It’s called toilet plume.
A toilet plume is the invisible to the naked eye, cloud-like dispersal of raw, infectious sewage particles as a result of flushing a toilet. Flush particles rapidly rise out of the bowl and several feet into the air after flushing. Aerosolized droplets can remain suspended in the air for tens of minutes between users, posing an inhalation risk. These invisible particles go on to coat and spread onto surfaces like floors and counters or objects like hand towels, bathmats, or even toothbrushes.
Just remember, when you smell stink in a public bathroom you are inhaling strangers’ colon molecules.
I can not be the only one who is very aware, whenever i smell a fart, where those molecules were before they were in my nose.
Statistically probable you inhale a hitler molecule before you die. But also more pleasant celebrities, your hero or crush, even, depending on time allowed for dispersion. Process that how you will.
Fucking Nazi Molecules.
😂 thank you for that rare sentence that i probably will never hear or read again in my life.
is it though? did someone do the math?
Or is it purely apocryphal like that every single water molecule on the world has already been someone’s or something’s pee at least once.
Someone’s done the math though it rests on some challengeable assumptions about dispersion over time, moreover agnostic of location. The thing is that with those more basic assumptions the probability is about 99% per deep breath, so much higher chances for at least once in a lifetime, enough to consider it probably true even if real-life dispersion isn’t as good as the basic assumption taken. John Allen Paulos (Temple U mathematician) was the first one to get the ball rolling on this idea that I can remember, in his Innumeracy book. Interesting read, btw.
Interesting! Noted for my next bookshop visit :)
YSK to not be scared of every little mundane thing in life. It will paralyze you
I wouldn’t consider being cautious about having literal fecal matter in my toothbrush mundane, but you do you.
Don’t forget to put on your armor where in bed with someone, too.
Everything everywhere is covered in fecal matter. Mythbusters did an episode on it and their control toothbrush in the office had plenty.
Well you should be far more worried then. Because closing the lid or not won’t matter. Your toothbrush is covered in it anyway. Unless you’re covering your toothbrush when you’re not using it.
I keep it behind the cabinet mirror, I’m sure over time that’s better than in a cup next to the shitter. If you’re comfortable keeping your toothbrush out and near the toilet than more power to you.
Unless it’s air tight and you’re 100% clearing out the air… then it’s doing nothing. Things in your kitchen are likely getting shit on them as well. It’s basically a placebo effect.
Agreed. Obviously there are some things that, as we acquire new knowledge that may change daily behavior, need to be reconsidered, but this is not one of them. People will look for the dirty hypodermic in the haystack of swords.
There’s so many other things to care about more. In the age of information, our mental health depends on conscious gate keeping of what we allow to concern us and modify our behavior. Everyone needs to decide their own path but if you don’t and just scroll the feed you’ll go mad.
true, but if I gotta close the lid anyway to stop the cats from drinking from it, I may as well do it before flushing rather than after
…did you stand there and wait until the flush completed to close the lid before?
It’s not a risk, it’s a fact
The invisible particles that spread by air are not generally able to transmit disease because of their size, low concentration, and the short lifespan of pathogens surviving the airborne journey.
However, when you flush under a closed lid a MUCH higher concentration and long-lived pathogenic layer is deposited on the underside of the lid.
When you then sit down to shit, your shirt brushes against that moist underside of the lid behind you and THAT is much more dangerous as it moistens your garments and follows you back to your couch or bed.
I’m appalled that you just assume it’s normal for your clothes to rub up against the toilet lid at all or that its position when you flush can make that not gross.
You shit and then pull your pants up by your belt.
You have never once washed your belt - anyone who says they have is coping.
Can’t tell if sarcasm or…
I only shit naked, so take that you shirted cock swabbler.
It also stops things from falling into your toilet, pets from getting to the water, etc.
Closing the lid is the only sensible thing to do.
, cocaine.
Found Doctor Rockso!
Haha i actually love that series (and rarely have done cocaine)
I’ve put the toilet lid down since that mythbusters episode where they examined how much fecal matter got onto toothbrushes that are in the same room as the toilet.
Now my toothbrush isn’t in the same room as my toilet but I still shut the lid.
Spoiler for the mythbusters episode… It was a lot of fecal matter… A lot.
sure, but is it in any way harmful? Not really. Also, same episode showed that there’s fecal matter on the toothbrush not even in the same room as the toilet. There’s just fecal matter everywhere all the time. It’s not a big deal, because of our immune system. In fact, it’s more likely than not strengthening your immune system through exposure.
You would not believe how many times I’ve been in a public bathroom and someone flushed a toilet while I was in there. It’s like nobody even cares they are lacing the place with their particles. Normalize not flushing in public bathrooms. That is the only answer.
Along with this… Normalize dudes sitting down to piss.
Just do it. But also accept folks will laugh at you.
Hell, if you were my friend, I’d rag on you all day for it, but that’s because we were friends, and I also have sat down to piss before. It’s not my preferred method.
Like now that I think about…isn’t it really actually nasty to sit down with our junk dangling inside the toilet bowl? We are all sitting here talking about shit atoms floating through the air… but wouldn’t we be trapping our junk in there with it?
Sit if ya want, but just accept the judgement of others. You can’t escape it.
No thanks. Balls and dick touching toilet waters a thing for some of us. Having to sit in a tiny ass toilet and somehow maneuver your junk with your hands also getting in there…nah.
I’m sorry but are you 120 y/o and are your balls sagging to your ankles? I have at some time experienced the head of my dick touching the bowl but I have never, and considering the designs of toilets will never, experienced my balls touching the toilet water. And I am not ashamed to say that I sit down to piss pretty much every time
No but I’ve spoken to older people and been told by them stories of these things happening. Guess you never speak to old people? Things happen when you get old. Buckle up! At least you admit the tip part so we can be water tip bros.
YSK that your toilet lid isn’t a gasketed seal.
https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(25)00630-3/abstract
Putting the lid down does reduce the amount of shit mist, but it does not even get close to eliminating it.
I’d much rather have something fall onto the toilet lid than into the toilet. That alone makes closing it worthwhile.
Got me there, but not really relevant to the subject here. Maybe make your own YSK post?
Kinda is tho: We’re discussing closing the toilet lid, so… yeah.
I like toilet lids with the soft close option so they don’t slam. That way I can close them quietly at night with a minimum of effort.
Soft close is mandatory in my house haha
who keeps towels and toothbrushes in the shit room to begin with.
thats already gross.
Exactly, personally I like to keep them on the opposite side of my house so that you can’t dry your hands at all.
Or, you know, in the linen closet outside the bathroom door, if you’re not a smart arsed twat.
Are you grabbing a new towel every time you ash your hands?
Oh yeees! Of course the linen closet I have right outside of my bathroom! Why didn’t I think of that!? The bathroom which happens to open into my kitchen, where there are barely any cupboards for my kitchen stuff.
Sorry, my bad, I totally misunderstood.
I put the toilet lid down all the time.
I even put the lid down before I piss.
It is how I build my immune system.
– Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Except their statement is backed by science.
Idk who’s downvoting you, but you’re actually right. It’s called coprophagia and it’s way more common in everyday life and in nature than we’d like it to be.
My fancy Japanese toilet will automatically open the lid after flushing when things are still swirling around. I wonder if the ones made after covid still have that flaw.
How about we quantify how dangerous the farticles are first, before we decide how useful closing the seat is? Who cares how many invisible particles it stops if they turn out to be harmless?
Also it’s good for your immune system to get exercise.
Houses are too sterile these days.
Dont even get me started on how coddled the modern anus is.
Dont even get me started on how coddled the modern anus is.
The modern American anus. Americans seem to be obsessed with arse germs. Those weird little paper covers for the toilet seat, for example. How is that keeping you safe? Good grief.
It’s not it just makes you feel better that you’re not sitting on a seat that was just sat on by some sweaty acne puss filled buttcheeks.
Haha oh I’m one of those , in airports. I just get grossed out. Otherwise I’m fine.
Unless your toilet lid is airtight, you’ll never fully defeat the plume.
Just keep your toothbrush in a case
With cleaning in general, there is never fully anything. It’s about abatement. If a measure is (for example) 80% effective, the whole chain forward will have contamination numbers 80% lower. So even if you keep your toothbrush in a case, it will have (again, made up numbers here) 80% less contamination. Which, depending on the microbe, it could mean the difference between a immuno-compromised person catching or not a disease.
Now, in your house, you do you. But it baffles me that the norm for public restrooms in the US, even in hospitals, is to have no lid at all.
it baffles me that the norm for public restrooms in the US, even in hospitals, is to have no lid at all.
No lid is easier to clean, no expert but that might mean less dangers overall. Especially hospitals must have thought this through.
