The Cafe In Vienna With See-Through Toilet Doors

What’s the one thing we all value the most when we’re going to the bathroom? One answer could be hoping that the toilet flush is working, but the answer I'm looking for is privacy. You may get comfortable enough with your significant other that they don’t bat an eyelid at walking in on you while you're using the bathroom but, for the majority of us, we all value some private time in the bathroom. Unfortunately you won’t be getting any of that if you take a trip to the loo in an Austrian café.

The Café Diglas, located in Vienna, has installed see-through toilet doors that laugh at any idea you ever had at having privacy in a public place. Fortunately it’s not actually as bad as you think, as the doors only remain transparent until you lock the door. Using some pretty smart technology the doors turn opaque when the lock is engaged, with a light projecting a no entry sign on to the toilet door. Hopefully that will mean people will stop checking the handle to see if the door is actually locked when you’re sat on the toilet, which often scares the life out of me!

Watch the video above to see the trick in action. It’s neat but if you didn't know that the door becomes opaque when you engage the lock then you’d probably decline to use it, so we can bet a lot of people have took one look at it and walked straight back out the door without even attempting to lock it. I have no idea how the technology that makes all this possible works, but you can check out the YouTube comments for some contradicting ideas.

Strangely it’s not the first time that I've seen a see through toilet. A building that is mostly glass in Brazil made the mistake of also making the wall of the toilet out of see through glass, something that “obviously needs some adjustments” when a planning secretary was questioned about it. The blog post also mentions a public toilet in the middle of a street that has one way glass, so if you’re sat on it then it looks like you’re literally doing your business in the street while people walk past. Thankfully they can’t see you, but personally I think it would take away my urge to actually go.

If that doesn't float your boat, you could always try the ‘world’s largest toilet’ in Japan, which is basically a toilet in the middle of a large garden. Oh, the many ways to go to the loo!

(Via OddityCentral)

In California Toilets Now Float On Water

There will come a time in your life when - no matter what you may be doing at the time - you really have to go. You may be floating 220miles away from earth in the International Space Station (in which case your toilet going experience is going to differ a bit more from what you’re normally used to) or you could be speeding around a lake on a boat when the need suddenly strikes you. The latter is obviously far more realistic to the average joe, but like the need for astronauts to go in space the call has now been answered for people who enjoy a bit of time on the water and don’t want to rush back just to do their business.

Over on Lake Elsinore, in the Riverside Country of California, the Department of Parks and Recreation for the neighbouring city of the same name has come up with an idea to provide relief to all those boaters that are dying to go to the loo. They've installed two floating toilets on to the lake that have humorously been named SS Relief Stations No. 1&2.

You may wonder about the need for a toilet that floats on water, after all can’t they just return to the shore if they really need to go? Or simply just make sure they go before they head out? Lake Elsinore just so happens to be the largest natural freshwater lake in Southern California and is six miles long and around 1.5 miles wide, so the trip back to the toilets at the boating area can take a lot longer than simply popping to the loo when you’re normally out and about around town. The Lake, Parks and Recreation department Manager Claudia Davis said that “the best thing about the toilets is the convenience” but at $65,000 and $10,000 annual maintenance, is the price really worth it? Apparently they look great on the lake, although you've really got to question how good a pair of floating toilets can really look.

You could try floating a toilet from Bathroom World on water, but you’d probably just end up having to go to the toilet on the bottom of the lake in future. As such we recommend you use them for their intended purpose only, on solid ground!

The Toilets of Tokyo

If you've been reading this blog for a while then you've probably guessed that we’re pretty obsessed with Japanese toilets. From toilets you can control with your smartphone to toilets that could be next best goalkeeper in the FIFA World Cup, the Japanese seem to be ushering in a whole new era of toilet bliss. One day we may even travel to Japan and take you on a tour of Japan’s toilets, that is until we found out that GeekBeat TV has already beat us to it (and probably had a far bigger budget to do that too!).

The presenter confesses that she was “practically giddy” the whole time she was in Japan due to their toilets. Personally I’d probably be a bit more excited about other things if I was visiting Japan, although I have to admit that checking out the toilets would surprisingly be high on my agenda. Even electronics manufacturer Panasonic is getting into developing toilets now; presenting a toilet that can play music, has arm rests and will even squirt a bit of detergent into the loo when you flush it. Anything that means having to clean the toilet less is good in my book!

I'm waiting for the day when we can do a blog post about toilets on Mars, although I've heard that red dust tends to clog it up quite a bit! Hopefully NASA will offer Bathroom World the contract to supply these toilets, although to be fair we've yet to test them on Mars.

Good Eats? This Blog Also Reviews Restaurant Bathrooms

As strange as it may sound we've already read about people who take up the heroic task of documenting the various bathrooms they use on their travels. From the fascinating yet often disgusting Toilets of New York to the boring blandness that makes up the locations photographed for the Bathrooms of UCSD blog there is something out there for anyone who is interested into take a peek at the world’s huge variety of public bathrooms – if anyone else out there even is!

The new guy on the block is Table and Throne, a blog that tells us the only thing we’d ever want to know when planning a trip to a restaurant in San Francisco; are the bathrooms any good? Ok, before the detailed bathroom review you do get to find out if the food is any good. There’s little point in going to a restaurant if the food and drink that’s going to make you go to the bathroom is a bit rubbish to begin with. Nobody ever said; “Hey, the food sucks in this restaurant but I'm going to keep coming here just because I absolutely love the bathrooms!” and if they did then you probably want to reconsider being their friend.

So, you end up with a blog that discusses the food quality and atmosphere of a restaurant in the same vein as it talks about whether the bathroom is worth taking a leak in. You get to find out how big the bathroom is, what the décor is like, the temperature, how clean it is and if there are any tunes being pumped into there so you can tap your foot while standing at the urinal. Some bathrooms, like those in the Salt House, make you travel through a warren of corridors before you finally reach the throne; others, like The Loring Café, have gorgeous bathrooms that look like a bathroom that a “Spanish version of Bilbo Baggins” would own.

As snarky as I'm being this is a good idea as going to the bathroom is very much a part of the overall restaurant experience. The big question remains though; if the food, décor and atmosphere of a restaurant was all top notch but the bathrooms were awful, would you still go? Maybe the best food in the world isn’t worth the sudden shock of running out of toilet roll.

67% of Britons Have Injured Themselves in the Bathroom

Have you ever injured yourself while going to the bathroom? Whether it’s a slip or a cut from a shaver there are a number of injuries that one could sustain simply through the normal everyday use of the humble bathroom. Don’t fret if you have sustained an injury though, a survey conducted by UKBathrooms.com has revealed that you’re very much in the majority.

The poll asked 1,844 British adults if they’d ever sustained an injury whilst using the bathroom and a massive 67% said they had suffered from some form of bruising as a result of a bathroom accident. We suspect this is due to slipping in the bath or on the floor, something I've managed to do plenty of times. Another 48% of the respondents said that they have received cuts, which is most likely to be cuts from shaving, while 22% say they have broken a bone. I think the latter is actually quite high, and they must have been some pretty nasty falls!

Some of the accidents that occurred included someone dislocating their shoulder while trying to grab their iPhone out from the toilet (something I've had to do myself, and unsurprisingly the phone gave up working) while another lost three front teeth after bashing their head against the sink while trying to remove their trousers when drunk. Ouch!

The director of UKBathrooms.com Peter Gregg said, perhaps with a bewildered look on his face: “Looking at our poll, it seems that the bathroom is a more dangerous place than you might initially expect. It seems that being drunk, or just lacking in common sense, increases the hazard potential incredibly.” Quite right Peter, quite right!

So, apart from having more common sense, how can you stay safe in the bathroom? Firstly, non-slip bath mats are a great idea for both inside the bath and on the bathroom floor. I have a soft rug next to my bath, although obviously this will collect moisture more and will need regular washing. The benefit is that you’re extremely unlikely to slip on a rug. Having a non-slip bath mat in the bath is also a brilliant idea as a large percentage of slips occur here.

Installing grab rails around your bathroom will also help prevent slips, and will especially be useful for disabled and elderly people. As we get older we’ll have a harder time getting out of the bath, so a grab rail is the difference between getting out of the bath safely or struggling to get up and ending up slipping and falling. It’s also a good idea to ensure you have good lighting in your bathroom, especially as our eyesight deteriorates with age. Also make sure that your shower controls are at a height that is easy to reach for the entire family, as that way people don’t have to stretch and increase their likelihood of having an accident.

Keeping safe in the bathroom is simple enough if you take the necessary precautions and keep your surroundings in mind, although you’ll probably still bang your bum on the sink from time to time!

Inside Walt Disney World's Actually Quite Boring Bathrooms

This bathroom in Epcot has gone all 80's!

I went to Walt Disney World in Florida back in 2000. Due to that fantastic 3 week trip you’d think that I could easily come back and describe the décor that Disney chooses to lavish its many theme park bathrooms in, but given that I was only 13 at the time the bathroom design got the least of my attention when I was in such a magical place. There’s also the fact that Disney have probably changed how the bathrooms look in the nearly 13 years since I've been there, at least I hope they have anyway. Still, I was intrigued to get an idea about what they look like now and if the bathrooms are just as magical as the rest of Disney’s theme parks.

It turns out that the answer is no, in most cases. You may wonder just how much magic you can put in a bathroom, but time and time again we see some pretty brilliantly designed and gorgeous looking bathrooms so I think that Disney missed a trick here. Most of the Disney bathrooms that are featured on this site are as bland and boring as the bathrooms you’d get in a motorway service station. I know that they have to be big to accommodate the amount of people flowing through the parks daily, but at least put some creative effort into it Disney! For example, you’d think in Frontierland at Magic Kingdom they’d been an opportunity to create a cowboy style wood effect bathroom, and while the outside is certainly unique once you get inside it’s just as boring as any other public bathroom can be.

It’s important to note that most of the photos I could find were from back in 2005, so things could certainly have changed since then. It’s also worth noting that not all of Disney’s bathrooms have as much creativity as a gnat landing on a paint brush. A recently opened Rapunzel section of Magic Kingdom does something a little different, fitting the theme of the area inside the bathrooms too; so you've got Disney fantasy style cubicle doors and nice brick effect tiled walls. They've also opened a Tangled themed rest area, with cooking pans attached to the walls where mirrors would normally be, giving the bathroom an old age kitchen feel. A lot of the bathrooms also have brilliantly designed entrances; it’s just a shame that the inside doesn't match it.

If you’re off to Disney World any time soon you may be a bit worried about where to find the bathrooms, and just how crowded they’ll be. Thankfully Examiner have put together a guide that gives you an idea about where to find the bathrooms, how to avoid those packed with people and to make sure you go before you enter the long line for a ride.

Epcot bathroom image by Joe Shlabotnik on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons license.

How to Clean Your Bathroom in Under 20 Minutes

We had the landlord coming around the other day, a visit we had organised ourselves for him to have a look at a problem with our oven hob. Since we had been really busy the weekend before we hadn't had chance to clean the house; as we don’t generally do it on a weekday after work due to various other things we need to do and the fact that working all day means you don’t really want to end up cleaning your house from top to bottom when you finally get home. So, it was a big rush to give the house a clean before the landlord arrived and part of my list of jobs was cleaning the bathroom. It turns out that he only stopped 5 minutes anyway and didn't even look upstairs, but it’s not like we could leave the bathroom uncleaned anyway!

It’s amazing how much fluff and dust builds up on surfaces like the bath and sink, mostly because it sticks to the damp surface. That’s why I've always advocated drying down surfaces after a shower or bath, leaving some time for the water vapour to go out through the windows or extractor fan (although it’s hard to completely avoid condensation). It doesn't always work out that way though, especially if you’re in a rush to leave the house. I also don’t like to spend an awful lot of time cleaning as I think there are far more constructive things to do with your time, so I try to get the bathroom clean in as little time as possible. Whereas my mum used to take hours to clean the bathroom from top to bottom, I generally take about 15 minutes and still manage to make it look nice and shiny.

Here are my tips for getting the bathroom clean as fast as possible.

• Get everything together first - Make sure you've gathered everything you need to clean the bathroom before you even begin. Wipes, gloves, clothes, disinfectant etc. In an ideal world these would be kept in the bathroom anyway, but with storage space limited I tend to keep them in the kitchen downstairs. You don’t want to be running up and downstairs while doing your job; it can easily distract you as you end up putting something away in the kitchen when you should be concentrating on the bathroom. Do one task at a time, and be prepared!
• Clear surfaces for cleaning and quickly check what needs throwing - Clear all the surfaces you need to clean before you start, that way you’re not stopping to move things every time you start on a new surface. If you find things like shampoo bottles that are empty, or you've started on a new shower gel before using the tiny bit left in the previous one, get rid of them. You should be disposing of them when you finish, but you know that’s probably not going to happen. Also, store things that usually go in your bathroom cabinet back there.
• Grab a disinfectant wipe, or spray surfaces like the basin and bath with disinfectant and wipe with a cloth – Also put on gloves to avoid having irritants on the skin. Wipe swiftly but cover as much surface as you can, but be aware that dust can collect on your wipe and you may end up knocking it elsewhere. I tend to have a bowl full of water ready so I can wash the dust off, so you’re not rubbing it all over other surfaces. Give the surface a second wipe after you do this.
• Spend more time on the basin – The bath still needs to be cleaned, obviously, but the basin is used a lot more and tends to collect hairs and all sorts of gunk. Because it’s smaller you can spend more time on it without having to stretch to get at spots. You can rinse the bath down quickly using a bucket of water or even the shower.
• Wipe down the inside of the toilet – Use a disinfectant wipe and wipe around the inside, before moving to the rim and the toilet seat (don’t forget to do the underneath of the toilet seat, especially if guests tend to leave it up). I then put some bleach down, leave it for a few minutes and flush the toilet. • Use white vinegar to wipe down the bathroom mirror – You can use glass cleaner if you wish but I find white vinegar to be a more affordable solution that works just as well. Try to put a little more time into it because if you roughly wipe down that new bathroom mirror you’ll only end up leaving streaks all over it, and that doesn't make for a spotless bathroom.
• Remove items that belong in other rooms – Anything that doesn't normally belong in your bathroom, such as that random hair brush, should be collected together and put back where it belongs once you've cleaned the bathroom.
• Mop it – You don’t have to go mad with the map, just go over it a couple of times and you’re done. Most people don’t have a massive bathroom space anyway so the floor shouldn't take too long to clean.

All this sounds like a lot but once you get started, which is often the hardest part of beginning any task, you’ll be surprised at how quick each task takes you if you just focus on getting it done. We tend to make things harder than they actually are, usually because it’s something we don’t want to do, but remember that getting it done will leave more time for things you actually want to do.