Toilet Signs / Toilets of the World

This is an abandoned public toilet in Veliko Târnovo, Bulgaria. Below are Bulgarian toilet signs. Click here for interior pictures of this one.

Neither of these instructional signs are images I took myself, they came from somewhere out on the net. But for those of you needing to instruct people in the use of non-squat toilets, they might be useful. Arabic and Malay. For the Malay one, thanks to Hamachi for the translation:

Be aware that many public facilities in Paris close for a lunch break for the women who collect the entry fee, including this one at Place Madeleine.

This sign inside the lid of a high-tech Japanese toilet at a hotel in Haneda, outside Tokyo, patiently explains obvious things like don't spray your urine all over the seat (always a good idea), and then goes on for paragraphs about how to operate the thing.

Below, we see that the nomenclature of "Number 1" and "Number 2" seems to be more than just grade-school euphemisms — it is used by no less a toiletological authority than Sloan! And if you did not pay attention in grade school, "Number 1" is liquid waste and "Number 2" is solid.

This was the first of these that I saw, in the public restrooms of a training company in Reston, Virginia, USA.

Water-Saving Dual-Function Handle
UP for #1 (liquid waste)
DOWN for #2 (solid waste)

The green plastic coating on the handle is "to protect against germs", and the sign goes on to courteously ask the reader to "Please take a look at the diagram above and push the handle in the direction which best suits your needs."

This sign is in the toilet compartment on board an overnight National Express bus from Edinburgh to London:
Do not even attempt to pee standing!

Handicap-accessible toilets:
Turn left here

GIANT-ACCESSIBLE TOILETS:
Also turn left here

This sign was on the grounds of the U.S. Post Office in Chicago, between the Chicago River and the Rush Street entertainment area. I have no idea what it is supposed to mean...

If "curb your dog" means to prevent your dog from defecating on the sidewalk or grass, then what does "do not curb your dog" mean?

Should we force our dogs to defecate on their lawn? (And, while we're at it, any dogs that wander past while we're there?)

Or is this mysterious sign the work of the Anti-Animal-Constipation League, telling us that it's allowed (but not required) for our pets to relieve themselves there?

This sign at left is on board a Greek train from Athens to Kalambaka station, at Meteora.

Here's a better look at that same sign, really a standard sticker probably available in Greek plumbing supply shops. This is from the Philippi Hotel on the island of Mykonos.

The Sydney Inn in Kastraki, Greece, under the rock pillars of Meteora, has nice bathrooms like these. They include a version of the standard sign:
Μη ρίχνετε χαρτιά στη λεκάνη

This is a graphical admonition to put all paper into the waste bin. It's a sticker just below the centered flush button on the front of the tank.

I was mystified by this sign until Thomas Wensing, an Actual Dutch Architect, saw this page and explained this project by Kees Spanjers:

"I am a Dutch architect, and whilst looking for toilets for one of our projects I happened upon your website. I have an answer to two of your questions. One is about the 'inspection plateau' which you will find on toilets in the Netherlands.i This is not due to the fact that we get our toilets from Germany, as a matter of fact we have quite a few sanitary manufacturers ourselves (Sphinx for instance). It is because we share a similar Teutonic hygienic neurosis and like to inspect our business before we flush it. So, there you have it, we're anal too."

"Secondly, the Latin inscription on the frieze. he apocryphal story is that the way that came about is that the architect of that particular building (it is a refurb of an old prison, btw.), Zaanen, Spanjers CS Architecten were so fed up with the red tape they had to cut during the planning process and grew wary of the vanity of developers and city hall alike that they cheekily decided to put it up there. They figured none of the councillors or dignitaries were clever enough to object to it during the planning process. And they didn't."

"Dear Bob,
I have, in the mean time, done some web research and found the following quote from the architect, who designed the building:
"Roman gates are always carry Latin inscriptions. I chose this particular text, because there had been a lot of hassle in the run-up to the building. There were supporters and detractors, especially locals, no positions in-between. It nearly took fifteen years before the work could start. This is why I figured this to be an apt aphorism."
Translation by me, the original is from agenda.nl, the Dutch text reads:
"Romeinse poorten zijn altijd voorzien van een Latijnse tekst. Ik koos voor deze tekst omdat er nogal wat gehannes is geweest over de bouw van het Max Euweplein. Er waren vooren tegenstanders, vooral buurtbewoners, niets daar tussenin. Het heeft bijna vijftien jaar geduurd voordat de bouw door kon gaan. Ik vond dit spreekwoord daarom toepasselijk."
You can quote me in full in both instances. I do remember quite specifically that it was widely featured in the professional journals at the time, and that the venom of the architect wasn't only directed at the locals. I guess he toned it down a bit when he was interviewed in later years. will not be able to check this in a library any time soon as I am working in the U.K. right now."

Sometimes toilets are modified to other purposes. The Astor Place subway station between Greenwich Village and the East Village in New York was built with a pair of public toilets.

That space has been converted to a small shop. Notice the nicely carved stone lintels still in place above the two doors.

If you're moving about Turkey, it's probably by bus. Which means you'll eventually need to find the tuvalet when you're at an otogar. An actual Turkish otogarlu tuvalet can get pretty disgusting, even by Internet standards. So here is just the indication of one. See the sign?

If this toilet overflows, please, please let us know.

Come to the desk and let us know. Ring the doorbell, wake us up and let us know. Because first it floods this bathroom, then it floods the bathroom downstairs by the kitchen, then it floods the private room's bathroom in the basement. That's three floors of damage. We won't judge you, we promise. It's an overflow-prone toilet. But we need to know when it happens.

This cautionary and nautical themed sign is found at the Pacific Tradewinds hostel in San Francisco:

ATTENTION GUESTS:

The plumbing is over 100 years old. Please, Please, Please, Do not flush anything except pee, poop, vomit and toilet paper in the toilet. Tampons, sanitary napkins, condoms, wedding rings, microfilm, or stinky socks will not make it out.

The ship, she can't take it.

Anti-Toiletological Signage

Modern communities sometimes warn of this, in more succinct ways that do not specify the punishments.

For example, Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago prohibits wall urination. However, it appears that removing your pants and leaving them there is OK:

On the other hand, see the Belgian toilets page for a case where urination against a church wall is encouraged.

In September 2009, Morna Gregory and Sian James published a book titled Toilets of the World. It's pretty much the same theme that you find here — photographs and commentary on other people's plumbing.

How long have my Toilets of the World pages been around? I'm not exactly sure, although they started in the mid 1990s as a single page on a Purdue University server. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine lets you see what that looked like as far back as January 17, 1999.

My cromwell-intl.com domain appeared in September, 2001, although the Wayback Machine didn't notice its one enormous Toilet of the World page until January 17, 2002. Some time soon after that I split it into categories, and the collection has grown ever since.

In December, 2010 I registered the toilet-guru.com domain and moved the pages to a dedicated server.