Fear Of Public Restrooms

As some of you know I have a fear of public restrooms. I do my best to avoid them whenever I can. Some people think that such a fear is unfounded and that I’m just being neurotic. Now while I would certainly not debate the existence of my neurosis, I do think that my concern regarding public restrooms is definitely valid, allow me to explain.

Public restrooms are a known breeding ground for many unpleasant things like E. Coli, Hepatitis A, and other forms of bacteria that really won’t do anything for you that could remotely be considered good. From the moment you enter to the time you leave you are exposing yourself to all of these germs (they basically just float about in the air – studies show that unless toilets are flushed with the lid down, bacteria particles escape into the air and remain there for upwards of two hours). Not only that, but if you actually touch anything – which it is hard not to – then you are coming into direct contact with these germs.

I try not to think about the quality of the air, but what I cannot avoid thinking about is the touching of stuff in restrooms. This is why I usually carry portable disinfectant lotion with me wherever I go (it is in my opinion the greatest invention of the last 25 years or so – actually lately I’ve amended this claim to it being tied for the greatest invention of the last 25 years, along with the Ipod).

The touching of things is where most of my phobia problems occur. Unless a bathroom is completely 100% automated (toilets, faucets, towels/hot air, and doors) there’s no way to, without a lot of difficulty and good timing, escape the bathroom without rendering yourself susceptible to all of these germs.

Here’s how it works. Okay, first problem up is using the actual toilet. The urinals in general I just walk away from no questions asked. In the extremely rare and unfortunate circumstance that I have to use the stall my options are to either a) use my foot to flush or b) wrap my hand in toilet paper.

This brings us to the sink…where most of my issues lie. The faucets (unless fully automatic) are the second (behind doors – which I’ll get to) most useless and disease filled parts of a public restroom. After people wipe and/or flush the first thing they touch is the faucet thereby immediately transferring whatever bacteria is on their hands directly onto the surface of said faucet. They then proceed to wash their hands (presumably with soap, but often times they don’t) to rid themselves of these bacteria and other disease-causing organisms only to come full circle and put their hands back on the faucets in order to turn the water off. This basically renders all the washing previously done useless and an effort in futility as, guess what, your hands are now once again covered in bacteria and germs.

Then those germs are transferred and spread to the paper towel machine, so if by chance someone did decide to leave the water running after washing their hands (yes – I’ve done this when circumstances necessitate) they would still have no way of avoiding the germs on the paper towel holder when they went to dry their hands.

Unless both the faucets and the paper towel and/or hot air blowers were all automatic…these would be optimal conditions for a bathroom, but it still doesn’t solve the problem of the door.

Depending on what study you cite, anywhere between 20-65% of people do not wash their hands after using a public bathroom (not that I could say I really blame them – some of them probably are thinking like me). However, some of these people just don’t care, and they walk out of the bathroom without a care in the world, meanwhile as soon as they touch the door handle it becomes contaminated, loaded with all the bacteria and germs that I’m working so hard to avoid.

Now, this isn’t to say, exiting the bathroom cleanly is an impossible task, it’s just one that takes some careful planning or fortuitous timing. Basically, what it comes down to is either using the towels you used to dry your hands to also open the door before disposing of them in the garbage or even better timing your exit so that you can follow someone else out the door and therefore exit without touching the door, or worse case propping it open with your foot if need be to create the necessary space to get through.

In an ideal world there would be no doors for public restrooms, rather they would all have the walk around the corner kind of entrance that you find in airports and rest stops on the road. These are really the best public restrooms as usually they all employ the fully automated features that put me more at ease (flushing, faucets, soap dispensers, and air or towel).

But, really, this isn’t where most of the need for public restroom use occurs (usually for me it happens in bars and clubs where not only are people spreading germs but due to the level of inebriation that usually accompanies such establishments the rate in which people disregard good hygiene and proper washing habits tends to rise), and so this is why I carry the disinfectant lotion with me whenever I can. Depending on the degree of automation I will thoroughly wash and dry my hands and then leave (hopefully in one of the two aforementioned ways) and then once I get to wherever I’m headed I’ll just rub some of that disinfectant in for good measure.

Thereby rendering my hands nice and clean and bacteria free – that is of course until I go up to the bar and order a drink and have to hand the bartender some money and get change in return…as dirty as restrooms are, money is probably worse…think of how many different people handle a dollar bill and where it goes and how often it gets passed around…

But that is a topic for another day…

Have a good weekend everyone…keep it clean.