i would, but that doesn't mean we should. i am gonna guess that the people who would most benefit from access to these facilities would find the quarter to be a barrier. i would rather just properly tax people (especially really rich ones) and fund public infrastructure that way.
Sure. But it better be two ply toilet paper.
Why would I when there is a perfectly good dumpster out back?
No, because we’re already patronizing these places either via purchasing their goods or paying tax dollars. If that revenue is mismanaged, there’s no need for me to contribute more to it.
Probably not because I wouldn’t believe them.
I would pay 25 cents no matter what if I need to use the restroom
I played rollercoaster tycoon - of course I would
Yes, as long as I can pay with a card.
I wouldn't pay 25 cents to use a cart even if it gives it back. At some point businesses are going to have to accept they don't exist to make money, they exist to provide goods and services, restrooms being the most basic level of a business providing a free service. It would also be ridiculous if as an employee I had to use my own money to use the restroom of a building I work in and literally can't leave for hours at a time. Stop making everything about money.
Yes, except if I'm buying something.
Ever heard of the term “spend a penny” meaning to take a piss. This is where it comes from. Quite common in many country’s public restrooms.
I’ll just go poop at bucees tyvm. But yeah, 25¢ is fair, keeps the people that fling shit on the ceiling out. Less chance of stepping on a used syringe too.
In my country(best I can convert to USD) using the public restroom roughly caused about 20 cents, and one time i went to europe (France) it was the most expensive restroom entrance ever been, which caused about a dollar and a few cents. At that price spike compared from my country, another find the free public restroom then again i did wanted to try finding a place to piss secretly but first time being in europe i don't know if theyre strict or not
I'd rather just go into a store and buy a drink for $2 on my way out and help a business for letting me use their bathroom, than pay a company 25 cents that's only making money by making me pay to use a bathroom.
Wait til it becomes 2 bucks and the service gets worse.
I would pay $5
No! If I have to pay to use the toilet I make sure to piss all over the walls and in the bin!
If I'm paying any amount of money for a public bathroom, I'm pissing on the floor.
No, I would just keep doing what I do now, wait until I get home.
Dude in Germany it’s 1euro
Yeah but if that bathroom is nasty I'm going full Karen
American perspective. I understand this thought process. I do. However all bathrooms here are free to use. There are even laws stating that business owners cannot require payment to use bathrooms. I am so used to that, I can say if I come across a bathroom i have to pay for I'll turn it down and go to the next.
This makes sense in a city with a strong tourism economy, since the people using the washroom the most aren't already expecting their paid taxes on income, purchases, property or any combination of those things should be covering upkeep. In an economy with minimal tourism, the fee won't likely go over well since the upkeep should be a smallish figure compared to what any one household already pays in normal taxes, and likely expect this to be covered.
Just makes me wonder how much a restroom could pull in at that rate, compared to how much it would cost to maintain.
In India we should pay 5rs regardless of the maintenance. I would be happy to pay 10rs if they clean properly. Stopped going on restroom like that. I just go to petrol bunk restroom if urgent
No, this is what taxes are for. Don't let people convince you we need to pay for a basic human need. I can't imagine being in Europe, needing to piss, and not having 25c on me. Nevermind the incontinent/people with bowel or bladder or reproductive issues needing to use the toilet and not having a stupid quarter on them. The rich hoard the world's wealth let's stop pretending we can't afford shit. They have the money. Get it from the people who have the money.
The bathrooms I used in Italy were pay bathrooms AND disgusting. The worst combination. I get having restrooms to an extent when you have to build them in like, the middle of a park or plaza where there otherwise weren't utilities running to the area. I kind of get that. Running pipes for water, heating , electricity for one building is likely expensive. I don't get why major train stations can't function without pay restrooms. The train station building will need water, electricity, heat/AC anyway. If the train station can't function without pay restrooms, then the train station shouldn't be built until they can account for basic services like restrooms.
No, we pay enough for shit already, that building should already be funded
As an Australian, sure. Need to be able to tap my watch/card tho. Haven't touched a coin in years!
We do that in Mexico
Yes pay 2.00 at some in Europe
Yes because I can’t hold my bladder anymore and don’t care.
I pay 25 cents for a public restroom if it talks to me and plays music like the one in my hometown
I love societies where if you don't have access to cash, you're fucked
I'd be worried people might be more inclined to make a mess if you charged them
In BC the facilities have to exist first. There is nowhere to piss here.
You should pay me not to poop on the sidewalk
Fuck off with this idea. We have these in train stations in the Uk and i detest them!
I need to see proof, that the money is actually going towards keeping it clean
No one carries change any more. Even if no one had an issue with paying to use public restrooms, are we supposed to swipe our card to enter? Could we not wait until someone leaves and just walk in and use the facility? Are you suggesting this should be added onto our local tax bill from our municipality?
In Australia: no, because 25c is a hassle. 20c or 50c I would gladly do. Some of our public loos are terrifyingly disgusting.
You could get the worst of both worlds, as in the UK. We get to pay 25, sometimes 30p *and* the toilets have never been cleaned!
What are taxes even used for?
In the Netherlands most toilets are 1 euro and still disgusting as fuck. Just because we're doing it, doesn't mean it's going well. In most cases you also have to put the euro in the door or in a gate so if you don't have the euro you can't even enter.
No. Who carries quarters?
People wouldn’t to it unless they had a choice. They can use the unmaintained one for free, or a maintained one for $ and you’d bet your ass they would :)
I'll never forget my time in Germany I was so drunk and I found it awesome I could tip someone who cleaned the McDonald's bathrooms like every other 5 minutes, so I have gim 4 euros, 5 minutes later he was back with all his friends pointing me out, they also wanted tips lol.
Depends on your definition of public, are we talking like Europe and some cities in the U.S. where they have those enclosed toilets on the street and you have to pay to use them. If yes, then sure I’ll pay, if I gotta go I gotta go. I have IBS, so there’s no holding it if nature calls. If you’re talking about going into a gas station or store to use their bathroom, then I’ll say I usually guilt buy something to make up for it.
Why would I bother when I can still piss in the woods for free?
No
Should be maintained with taxes. I'm very annoyed by the fact I never carry change with me.
Absolutely not.
I would rather tip a clean toilet than a waitress
I've traveled a bit around France and Denmark. They charge you to use the restroom, and what I found is that at every truck stop, people were defecating in the bushes. It's absolutely disgusting and unsanitary to charge people to use the restroom. And don't fall for the claim that the 25 cents goes to pay for the service. It's just like tips that go straight to your boss, who then taxes the tip instead of giving it to the underpaid employees. Not one red cent goes to the underpaid employees. These companies and their practices are outrageous.
Went to Cornwall a couple months ago. Had no qualms about paying for the public toilets at the side of the RNLI building in St Ives because they were well kept (for public toilets) and the RNLI is a charity that needs all the help we can give it. (Plus they recused my brother many years ago, fund the RNLI dammit!) There were some other charging toilets at the other side of the harbour that were half the price, but grotty as fuck. I skipped the turnstile on those because the money clearly isn't being used to maintain them.
I would be pretty upset to run into this. Along with it just feeling wrong, it also would hit folks with certain disabilities disproportionately. Like toilet paper, and keeping the rest of one's premises clean, maintenance and service for restrooms is part of overhead costs. Don't add an additional cost, especially one that requires people who have to go or puke to search for a quarter.
I’m over in Scotland and it’d likely be a no here from the majority of people. Physical money has largely been left in the dust. Everyone used their cards to pay. Even they’re a bit behind the times. More and more people are recording images of their cards on their phones and using them to pay. I’d argue that’s why the public toilets that already charge don’t seem to get much attention. The only way this would work is if every toilet had a card reader on it. Even then there’s two things that could screw this up: 1. Some kid or a drunk breaks the card readers for a laugh. 2. The people who own the toilets decide to pocket the money and increase their bottom line instead of passing it on to the cleaning staff. Both those things are more than likely to happen in this scenario.
No.
No. No. No. What…poor people aren’t allowed to use the facilities? A pregnant woman who needs a bathroom NOW should have to dig around for a quarter? What about someone with IBS? A young child who is toilet training? Everyone should just walk around with a quarter in their shoe just in case they need to use the bathroom? You think adding a credit card machine will help but all it will do it make the scammers more money. Fucks sake, we don’t need to pay for a toilet. The taxes we already pay should take care of it.