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Everyone talks about the poor condition of public toilets. It is true that most publicly maintained toilets leave much to be desired. However, when they are free to the public, I can’t really complain. What I can complain about is the condition of publicly maintained toilets where you have to pay to get in.

In the US, all public toilets are free. However, not all places will offer public toilets – keep that in mind. The ones that do will vary in cleanliness. I suppose that many of us who have ever travelled on the highways and encountered those “Rest Areas” have had some unpleasant visits. Nevertheless, if you are very desperate, you just have to hold your breath, quickly finish the necessities and rush out, wishing you could find a nice clean shower. I must say, though, after thirty years of highway travel, I have seen some improvements in many of those Rest Areas. Similarly, gas stations, restaurants, shops, etc., may offer public restrooms and some take greater pride in their cleanliness than others.

In the UK, there was a time when you couldn’t find a free toilet, unless you were a patron at some restaurant that offered one. Now, you can find more of them, although, they are still quite limited in some areas. Some towns now offer separate toilet facilities and you can see them posted on street signs. My experiences of these places vary as much as in the US. Yet, I’d rather risk using these facilities than wearing diapers.

The one place you are sure to have to pay to use a toilet is in the major train stations. Unfortunately, they are also the worst maintained toilets. Imagine my disgust at entering a small room with four stalls, two of which are out of order but only one has a sign on it; the other is almost overflowing with human waste; a third is out of toilet paper; and all four toilets look as if they have not been updated in the last fifty years. For 20p I would have expected a McDonald’s quality toilet. Despite the fact that these toilets are poorly maintained, it goes to show that people are desperate enough for this convenience to pay 20p to squeeze into one of these rooms with ten other women. Consequently, these toilets may never become free and they may never be properly maintained.