Public toilets are irritating enough, but public toilets that have sensors which cause them to flush automatically really get my goat. First off, they have the tendancy to flush while I’m sitting there. Sometimes that’s not too irritating, but there are toilets out there whose water pressure is so screwy that they splash water all over the place, especially my bum. There are a couple restrooms on campus that I avoid for that basic reason. It’s bad enough to find wet seats because the flushing force was too much for the bowl and water splashed all over the place because it means more time standing there to stick toilet paper down which just means the sensor’s more likely to go off while I’m sitting down. Wet asses are icky enough let alone knowing the water came from a toilet.

Secondly, chances are that if it goes off once while I’m in there, it’s going to go off a few more times as well. The odd thing about it is that the intervals seem to be completely random regardless of whether I’m sitting still or moving, and it doesn’t seem to matter how long I’m in there. I don’t spend a lot of time in the restroom–maybe a minute or two–and I can’t imagine how many times it would go off for a person who likes to sit there for twenty minutes. One of the toilets on this floor will go off three or four times in a two-minute interval. Can we spell “waste of water”? I can’t imagine what our water bill would be like at home if I flushed that many times every time I went to the bathroom.

Third, regardless of whether it went off while seated, half the time it refuses to flush once I’ve stood. I’m done, I’ve got my pants back up, and I’m ready to go, but it doesn’t flush. Luckily, they’ve invented these new-fangled buttons that will flush a toilet when the sensor doesn’t go off. Of course, if a toilet’s notorious about not flushing and the button gets over-used, it just breaks and either works sporadically or not at all. One of the toilets here in the center is like that, damned thing. The whole point of a sensor-based toilet is so that you don’t have to touch anything other than the seat (and not even that if you use toilet paper or those little paper ring things). Like the buttonless hand-dryers, it’s supposed to be more sanitary, but the entire purpose is defeated if you have to stand over the toilet pushing a button for a minute. If people are so freaking worried about a few germs coming off the toilet, they could just use a piece of toilet paper to hold while pushing the button or handle like people use toilet paper to keep from touching the seat. And what’s the point of worrying about touching the handle anyway? You’re just going to touch the handle on the door to get out. And after that it’s hand-washing time (with or without sensor-controlled taps). Germs go bye-bye. It’s insane and it drives me insane. Does anyone else get annoyed at public restrooms for all these modern (in)conveniences?