Toilet Seat Etiquette + Germ Control

The other week I had a couple of male guests come through my little cottage of a home. During their visit, a bathroom call was also made. Of course, I obliged. Unbeknownst to me and my preconceived notions about the modern-day mannered man, I was shocked to discover both male guests felt it OK to leave the toilet seat and lid left in the upright position. Hmm. Beyond being a social sin in my opinion, when does a girl ever like having to rearrange opened toilet accoutrements after her male guests? And it turns out, this casual lavatory act is also not so good for your home environment.

Remember in school when you had to watch those 1950's atomic bomb films in history class? That exact thing is happening in your bathroom when you flush. As that 1950's video explains, "The explosion's radioactive fallout is almost as dangerous as the blast itself." When you push down on that unassuming little flush handle, a mushroom bomb made of microbial cloud of feces and bacteria explodes into your home's atmosphere. The only thing stopping that lovely image from alighting on everything like your soap and toothbrush? 


The toilet lid, closed down as a matter of fact.


Even the boys at Discovery Channel"s Mythbusters found the same results by using dry ice to film what gets shot up during this ill-advised practice of flushing toilets with the lids in the up position. 

Some of my favorite quotes about this lid-up flushing business:


"What they can't is the countless billions of bacteria and microbes that literally explode upward into the air [...] some of these germs can reach heights of up to 20 feet." 

"It doesn't take long for these tiny particles of poop to settle on everything in the room; faucets, towels, even your toothbrush." 

So there you have it, leave it the way you found it i.e. the seat down. And anyways, the amount of energy expended in arguing about this lid up or down business, far exceeds the simple etiquette required in just doing a girl a favor in leaving a seat down.