Poll: How Many People Flush The Toilet with The Lid down?

Who here cares about the faecal bacteria in the toilet that gets sprayed around the bathroom whenever the toilet is flushed with the lid open? do we flush our toilets lid-down or not? Do we even care?

I've always been somewhat of a (well not a clean-freak) but very germ-aware.

It all started when I had severe acne as a teen, where I became very strict on bacteria-triggered pimples and would wash my hands and bring sanitiser with me everywhere. Then, I worked briefly in healthcare as a dental assistant where I had to work with infection-control and cleaning procedures between patients.

Ever since, let's say I run a pretty tight ship around my apartment (e.g. alcohol spraying my phone whenever I get home because it is actually dirtier with bacteria than the average toilet seat).

P.S People also think that covid-19 can be spread through our poo which is nice and super disgusting
https://theconversation.com/we-dont-know-for-sure-if-coronav…

Poll Options

  • 558
    I flush with the lid down
  • 495
    I flush with the lid open
  • 16
    I don't even have a lid on my toilet

Comments

    • +14

      Animals don't flush causing particles to rapidly shoot into the air (the same air you breathe)
      "80% of particles that escape from fecal matter into the air can be prevented by closing the lid when flushing"

      • +5

        So 20% can't be. That's hectic.

        • Fully hectic!

  • +16

    I think the toilet location differs.

    A separate toilet and I would leave it open. But if the toilet is in the bathroom, with toothbrushes, then I would close it.

    • +2

      In recent years I have stopped leaving my toothbrush out in the open and store it in the cabinet to avoid catching airborne baddies.

      • +55

        I started putting mine in a toiletries case after I saw a cockroach mounted on a toothbrush in the bathroom in the middle of the night. I'd been doing this for many years. Then, a few months ago a live cockroach somehow crawled into my toiletries case when I left it open in my bedroom. It really must have licked my toothbrush.

        I've been getting therapy ever since.

        • +8

          LOL!!! Mate, I had to login just to +1 your comment : )

        • +6

          Not surprising, cockroaches love moisture. Things like toothbrushes, kitchen sponges and wet towels are the roach equivalent of a Bunnings sausage sizzle - they can't resist.

        • You can get tooth brush containers at woolies for a dollar.

  • Down at night, up during the day.

    • Yes I do the same.

  • +14

    According to https://www.theplumbingauthority.com/blog/2019/february/myth…

    4 You should close your toilet lid before flushing

    Fact. When you flush your toilet with the lid up, a fine mist of bacteria filled water will fill the air. This is known as aerosolization, the process by which a physical substance is transformed into the form of particles light enough to be carried into the air (like an aerosol spray). Mythbusters did an episode about this process and confirmed, unfortunately, that when you flush a toilet with the lid up particles of feces will be almost everywhere in your bathroom, including your toothbrush.

    However, we should note that these particles are so small that the risk of becoming sick due to ingestion of these is very slim, unless the person using the restroom is sick.

    • +4

      Was with this until the final sentence - ‘they are so small that the risk……is very slim’ Fine particles stay in the air longer, and viruses are extremely small !!!!
      Seat down for us to minimise the amount of poo bits floating and coating…. 🤮

    • Unless you are using a xiaomi self sterilising super fancy toilet

      • This is known as aerosolization, the process by which a physical substance is transformed into the form of particles light enough to be carried into the air (like an aerosol spray).

      • We have a pretty basic bidet seat and love it. Apart from the immediate benefit of avoiding paperwork, ours is heated. No ‘ring of ice’ during the Southern winter.
        Not sure if a warm air dryer type would spread poo particles around though…🤔

        • +1

          I think the bidet would cause more aerosolisation than the toilet flush

  • +35

    Lid down, you savages.

  • +5

    Up, dont have time for no lid down flushing

    Pure savage who has no lid at all 👍👍

  • Only for taking dumps.

  • +16

    Where is the poll option - "I don't flush" ?

    • +11

      Found the poo jogger.

  • +16

    i spend 5 minutes in awe looking at by bogs
    then flush and watch it scrape in circles against the porcelin

  • +51

    Being frugal, I generally only flush when the contents are piled high enough to touch the seat.

    • +5

      Hmm. That will still be every dump for some.

      • we've all done a double flush once at least

    • +3

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0k7cnj384

      The goal should be at least one hundred courics.

    • +2

      Username checks out

    • +2

      And you still haven't answered the question. When the contents of the bowl are high enough to touch the seat, do you flush with the lid open or closed?

      • +4

        Lid open mate. Too frugal for a dunny brush, so I have to dip the guns in to my elbow to give it a swirl. Being a nail biter, it's the gift that keeps giving.

        • +3

          Your username is missing an o.

  • +11

    Eat cheap, highly processed foods with little dietary fiber, and watch your highly dense stools torpedo right into the sewage system without the need for flushing! Save money on food, water and be more hygienic.

    • +6

      ahh, the fabled ghost poop

      • +2

        I thought a ghost poop was when you wipe and there's nothing there. TIL.

        • +2

          This should be next poll

  • -3

    I don't lift the lid in the first place…

    • +1

      I don't get it? You piss/shit on the toilet lid? Or you don't use your toilet at all and just flush it for fun?

      • +2

        Groan. Y'all no fun…

        • I'm plenty fun, just didn't get your comment/joke on this occasion…don't be disheartened, it happens to the best of us.

    • -1

      lid … not the seat

    • Cracked me up! Here take +1

  • +22

    If you close the lid how are you sure that the fecal matter has disappeared?
    You don't want the next person to come along, lift the lid and discover the monster you left behind.
    But then if you lift the lid you expose yourself to an aerial assault.

    Schrödinger's crap?

    • +7

      Great, now you've given xiaomi a semi-legitimate reason to add a camera to their next toilet seat. "Ability to check bowl contents without lifting lid."

      • +2

        Why not just a glass toilet seat lid? Then you can see in :)

        That or a lid with a screen that displays what's inside. Similar to how some fridges have internal cameras.

    • +2

      Wait for the flush to finish. Then open the seat?

    • It's fine, the missus and I practice our aim next time we go for a wizz

  • +2

    You must cover the toilet with cling wrap prior to any flush

    • And then turn the toilet into a fecal slip n slide for the next person

  • So you close and open the lid that gets poo spray, get more poo on fingers after wiping your bum, then wash hands putting poo onto the tap handles, turn said taps off getting poo back onto your fingers etc and then dry your hands putting poo onto the towel.. but i guess 80% less poo floating in the air..

    • -2

      My thoughts exactly. Less time spent touching the toilet seat the better. Surely more of a contamination issue than the minute amount of aerosol produced with flushing.

  • -8

    Whta a complete WASTE OF TIME !

    And NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS

    • Someone’s shit the bed.

  • I have to flush with the lid down,
    as I have a water dispensing fridge in the same small room

    • +5

      Where are you? Like the most cushy prison cell imaginable?

      • In my small house,
        the other dunny room has a bath in it

        • +7

          Ahh rite, I didn't realise you in the small house, it kinda sounded like you were in "the big house".

          • @ozbjunkie: It was the only place I could place my fridge so I could connect it to water,
            it would have been too hard to do it in the kitchen

            I didn't know they had fridges with water in the big house,
            let alone dunny seats on the porcelain steering wheel

            • @the Unforgiven: Hehe well I thankfully know very little about prison. But if I ever make it as the head of a Ponzi scheme, or a disgraced investment banker, or as a politician for hire, I'd hope that they'd find a way to accommodate me.

              • +1

                @ozbjunkie: I have never been either, but people used to always say I was, as I used to smoke White Ox all the time.
                My brother was in there for awhile, but I disowned him before he did the ultimate crime

                What did they say growing up?
                Oh yeh, don't throw matchsticks down the dunny as crabs can polevault

  • +2

    I flush while I'm sitting on the toilet. I guess lid open?

    • +7

      Yeah, partly open with a half-arse seal?

    • +1

      Seems like the best of both worlds.
      Don't need to touch the seat for up and down.
      Keep the poo particles in their place.
      So win win

      • +1

        Plus if your flush is powerful enough it’s like a quasi-bidet.

    • Sounds like a poor man's bidet.

  • Only if trying to flush more quietly… Though that's rarely needed, usually if that's a concern I'll not flush and just wait until my partner or kids are up and out of bed.

  • Where’s the option for “I don’t flush”?

    • +2

      I heard Elon Musk won't flush his own toilet. He just leaves it there for his housekeepers to find.

  • Doesn't matter, there are poo particles everywhere anyway. Do you also walk around wearing gloves and goggles outside?

    • Yes

  • +2

    How often do you get gastro? If more than once every few years, perhaps worry about poo particles in the toilet flying about. Otherwise, it clearly doesn’t do any harm.

  • anyone who leaves is up is an animal /close thread

  • +1

    How else do you build an immunity? May as well go outside in bubble wrap.,.

    • +5

      I occasionally fart on my food. Pretty sure immuned to covid now

      • +2

        Now it makes sense why Russia has the first Covid vaccine!

  • +2

    If lid is down, how do you know it’s all gone ;-)

  • +1

    I have run out of alcohol. I can't deal with this.

  • +3

    I flush when the poop is half way out. This is to avoid clogging the toilet and also reduced the smell.

    • But splash damage on your posterior ?

  • +2

    I've never even thought about closing the lid. I rarely get sick though it's been literally years since I've even had the cold. I don't think I've ever had something like gastro.

    Maybe it makes my immune system stronger.

  • +3

    no preference… lid down if late night so make potentially less noise during flushing.
    the small amount of alleged bacteria floating around with lid open is welcome, it’ll make my immune system perhaps bit stronger.

  • I don't put the toilet seat down but all the toilets I've been to are seperate to the bathrooms. The only time I've seen toilets in the bathroom are hotels and houses in the USA.

    Out of curiosity, OP could you please take this questionnaire and report on the results..

    • +1

      Got 14/24 - "Average"

      • Fair enough. Mine was 0 of them

    • +3

      You clearly haven't visited the bathroom in many houses in Australia.

  • Do you have a weaker immune system after being a germophobe?

  • -1

    Lid down. There are rules that prohibit toilets being next to food preparation areas in houses for this reason. No one wants to eat poo. Every house will have a room or a space between the kitchen and a water closet.

  • TIL that flushing while the lid is down is a thing..

  • Lid Up. in bathroom tooth brushes out in open… Dgaf

  • I don't put the lid down!

    Then again I'm a bear and I'm also in the woods ")

  • If you live in your own place you have certain luxuries like leaving lid and door open.

  • It has a lid for a reason.

  • All these people that apparently close the lid. I don't know if I believe it. Whenever we have guests down they always leave it up despite seeing that it would have been down in the first place.

  • +1

    I proudly kiss my cat so breathing in my own poo particles pales in comparison from a germ point of view, especially since cat feces can kill humans. Anyone else kissing pets are wasting their time being in the lid down camp but then, that very action confirms we are not germaphobic so care factor would be zilch in any case.

    I do wonder how much disease right now in the western world is due to this bubble wrapping ourselves from germs? Strange that locals do not get Deli belly huh?

  • +9

    With millenials eating ass, I don't think this is our biggest hygiene concern.

    • +2

      Anal bleaching and salad tossing was created in the 80s by horny boomers.

      • I have no idea what salad tossing is and am too afraid to google it

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