Lon

Just got back from ten days in Italy. I was very surprised to find that all
the public toilets in Rome and Naples had no seats. You would think that if
they charged 50 cents to use it, they could at least put seats on them. Our
hotel rooms had seats, thank goodness. Up north in Pisa and Venice they
were more civilized and had seats. Do people really not have seats on the
toilets in their homes?
Lon

Harvey V

On Sat, 05 Oct 2002 17:25:59 GMT, Lon wrote

    > Just got back from ten days in Italy. I was very surprised to find
    > that all the public toilets in Rome and Naples had no seats. You
    > would think that if they charged 50 cents to use it, they could at
    > least put seats on them. Our hotel rooms had seats, thank
    > goodness. Up north in Pisa and Venice they were more civilized
    > and had seats. Do people really not have seats on the toilets in
    > their homes?

A bit of an odd question: there's very little in common between the
fitting-out of public toilets and the fitting-out of a home toilet or
hotel toilet -- I'm surprised you expected public toilets to be as
comfy as a private one.

Although most public toilets here in the UK have seats, it's not
unusual -- as anti-vandalism and cleanliness measures -- for them to be
just stainless steel bowls with no seat, or ceramic bowls with curved
pieces of wood bolted to the rim (so that your butt doesn't freeze).

Why would someone fit out their home (or hotel) like a public toilet?

--
Cheers,
Harvey

Dan McLean

In many parts of France until fairly recently, the public toilets did not
even have seats but were basically two raised footprints with a hole in the
centre and in the summer smelled to high heaven. Trying to balance was
something else... The ultimate public toilets I have seen were in Chicago
where the seat was enclosed with a plastic sheet and the action of flushing
the toilet moved this disposable plastic sheet around about 300 degrees.
Where public toilets get a lot of use the first thing to suffer is the
seats, first they crack and then they fall off...

Ryan B

"Harvey V" wrote in message
news:[email protected]
8.4.92...
    > On Sat, 05 Oct 2002 17:25:59 GMT, Lon wrote
    > > Just got back from ten days in Italy. I was very surprised to find
    > > that all the public toilets in Rome and Naples had no seats. You
    > > would think that if they charged 50 cents to use it, they could at
    > > least put seats on them. Our hotel rooms had seats, thank
    > > goodness. Up north in Pisa and Venice they were more civilized
    > > and had seats. Do people really not have seats on the toilets in
    > > their homes?
    > A bit of an odd question: there's very little in common between the
    > fitting-out of public toilets and the fitting-out of a home toilet or
    > hotel toilet -- I'm surprised you expected public toilets to be as
    > comfy as a private one.
    > Although most public toilets here in the UK have seats, it's not
    > unusual -- as anti-vandalism and cleanliness measures -- for them to be
    > just stainless steel bowls with no seat, or ceramic bowls with curved
    > pieces of wood bolted to the rim (so that your butt doesn't freeze).
    > Why would someone fit out their home (or hotel) like a public toilet?
    > --
    > Cheers,
    > Harvey

Hey, inquiring minds want to know these things. These are issues with which
we must be concerned. This newsgroup performs a vital public service by
dealing with such a wide range of diverse issues. Last week we dealt with
nuclear fission and how to make a nuclear bomb and now we must deal with the
issue of toilet seat design; surely an issue of equal concern to us all. But
fear not for we shall put our very best posters on this issue and resolve it
in due course.

Ryan

Austin500

"Lon" wrote in message
newspOcnez6SYkXsz2gXTWcqQ@New-
s.GigaNews.Com...
    > Just got back from ten days in Italy. I was very surprised to find that
all
    > the public toilets in Rome and Naples had no seats. You would think that
if
    > they charged 50 cents to use it, they could at least put seats on them.
Our
    > hotel rooms had seats, thank goodness. Up north in Pisa and Venice they
    > were more civilized and had seats. Do people really not have seats on the
    > toilets in their homes?
    > Lon

"A bit of an odd question: there's very little in common between the
fitting-out of public toilets and the fitting-out of a home toilet or
hotel toilet -- I'm surprised you expected public toilets to be as
comfy as a private one".




A very sensible question.I would expect toilet seats in a public toilet and
if there weren't any I would wonder if this was customary all over the
country in public and private places.

Willgee

    > > Just got back from ten days in Italy. I was very surprised to find
    > > that all the public toilets in Rome and Naples had no seats. You
    > > would think that if they charged 50 cents to use it, they could at
    > > least put seats on them. Our hotel rooms had seats, thank
    > > goodness. Up north in Pisa and Venice they were more civilized
    > > and had seats. Do people really not have seats on the toilets in
    > > their homes?
    > Well, count your blessings, at least they weren't the squat over
the porcelain pan in the floor and hope for the best type that
prevailed when I first travelled in the 70s.

Toilets in the better class of caffes are much more like home, seats,
cleanliness, t paper and all.. worth paying the cost of an espresso, I
feel.

All my friends in Italy have bathrooms in their homes that make mine
here in San Francisco look poor and tacky....will g.

Harvey V

On Sat, 05 Oct 2002 18:49:01 GMT, willgee wrote

    >>> Just got back from ten days in Italy. I was very surprised to
    >>> find that all the public toilets in Rome and Naples had no
    >>> seats. You would think that if they charged 50 cents to use it,
    >>> they could at least put seats on them. Our hotel rooms had
    >>> seats, thank goodness. Up north in Pisa and Venice they were
    >>> more civilized and had seats. Do people really not have seats
    >>> on the toilets in their homes?
    >> Well, count your blessings, at least they weren't the squat over
    > the porcelain pan in the floor and hope for the best type that
    > prevailed when I first travelled in the 70s.


These aren't dead yet -- maybe in Italy, but not entirely.

I was surprised when driving in France about 5 years ago, and
travelling on the then-newly-opened motorway from Le Havre to Rouen
(the north-of-Seine route), to find that the brand-new toilets in the
brand-new motorway service stop had brand-new hole-in-the-floor bogs.

I was (and still am) surprised they still manufacture these things, but
there you go.

--
Cheers,
Harvey

Alan Harrison

"Lon" wrote in message
newspOcnez6SYkXsz2gXTWcqQ@New-
s.GigaNews.Com...
    > Just got back from ten days in Italy. I was very surprised to find that
all
    > the public toilets in Rome and Naples had no seats. You would think that
if
    > they charged 50 cents to use it, they could at least put seats on them.
Our
    > hotel rooms had seats, thank goodness. Up north in Pisa and Venice they
    > were more civilized and had seats. Do people really not have seats on the
    > toilets in their homes?

Was it your misfortune to enter the so-called "servizi igienici" (the ones
you pay for) at surface level in Napoli Centrale station? This must rank as
just about the foulest shithouse - a term I use advisedly - which I have
ever paid to enter. Floors are awash, bowls over flow with paper and other,
less salubrious, substances left by previous occupants. It is filthy
conditions that I find objectionable, rather than the absence of a seat, or
even the "squat" type cludgie, which, as a rather fat middle-aged geezer, I
find somewhat difficult to use.

Toilets in homes are, of course, of the same kind as those found in northern
Europe, as are those in hotel rooms. However, it is not unknown for toilets
even in three/four star hotels intended for use by "passing trade" (people
eating in the restaurant or drinking in the bar) to be more rudimentary.

I think there's also a cultural thing. Because the toilet and what we do
there is taboo, there's a tendency to think that different means dirty. The
first time I entered an American public bog (at Saint Louis airport), I was
immediately taken aback by the rather limited privacy afforded by doors
which seemed to end at knee height, and initially assumed from the deep
water level in the bowls that the toilets were blocked. (Which reminds me,
is the unisex bog in "Ally McBeal" a reflection of real practice? It would
be illegal in Britain.)

Alan Harrison

Zombywoof

On Sat, 5 Oct 2002 13:25:59 -0400, "Lon" let us in
on their opinion by saying:

    >Just got back from ten days in Italy. I was very surprised to find that all
    >the public toilets in Rome and Naples had no seats. You would think that if
    >they charged 50 cents to use it, they could at least put seats on them. Our
    >hotel rooms had seats, thank goodness. Up north in Pisa and Venice they
    >were more civilized and had seats. Do people really not have seats on the
    >toilets in their homes?
    >Lon
Better never go to Korea or Japan, You'd be in for a real BIG
surprise.


--
ZombyWoof

"Daylight again, following me to bed
I think about a hundred years ago, how my fathers bled
I think I see a valley, covered with bones in blue
All the brave soldiers that cannot get older been askin' after you
Hear the past a callin', from Armegeddon's side
When everyone's talkin' and noone is listenin', how can we decide?
(Do we) find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down
Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down"

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
"4 Way Street" 1970

Paul Ding

    > Which reminds me, is the unisex bog
    > in "Ally McBeal" a reflection of real
    > practice? It would be illegal in Britain.

According to 29 CFR 1910.141(c)(1)(i), where toilet rooms will be
occupied by no more than one person at a time, can be locked from the
inside, and contain at least one water closet, separate toilet rooms for
each sex need not be provided.

The question of whether the stalls in their restroom can each be
considered separate single-occupancy rooms is one that is worthy of a
Fish & Cage lawyer.

But there are other rules that apply in other situations.

I know a woman who wanted to make and sell egg noodles. Zoning said this
was an allowable home occupation, but she could not hire anyone. Never
the less, she had to have a commercial kitchen with both men's and
women's toilets in order to be approved.

A restaurant here was cited by the health inspectors for only having one
restroom for use by customers. They found the cheapest solution was to
remove one table from the dining room; restaurants with fewer seats
aren't required to offer any restroom at all.

A friend of mine has an 10-year-old son with cerebral palsy. She can't
take him into the men's room because she's not male. She can't take him
into the women's room because he's not female. She *really* likes the
idea of unisex restrooms, even if they are one-holers, and I have to
agree.

The bathroom in my home is unisex, BTW.

--
http://paulding.net Many useful utilities

She was a love machine -
and she didn't work for nobody but me.
But I soon ran out of quarters....

Carole Allen

No, they still have squats in Florence, in Siena, at the bullring in
Arles, in Roussillion. At least in '98 they did. I have used them
all. And gladly paid for the privilege, given the alternative.



On Sat, 05 Oct 2002 19:22:48 GMT, Harvey V
wrote:
    >These aren't dead yet -- maybe in Italy, but not entirely.
    >I was surprised when driving in France about 5 years ago, and
    >travelling on the then-newly-opened motorway from Le Havre to Rouen
    >(the north-of-Seine route), to find that the brand-new toilets in the
    >brand-new motorway service stop had brand-new hole-in-the-floor bogs.
    >I was (and still am) surprised they still manufacture these things, but
    >there you go.
    >--
    >Cheers,
    >Harvey

Evelyn Vogt Gamble

austin500 wrote:
    > "Lon" wrote in message
    > newspOcnez6SYkXsz2gXTWcqQ@N-
    > ews.GigaNews.Com    ...
    > > Just got back from ten days in Italy. I was very surprised to find that
    > all
    > > the public toilets in Rome and Naples had no seats. You would think that
    > if
    > > they charged 50 cents to use it, they could at least put seats on them.
    > Our
    > > hotel rooms had seats, thank goodness. Up north in Pisa and Venice they
    > > were more civilized and had seats. Do people really not have seats on the
    > > toilets in their homes?
    > > Lon
    > >
    > >
    > "A bit of an odd question: there's very little in common between the
    > fitting-out of public toilets and the fitting-out of a home toilet or
    > hotel toilet -- I'm surprised you expected public toilets to be as
    > comfy as a private one".
    > A very sensible question.I would expect toilet seats in a public toilet and
    > if there weren't any I would wonder if this was customary all over the
    > country in public and private places.

Well, of course I've not yet been to Italy, and the "public
toilets" I've used have been in airports, opera houses,
concert halls and museums, and one or two restaurants, so
may not not fully fit your definition of "public". All of
the above came equipped with the customary seat, and most
were as clean or cleaner than their U.S. counterparts.
However, I do remember what our tour guide described as a
"clean" public toilet in Budapest - at Heroes' Square, IIRC
- where there was no tissue in the stalls. One's "fee" to
the attendant was for providing a very meager supply of
that. (It was NOT partucularly clean or well maintained,
but it DID have toilet seats, nonetheless!)

Mrs . Somebody

On Sat, 5 Oct 2002 13:25:59 -0400, "Lon" wrote:

    >Just got back from ten days in Italy. I was very surprised to find that all
    >the public toilets in Rome and Naples had no seats. You would think that if
    >they charged 50 cents to use it, they could at least put seats on them. Our
    >hotel rooms had seats, thank goodness. Up north in Pisa and Venice they
    >were more civilized and had seats. Do people really not have seats on the
    >toilets in their homes?
    >Lon

What's this "toilet" thingie that people keep referring to??
(
We jes use a hole and a shuvvle some dirt.)

Harvey V

On Sat, 05 Oct 2002 19:43:19 GMT, Alan Harrison wrote

    > (Which reminds me,
    > is the unisex bog in "Ally McBeal" a reflection of real practice?
    > It would be illegal in Britain.)

We're a lot closer in Britain to them than Boston -- I've seen unisex
restaurant loos in France and Belgium. In one case the stalls just
shared the handbasins, but in another the urinal -- and the back of any
man using it -- was entirely visible to women entereing the room to use
the stalls.

--
Cheers,
Harvey

Christian M. Nielsen

    > We're a lot closer in Britain to them than Boston -- I've seen unisex
    > restaurant loos in France and Belgium. In one case the stalls just
    > shared the handbasins, but in another the urinal -- and the back of any
    > man using it -- was entirely visible to women entereing the room to use
    > the stalls.

Maybe a little OT, but in Finland they got Unisex SAUNAS ;o)
--

Mvh / Regards

-==-
ICQ: 25308942
http://www.cmnielsen.dk
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