This might just be my personal experience but I'm really struggling with US public toilets. I find the partitions are so small and with huge gaps in between. It's really bad at work - I can actually SEE in to the cubicles between the gaps from outside when someone is in one. If someone is in the cubicle next to me, I can see way too much of her and hear and smell way way way too much. I really don't want this kind of intimacy with my colleagues, and, heaven forbid, my boss!

Why why why can't they build proper cubicles which if not sound proofed and reaching up to the ceiling at least seem to provide some modicum of privacy in the UK?

Is this just me or does anyone else struggle with this????

They are something I wont miss at all when I go back. It`s as if you`re not trusted not to do something strange or illegal in them so you get minimum privacy. I find them quite distressing!

At work they also have an automatic flush which makes it even worse! We're not even trusted to flush our own toilets!

Most amusing if you`re on the phone, though!

Yeah they are pretty awful aren't they I won't miss them once we move home either.

Apparently it's so people CAN see you (not) doing naughty things in there... drugs or whatever. At least you have cubicles - there are plenty of gents' toilets that have a single urinal (unshielded) and single sit-down, and you don't seem to be expected to lock the door if you're doing a #1. So somebody else walks in while you're standing there and the whole bar or whatever can see you (well, ok, not the whole bar but anybody nearby could potentially see you)!

So glad it's not just me then! Weird that a people who are so prim and proper that they can't use the word 'toilet' have no qualms about performing their bodily functions in full earshot and smellshot and almost eyeshot of all. Maybe I should move to Japan...I think they have the right idea with regards to toilets!!

I was horrified when I came here and saw the toilets and I decided to hold it in until I got back to England.

I don't understand the not locking of the doors.... At work we have to knock before we try open the door because at least 6 of the grown women we work with don't lock it and have been caught with their pants down on more than one occasion!

Well England is the biggest toilet of all.

Makes going easy, then.

I have a business owner that comes to the lab every month with his water sample to be tested (as in well water, by state rules) Every time he comes to the lab he uses the restroom and every time he leaves there is pee on the seat and floor.

Last month my boss chased him down in the parking lot and made him come back and clean it up This month instead of coming in himself he sent his wife in with the and she didn't use the restroom!

Nothing to do with the OP's thread really but I thought I'd share

I'm not really bothered by the privacy side of things, everyone does it, they all smell and, between friends, I like cracking off a big fart guff when someone is in the trap next to me. I have had compliments from colleagues, something to break the ice so to speak....
On the other hand, I really don't get the dimensions of the soil tube. Even my kids can block the bog with reasonably normal logs.

Screw that. The main problem with american toilets is that the average arsehole-to-waterline distance is far too short, resulting in much more likelihood of splashback than you'd ever get on a properly calibrated Armitage Shanks number.

However they do have those nice paper toilet seat cover things, which saves me a lot of time not having to carefully place strips of TP around the thing.

Ah you are one of those bastards. There's this old asian dude at my work who goes in there and screams and grunts while he's on the job like he's committing harakiri in there or something. Really puts me off my morning business.