Who puts carpet in a bathroom?
Assholes, that’s who.
I think maybe my Cats and Other Assholes theme this week has been a very bad idea because within about two hours of the first post, the fill rate and thus revenue on my ad spaces took a catastrophic nosedive which has yet to recover. I’m talking an 80% decrease, and the only explanation is the instance of the word “asshole” on my front page at least 735 times. If the ad crawler thingy scans comments, too, oh sweet baby Jesus. You people employed so many variations of the word “asshole” that my heart simply bursts with pride.
Anyway. Negative consequences never stopped me before so let’s not stop now. Today’s subject is people who behold a bare bathroom floor, above which sits water-producing objects such as toilets, sinks, and bathtubs, and say to themselves, “Hey! Let’s nail an absorbent, hard-to-clean, fabric-based material down there!” Assholes.
My house was once owned but just such assholes. The master bath contained brand new wall-to-wall carpet (regular, normal, non-special carpet exactly like what’s in the bedroom) when I moved in so whoever did this is still alive and breathing somewhere, which I’m not sure how I feel about.
My worst fear is that the toilet will overflow, thus filling thousands of tiny fibers and the spaces between them with raw sewage.
This fear haunts me.
How would I clean that up? Where can I buy a Hazmat suit? How many applications of color-safe bleach would it take before I can sleep at night? Would it be best to just set the carpet on fire? Can I sue the carpet installer under some sort of Asshole Clause? There should be one of those clauses.
Seriously. Why? Why would a sane person think that putting carpet on the BATHROOM FLOOR is a good idea? Do they not understand that there are these things called rugs, you can buy them at many shopping establishments, and they’re just like carpet as far as keeping your feet warm, but you can pick them up and throw them in the washing machine, or in the garbage if they get sewage on them? Huh assholes?
Rugs. Spelled R-U-G-S. The ones that go in your bathroom are even helpfully labeled as “Bathroom Rugs,” so that even the dimmest among us can figure it out. They’re inexpensive and come in any color or design your heart can imagine. It really is amazing, the achievements of civilization. Just remarkable.
Oh hell, forget about overflows. I haven’t seen a toilet do that in about 20 years. There are everyday practical matters at stake here, too, such as when it’s time to scrub the toilet surrounded by carpet. It requires a feat of coordination, care, and paranoid germ warfare techniques that’s really unmatched.
Because of course the carpet in the bathroom is not white. Which means that if you use a toilet cleaner containing bleach, watch out! No splashing! Not to mention that what you’re splashing is TOILET WATER. You get some of that on a tile floor, no problem. Wipe it up with something containing bleach and you’re good to go.
Let’s really get into the nitty gritty of this problem because there’s nothing you want to read about on a blog more than toilet-related filth, right? I figure, if I’m going to publicly claim that people who put carpet in bathrooms are assholes, I need to back it up with cold hard facts, as foul as they are.
Such as this. Have you ever cleaned a bathroom that hadn’t been cleaned in a while? I know you have. I have. For example, when I was 19 years old I went to visit my brother and his roommate while they were in the Army and living in a trailer off base. They hadn’t cleaned their bathroom in approximately 40 years so I foolishly offered to do it.
How do I describe the situation on the floor in an 18-inch radius around the toilet? I truly do not know. All I can say is that I learned a very valuable lesson that day: men miss.
They miss the bowl. With their urine. A LOT.
I thought at the time that perhaps my brother and his buddy were especially disgusting young men and this was an anomaly, but over the years since then, I have had occasion to visit the bathrooms of many men (it’s not what it sounds like, shut up, I’m talking about parties in college and such, although that still sounds bad but come on give me some credit here) and was able to conclude that it’s a simple phenomenon of nature. The incident at my brother’s had so traumatized me that to this day, I can’t go into any bathroom without surreptitiously surveying the periphery around the toilet, and the fact of the matter is what I already said. Men miss. Especially the very tall ones.
So point being, when you have carpet on the bathroom floor, guess what? IT’S FULL OF PISS.
And I haven’t even begun to cover the most basic reason that putting carpet in the bathroom is an asshole thing to do, and that is the simple fact that good household hygiene dictates that the bathroom floor be sterilized on a regular basis. Surely by now we’ve all seen the newsmagazine episode on 20/20 or Dateline or whatever about how disgusting bathroom floors become over time since each flush sends tiny droplets of dirty toilet water all over your bathroom (it’s true! and is a good reason to close the lid before flushing and also a good reason to replace your toothbrush frequently), and how moldy and generally yucky the whole room gets because of all the moisture and body-cleaning activities that take place there.
With a tile floor, all you gotta do is mop with disinfectant once a week or whatever, and you’re good to go. Carpet floors? I don’t know! You tell me! Am I supposed to rent a carpet cleaner and deep-steam that fucker dozens of times a year?
I believe I have made my case: people who put carpet on bathroom floors are assholes.
I too once lived in a house where the asshole landlord had carpet in the bathroom. I figured it was not only a retarded asshole thing to do, but he could then try to screw me out of my security deposit. So renters out there, beware the bathroom carpet scam!
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:10 pmWe have a bathroom that is carpeted. Also no door, just an archway, but that’s another thing altogether. Fortunately the toilet is in a tiled ‘water closet’ with a separate door. And I do mean closet. Probably just a cubic foot or so from setting off my claustrophobia. However we have to keep rugs on the carpet in front of the shower stall to keep from having the largest petri dish in the world.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:15 pmAmen! The asshole that first thought that installing a filth sponge on the bathroom floor was a good idea deserves to be punished. I decree that from now until each fiber is removed from bathroom floors, this asshole is served dinner right off the toilet shag.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:16 pmNo, I don’t. Miss, that is. Freakishly paranoid about that sort of thing. Yug.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:18 pmMen peeing: Splash effect where the small water drops splash back out. If just flushing a toilet can send water out, what can water from a height of 2 feet over the toilet do? Then there is the pressure change effect that’s not always detectable in time. Then there is trying to get the drops just sitting in the tube out and only shakes will do it so those drops go everywhere.
It’s not JUST the fact of missing. But that happens at times too.
And then there are men that must just not care.
I hate the women who think that because men miss, they have a license to degrade and put down all men. Fortunately, the blogger here doesn’t do that. There is no need to understand as there is no need to do the degrading.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:20 pmWell, after years of missing. I finally figured out how to not miss. I just use the sink instead. It is at exactly the right height. (Just kidding!)
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:25 pmThat’s not always true. Take me, for instance. I’m 6′4″, but I’m still closer to the bowl than most men.
Ahem.
If you know what I mean.
Just sayin’.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:26 pmWhen mongoman and I purchased our current home the fact that EVERY bathroom (all 3 1/2 of them) was carpeted didn’t even register until after the sale. Only one has had the carpet removed, but if I don’t get the ‘dusty rose’ out of the master bath post haste I’m gonna go nuts. Not only does the whole peepee drippins around the toilet give me the collywobbles, but there is a truly funky mark where the shower door swings out and drips into the carpet.
I know for certain the black mold will kill us all eventually.
I don’t blame the builders, I think it was the crazy woman who lived here before me. The ICM (Idiot Clown Midget) put wallpaper on every exposed surface imaginable. I still have a nervous tic from removing that stuff from the kitchen. Wallpaper on top of wallpaper. Assholette.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:29 pmThe older I get, the more I think that wall-to-wall carpeting is not a good idea anyway. Dat shit be nasty. Specially when you have a pet with a tendency to scoot.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:33 pmI am careful, but still miss. When I do, I clean it up. I wish I could say the same for my sons. Their bathroom looks like the public shitter in a Greyhound station, except with fewer used condoms. Needless to say, I almost never use it, and make them sanitize it before anyone comes to visit.
Still, better than footpads over an open drain, like you still see in Crete on occasion.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:54 pmThere is carpet in exactly two places in the house: on the stairs to the bedroom level and in my wife’s office, which is locked most of the time. We learned long ago that cats and carpet do not mix. And carpet in a bathroom is a disaster waiting to happen. We learned that the hard way.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:59 pmMen miss because the direction of the flow at the beginning of the operation is not the same as its direction about half a second later. I have it on very good authority.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:00 pm1) this is the sort of thing I don’t likw to think about, because I’ll just go crazy from the paranoia.
2) I almost bought a house that had carpet in the bathroom, and I immediatly clued in to it. “Who the fuck puts carpet in the bathroom” are the exact words out of my mouth. (didn’t not buy the house because of that, we ended up moving to a different state).
2a) toilet overflow was the exact worst fear I had upon seeing the carpet. Now your deep analysis into the realm of missed targets has me totally creeped out.
3) um, your dogs drink toilet water, right? and what do you do with those mouths?
4) fuck color safe bleach! The only way you know it’s working is when it turns shit white!
5) women can be and are just as disgusting as men when it comes to toilet cleanliness. Think back to the sorority girls who hung out at the fraternity all the time. The bathrooms relagated to them (if any) were way nastier than the men’s bathrooms.
6) boyd is funny!
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:02 pmOn a bathroom tangent, what is the deal with men’s restrooms in bars that have stalls without doors on them? It’s not like the door is broken or anything it’s just not there. This is fine if all you have to do is drain the main vein, but if you’re dropping off your kids at the pool—one of the most embarrassing situations for a guy IMHO is to be in a bar bathroom trying to find an empty stall and walking around the corner to witness another dude grunting out a sewer pickle. And if you’re the dude on the toilet…wow, red faces galore. Bar owners, at least put up a shower curtain or something for a little privacy.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:04 pm(Sheepishly raises hand) Guilty. Even when I aim carefully. Even when I pinch the tip beforehand to make sure the nozzle opens cleanly. Every now and then, it just sticks partway shut when the flow begins, and you get (A) a diversion of the stream up to 30 degrees off target (a “hook” or a “slice”); or worse, (B) the dreaded “split-stream” effect at up to a 45-degree angle so you can’t correct your aim to keep either stream from splashing off the rim of the bowl.
It’s disgusting. It’s infuriating. And it’s why I keep a spray bottle filled with bleach/water solution on the top of the toilet tank and a roll of paper towels in the cabinet. Also why I may even sit down to piss if I’m stumbling to the bathroom half-asleep at 3 AM and don’t want to even turn the lights on, let alone risk having to wipe pee-splash off the rim and the tile floor.
My parents bought a place with not only a carpeted bathroom floor (since re-done), but a bathroom located totally to the interior of the house, with no windows or other means of ventilation besides that ineffectual exhaust fan. Who the fuck designs a house that way? Never mind airing it out after a Numero Dos, what about clearing the moisture out of the air after a shower so it doesn’t mildew?
Assholes.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:05 pmMy guess would be that it makes shooting heroine more difficult.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:08 pmcarpets in bathrooms has always confounded me. I’ve noticed it on television when watching British shows on cable.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:15 pmHave you tried something like ?
Since I’ve been in the house cleaning business for a long time I have come to VALUE a really good steam cleaner.
I’ve never done more than a surface steaming on a carpet with a “carpet glider” to kill dust mites and try to remove smells, but maybe there is one that can do more.
Can you secure plastic on the floor around the base of the toilet for the misses and splashes-so it won’t even reach the carpet.
Maya asks,
EWWW! No, I can assure you that my dogs do NOT drink out of the toilets. Gross, gross, gross, I would rather DIE. Seriously…die. I’ve heard some dogs (AND ASSHOLE CATS!) do this, but none of mine ever have. Rupert has me in the habit of keeping the lid closed (which obviously I realized was a great idea when I moved in here with the carpeted bathroom), but even before I met him, my dogs never drank out of the toilets; never even tried. If they did, I would have started keeping the lids closed long before I met Rupert. Because that is just gross. But a very good point Maya and I think I may have to blog a whole post about this very issue. I bet plenty of people here let their animals do that and I would like to have a word with them.
Now. Normally I would think it’s way too early in the comment thread to give out the CHUHG Award, but I am going to make an exception in this case for some of the comments above. Mongo for “peepee drippins around the toilet give me the collywobbles”, Boyd for the penis joke, and G Fresh for “sewer pickle.” Heh. That’s a new one for me and I LOVE IT. So for them, this:
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:22 pmI agree with the sentiment that carpet is not a good idea, in any room. I don’t even like area rugs in bathrooms because I know they don’t get cleaned often enough. I like the motel room thing, the little towel that you place in front of the shower moments before you step in.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:25 pmIt could be worse. One (or more) of my dogs has been taking delight in peeing on the base of our toilets.
At least our bathrooms aren’t carpeted.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:25 pmI have never seen or heard of carpet in bathroom. (Still not talking about the smooth, hard, plastic carpet which I have.) The mere thought makes me think of Twilight Zone.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:31 pmWhen I bought the house I’m in, there was wall-to-wall carpet that had been down for the 15 year lifespan of the house. Not in the bathroom, mind you, but everywhere else. I pulled that carpet up to put in hardwood floors. I have never dealt with anything so nasty in all my life. You can’t imagine the evidence of “spillage”. The bathroom floors were tile thank the maker.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:44 pmp.s. The house before that had carpet in the kitchen. Just let your imagination do the work.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:46 pmWell, I’m a plumber and believe me, I’ve seen some nasty shit, literally. Like the dildo who’s toilet was plugged, but he kept using it anyway, just not flushing it. I made him bail it out and clean the thing before I pulled it. I guess he was a literal Dipshit!
Another thing about carpet around shitters is if your flange seal were to develop a leak, you probably won’t know about it and your floor could rot. I don’t know how many times I’ve had people call and say their toilet is loose and needs tightened. They’re usually about ready to fall through the fucking floor at that point. I’ve also seen a lot of rotted floors in front of tubs and showers with carpeted floors, they get soaked and never dry out completely.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:47 pmIf I miss, I clean it up. It’s that simple. I lived with a roommate from Vietnam for a year, and he went far and beyond a few shots here and there. Large puddles. No joke. I think the alveoli in my lungs are permanently damaged from all the bleach I’ve used to clean that shit up. The grout between the tiles used to be a light gray. It’s now either white from the bleach or black in the spots where I didn’t feel like going behind the toilet. And I never even thought about going barefoot in there.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:57 pmMy master bath is a Mayan/Aztec stone chamber. Or soon will be, once the remodel is complete.
Yeah I know, I’m odd. But it’s MY bathroom, for crissakes.
So what kinda carpeting goes with creamed limestone?
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:58 pmHaverwilde, I once went to take a piss in the sink after a night on the beer, but it was filled with dishes that my ex hadn’t even bothered to wash.
She could be lazy, that way.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:59 pmAnd here I thought this was going to be another screed about cats pissing on bathroom rugs! silly me. way to go. I once lived in a brand new 250K rental with carpet in the master bedroom. To make matters worse, when I first ran the jacuzzi, all this drywall and cement crap came spewing into the tub. It took 5 fills to clear it out, only to discover that the hot water heater couldn’t support all the water the damned tubed required to make the jacuzzi warm enough. F-n rack builders. Never again.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:04 pmWhen we bought our house, every bit of floor except the kitchen and mud room were covered with beige wall-to-wall Berber carpet — including all the bathrooms! (The sellers proudly informed us it was brand new and genuine wool. Whoop-tee-dee.)
We’re not wall-to-wall carpet people. We have spent years (and plenty of $$$) removing that carpet and replacing it with hardwood or tile. (It’s finally down to one room: the home office.) I believe the sellers did it because they were cheap bastards and it saved them the cost of finishing the plywood sub-flooring.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:14 pmThe DNC would be bankrupt, baby,
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:24 pmOh Mongo, I feel for you. I finally removed the last of the wallpaper in our house this summer. Only the crazy homeowner that put up our wallpaper? Put it right on top of bare sheet rock. So not only did I have to tear down the wallpaper, I had to mud and prime the walls once I was done.
Luckily we have no carpet in the bathroom, especially because Mr. Lucy is one messy pee-er. Love that man, but he drinks like a fish and pees a lot.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:27 pmOh dear. Carpeted bathrooms. Ugh.
My husband is a actually a flooring installer and he shares the same hatred for carpeted bathrooms as you do, Rachel. Mostly because he gets the wonderful job of ripping them up 20 years later. When people move into houses and discover exactly what you have.
It IS as bad as you think it is. Hazmat suit zone doesn’t even begin to describe how foul they are.
Bathroom carpet - its the 21st century version of asbestos.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:28 pmCATS REALLY ARE ASSHOLES, end of story.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:45 pmWell, piddle dee dee!
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:49 pmI hope you were at least decent enough to shove the dishes over to one side first.
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:25 pmYou haven’t seen a toilet overflow in 20 years? Screw the oil and beef, you Texans should be marketing that technology, you could make a lot of money.
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:27 pm[TMI Warning]
Sometime during my teens, I learned to crouch over the toilet for the first few seconds to guard against the 30-degree error mentioned above.
Rachel: in advance of your post on nasty dog owners who let their dogs drink from the toilet: my freinds have a dog who actually won’t drink from anything BUT the toilet. It’s because his water dish is the glug-glug kind, and if it glugs while he’s drinking he totally freaks. Yeah, he’s a little skiddish.
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:46 pmUmmm…that is awesome! Can I put this award on my resume’?
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:48 pmI live on a large waterfront lot 12 miles out of town. I believe in the old saying about men “The whole world is their urinal.” Thus it is real hard to miss.
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:50 pmWe lived in the country for many years and the house always had a “Sit Down or Pee Outside!” sign on the toilet tank. Helped a lot!
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:03 pmIt has always vexed me that men, equipped as they are with a spout, can still manage to miss the bowl.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:08 pmThere’s nothing to do but tear the carpet out of your bathroom. It’d be better to have bare plywood (until you get around to tiling) rather than carpet.
We were recently shopping for a used mobile home for our country weekend property, and saw more than one “rehabbed” mobile home with carpet in the bathroom. Feck that. I definitely agree it is the “cheapskate dodge” alternative to tile or wood.
In the one we did buy, everything that is now carpet will become tile eventually. Wall to wall carpeting really is quite disgusting after it is more than a couple years old.
Oh kae? I’ve got a proposition for you. You hold it and I’ll let go when you say “when”, and we’ll see how you do.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:11 pmAugust 22nd, 2008 at 8:21 pm
You know who is an asshole? Steven Weber that’s who’s an asshole.
Every night I pray he writes something at the Huff Post just so Rachel can rip him a new one. His thesaurus is an asshole too.
And 14 Karat is a special kind of special.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:38 pmthanks 14k, now I’m gonna have rice pudding flavored boogers for a week! Someone should make a sign that says “WARNING: EXTREME FUNNY AHEAD”. Oh wait. we already have one: “14 Karat”
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:40 pm14K, STOP! You’re KILLING me here! My sides hurt from laughing!
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:13 pmSitting is the simple and obvious solution to the splashing problem, with a bonus for older men who need more time and bookworms everywhere. You can get in a few more pages of reading instead of minding your aim.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:27 pmHardwood everywhere at our house. Long haired Lacey (who enjoyed her fifteen minutes when her pic appeared on the world famous RL Blog) makes washable throw rugs a must.
As a landlord, I have dedicated my later years to eliminating anything that attracts dirt, water, or mold to our houses.
Folks who carpet the bathroom floor usually can’t resist putting a matching fluffy cover on the seat lid.
Yes, men do miss! As Frank says, “It’s not a laser!” Yuck, a carpeted bathroom is even worse than a carpeted kitchen (and yes, I rented a house that had a carpeted kitchen).
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:41 pmoh! Thanks for reminding me, TLaT SarahK! I lived in a place with a carpeted kitchen (just basic office grade short nap) which I thought was pretty stupid. But it was short enough it wasn’t really a problem, and only because I never made any serious liquid spills. Now, I had a friend whose kitchen was also carpeted. Super short nap again but the print of the carpet was supposed to look like earthen tiles. Needless to say it did not pull off the desired look. It was hideous.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:00 pmRachel: amen and hallelujah
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 pmBoyd: amen and hallelujah to you too. LOL
From urban dictionary.
Sonnybeachedherself.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:15 pmYuck.
I had a hell hole roach-infested apartment where the owner had put down the sort of thin, tough carpet you’d find on a porch (which is also stupid, but that’s another story). What inspired him to do this in a building full of filthy people that hadn’t cleaned a room in their lives is beyond me, and I never did come up with a way to suitably disinfect the bathroom. I usually wore sandals in there.
This is the same bathroom as one of my favorite stories: the shower had a few missing tiles, and the tub backed up. Every once in a while, a cockroach would crawl out of the hole in the wall, lose his footing, and slide down the tub into the six inches of water in the at the bottom, paddling around your feet like it’s some kind of super-fun bug-sized waterpark ride. With me freaking out and jumping naked onto the carpet, which would then grow yet another layer of mildew from the shower water.
Oh, and I miss. Especially when I’m drunk, which I usually am. I try not to, but do this: get a water bottle, drink a half dozen or so martinis, then try to spray it full blast from a height of three feet into a toilet bowl without any splashing about. Actually, I usually take some toilet paper and clean up after myself. ‘Cause I’m married like that.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:26 pmI used to work at a hobby shop (sold trains, RC cars, rockets) and was the only female there. I remember the bathroom vividly. The tiles around the toilet were a different color than the rest, not by any design. One day, the manager’s dad asked me to clean the bathroom. I told him the day he and the rest of the men stopped peeing on the floor I might consider it. He never asked me again.
The only thing worse than a man missing is the woman who feels the need to pee all over the lid of the public toilet. That takes some real class to leave it for the next unwitting victim.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:26 pmIn my office, we call those the mystery sprinklers. And wonder WTF that woman is packing in her jockies.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:35 pmOh, and in less than ten years (with an Army diversion or two), I’ve gone from that hellhole apt to a modest house on a half acre, with a pool and an awesome kitchen and enough room that the wife and I each have our own offices. It’s not graceland, but I love it; it’s probably the nicest place I’ve lived in my entire life, and only carpeted in two rooms. Neither of which are a bathroom. God bless America, is all I’m sayin’.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:43 pmI think us guys are getting a bad rap for our “poor aim”. You have to understand that women are to blame for our, um……..missed opportunities? Allow me to explain.
After we have sex with you girls, the end of our, um………weiners, um……………how do I say this.
Anyway.
Sometimes when we urinate the morning after sex, it comes out in two or three streams, and only one stream can hit the bowl at a time. We gyrate our hips around trying to focus on the multiple streams to determine which one has the most volume, and thus will be the one you don’t want to spend 30 seconds mopping up with a wad of toilet paper. The other stream or streams invariably hit the floor, and sometimes, our own feet, and yes we climb right back in bed with you.
If you girls would stop having sex with us, you’d definitely have cleaner bathrooms.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:47 pmUmmm … okay … your request is our demand.
Incentive. I has it now. You pee on your feet, and then spoon with us. Thanks for the … uhhmmm … tip.
And Steve, maya and Mare …
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:55 pmA captioned picture is worth 10,000 words. Thanks. I like that ahm speshul, cuz’ we’re all speshul, and that’s what makes us all speshul. For me, this’ll always be the short bus … snaps to blogdog.
Why can’t you boys just sit and dangle? I mean, really.
And don’t tell me it would get wet, Boyd, even Ron Jeremy would be safe from that particular peril.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:22 pmPee in my potty at your own risk.
Via .
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:29 pmWhen I lived in Scotland a local joker left an enormous toilet trout and actually put up a sign that said “Endangered Baby Nessie- Do not Flush”
Asshole
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:37 pmI did it. Yes. Ugly but true. And it was just because I was cheap. I could save a couple hundred dollars by not changing the flooring as it went through the house, so carpet everywhere except the utility and kitchen.
And I did that too. Yes. Nasty, nasty, nasty. An enormous, lunker of a pile of sewer pickles (that is lovely. Really. Lovely.) that stopped up the toilet and then it just kept running (me having no idea that it was still running or clogged, as I left the room.)
When I re-entered an hour or so later I encountered a fricking natural disaster.
So, now we have tile. And yes, it costs more. But I’m still alive to enjoy it, which would not have happened if the carpet had remained in the loo.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:41 pmSome of you are sharing a bit too much.
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:17 amOhhh bad toilet stories - try living with three New Zealand (over six foot tall) men in the tiniest shoebox in the universe, in Tokyo. The toilet/bathroom was so small that when I sat on the dunny I could lean my head on the opposite wall. No carpet, thankfully but uuurrrrrgggggghhhhhhh
Oh boy, you guys have just taken me back to a really scary place.
*sticks fingers in her ears, shuts eyes and starts reciting over and over ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’ in a very loud voice.*
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:52 amOnce in a while, I’d get pissed off that I couldn’t pee standing up.
Now after reading about Para’s post sex pee hokey pokey and shennanigans, I’m inclined to be rather glad that I can’t, lol.
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:03 amOh. Yes.
Our first house was carpeted. Everywhere. All Avocado green shag, except the bathroom, which was a lovely shade of titty pink. And the bonus was that, at some time in the past, small children were housebroken in that bathroom using one of those hideous tiny “potty chairs,” in which they obviously did not remain seated through the entire performance.
Each exit from the shower, dampening the floor, would cause the fragrance of their efforts to bloom all over that room, which, of course, had no exhaust fan.
We had to rip down drywall and toss insulation to make that bathroom right.
Assholes does not begin to describe it.
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:19 amAhh, carpeted bathrooms, one of the first things I notice when looking at a house and a factor on any offer I might make. My mother’s house has carpeted bathrooms and its just… ugh.
Also, what is it these days with homes having laundry rooms on the second floor… So, so much that could go wrong there and totally fuck up your house.
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:24 amOn the subject of carpet:
What swine thought up the technique of putting raised strips of whatever all along the walls of a carpeted room to hold the carpet edges? How, exactly, is one supposed to place bookshelves in such a room? They LEAN!
So all my bookshelves have little rubber door-wedges under the front feet. Yes, it looks strange. A lot less strange than a room full of bookcases that constantly threaten to fall over, though.
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:17 am14 Karat:
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:47 amNo mystery about the mystery sprinklers. These are women who are so paranoid about “germs” that a quick wipe of the seat, or a paper cover, or lining the seat with tissue, or the mini Lysol spray that they carry just for that purpose just isn’t enough. They are still afraid to let their little fannies actually touch the toilet seat, so they hover their little butts over the seat, and sprinkle everywhere. Here’s a little known fact. Women don’t pee straight either, if they’re not sitting. And unless you are at least 5′7″ you can’t crouch over a toilet bowl. Should be no problem with the Lysol and disposable seat covers and all, right? They could just clean up after themselves, too, right? But they don’t care about who goes next, it’s “all about me.” I figured all this out after a sister-in-law actually peed on my toilet seat. I told her that if my house was so bad she was scared to sit on my toilet seat, she never had to come here again. She cleaned up her act, at least at my house.
Carpeting a bathroom should be punishable by forced sex with Rosie O’Donnel. I know a bullet would be more humane, but there are some crimes that just demand inhuman response…
It’s no mystery to me why some men miss. I’ve had the misfortune twice in the last two years to come out of my office and see some retard customer standing in the bathroom with the door wide open (it opens onto the customer area at the back desk) whizzing away, head thrown back looking at the ceiling. With a urinal twenty four inches to the right, he still felt the need to spray the toilet. Publicly.
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:34 amMorning wood & needing to take a leak real bad. Hate it.
EDIT: Even sitting down won’t solve that problem, mind you.
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:44 amI’m 6′4″ and sometimes I miss. It’s not as easy as it may seem to you ladies. Here’s an easy way to see what I mean. Take a water hose, hold only the last few inches of it at waist level and stand directly over a bucket. Have somebody else turn the water on (that way you don’t have any REAL control at when it starts and how much pressure there is). Sure, you’ll ALMOST-instantly get the water into the bucket, but those first few drops are very likely to land elsewhere.
Also, don’t forget that most men wake up in the morning with a condition that makes it VERY hard to be accurate (especially when you’re not fully conscious yet). As I said, I’m a tall guy, so if/when I wake up in that condition, it’s hard to actually bend it down far enough to be accurate, so I either have to do the whole “lean against the wall over the toilet at a 45 degree angle” trick, or my preferred method of standing farther away from the toilet to decrease the angle of the bend and slowly stepping closer as the pressure decreases towards the end. There’s a lot of science involved when a guy pisses in the morning.
And if you’re lucky enough to be taking a post-coitious whizz, then you’ve got a whole ‘nother problem, which is akin to doing the same water-hose trick mentioned above, only this time you cover half the hole with your finger.
Knowing this, most guys make a conscious effort to clean up any immediate damage as well as giving the whole area a good scrub down fairly often. But have a little patience with us ladies, it ain’t as easy as it looks.
Of course, we could just sit down to pee, but that would be gay.
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:57 amStanding to drain the vein was of course SOP for me, and I thought that I was a careful man with great aim. then came the day that I wore shorts and I REALLY had to go. we’re talking pressure here. When I felt the little ’sprinkles’ on my legs I completely freaked out. (my wife and kids call me Mr. Monk) Since that time I sit to go. I can’t get the thought of all those germs crawling around on my trousers out of my head and I can’t be changing my pants 5 times a day … so I sit!
one other little phrase for everyone: airplane toilets. I travel by air 3-4 times per week and I take along disinfectant spray (in my own little less than 3.5 oz bottle) and disinfectant wipes and I can still barely make myself go into one.
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:02 amMythbusters did an episode about toothbrush germs — the horrifying conclusion (if I remember correctly) was that bacteria gets on your toothbrush almost equally no matter where you leave it (even the control group). I change my toothbrush a LOT more often now.
And, although totally gross to even contemplate, human urine is safe and is actually a good antiseptic. Not that I’m OK with seeing it sprinkled on the toilet seats mind you!
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:47 amI saw that Mythbusters episode. I stopped being a germaphobe…at birth. Queen of the 5 second rule right here.
I’ve also heard multiple times from multiple sources that your skin serves as a natural ‘condom’ from toilet seat germs. So to all of the squatter ladies, enough. I don’t squat and I have yet to develop keester rot!
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:18 amEasy for you to say. YOU don’t have to worry about proper aim when you pee.
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:54 amWhy can’t you girls put the toilet seat back down yourselves?
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:54 amRachel: Who said it was a penis joke?
Sparrow: Believe it or not, I’ve…erm…experienced toilets where the water level was way too high. Ugh.
Donna: [tip of the cowboy hat] Thank ya!
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:59 amMighty,
I asked b-woman that question; once…
August 23rd, 2008 at 10:03 amMarku: 2words: Shower Stall. Think about it.
August 23rd, 2008 at 10:12 amAn old tenant of mine apparently sat to pee. But he was old and his urine hose must have shrunk. After several years he departed this earth in the usual way. I went to clean his apartment and even sitting he had routinely missed; so much so that there was a buildup of urine crystals a 1/4 inch thick on the front face of the shitteroo. Missing is not just a problem for the ‘stand and deliver’ guys, it is also a problem for the less endowed sitters.
August 23rd, 2008 at 10:52 amAnd “dip tip splashback”, my friends, is why men don’t sit down to pee.
August 23rd, 2008 at 10:59 amA few years back I broke my ankle - very bad break. My mother and I were downstairs, while daughter-child the younger went upstairs to my (then carpeted) bathroom to take a shower. There was a “Grandma! Help!” and Mom went up the stairs, while I was stuck on the couch wondering what had happened (I had only been out of the hospital a day or two).
Then water started pouring out of the ceiling vent.
Daughter-child had used the toilet prior to shower, and didn’t notice the toilet backing up. By the time she got out of the shower the water had flooded the bathroom and made it’s way into the bedroom. Water damage (especially TOILET water damage) is no fun. Especially on top of recently shattered bones for someone who doesn’t respond to Vicodin.
The insurance would have paid to recarpet the bathroom and my bedroom…I chose instead to go with tile in BOTH upstairs bathrooms in spite of the expense.
And then this summer…prior to leaving for Colorado the Boy (8 years old) apparently went to the bathroom for Numero Dos. And didn’t flush. We were gone a week. Eeeeewwwww! The complaints from the girls were many.
Not my problem - the Boy had to clean the toilet. With bleach. He now promises to always flush.
Now if I could only get him to shoot straight…
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:12 amAngel, actually, you can .
Yes, human pee is sterile, but if you have a bladder or kidney infection, it’s not so much.
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:37 amWhen the short man was potty training, I would toss in three cheerios for him to aim at, and thus attempt to sink.
We have two bathrooms in our double-wide. One is for ths children’s use, and the other for Mr. M and me to use. The reason — ours has carpet (fukkin cheap-ass trailer manufacturers!)
Recently, I noticed a trend of Becs waiting outside our bathroom, and at first I thought it was because we have surround mirrors, she is a ‘tween, and the gho(a)stly specter of pubesence is rearing its ugly head.
Boy was I ever wrong. When I tried to tease her about it, she set her little face in a grim line and said “mom, (short man) needs to take the Cheerios challenge again.”
And when I suggested that the short man needed to work on his aim, he simply looked disgusted and told me “it’s tough to aim right when you need to chop your morning wood.”
Here I am, stuck in the middle again. And wiping down the bathroom with a paper towel and a welding glove every morning in an attempt to strike a happy medium.
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:37 amYou’ve certainly convinced me that they keep and bear assholes, and are willing to use them. Urethras, too.
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:35 pmMongo’s story of the hobby store reminded me of this.
An acquaintance and his wife rent a large commercial space which used to house an Indian Motorcycle sales and service store. His description of the bathroom was beyond belief. It took several tries to get it in presentable condition.
I could be snarky and say that only worse place would have been a Harley-Davidson dealership, but the one that used to be in town was amazing. There you could have eaten off the showroom floor.
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:51 pmFunnily enough, urinal manufacturers do something similar.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a men’s room before but sometimes the urinals have a little bug painted right onto the porcelain. Apparently, most men tend to subconsciously aim for it while they take care of business.
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:03 pmSo there were these two guys standing by a stream at night, relieving themselves into the water:
FIRST GUY: Damn, this water’s cold.
SECOND GUY: Yeah. Deep, too.
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:05 pmI totally agree with you on this one and I go a step further in my annoyance with carpet to include the kitchen, why would you put carpet in a place that you can drop food, messy food or grease that splatters when your frying something–what idiots, and you can’t clean it out of the carpet. I’ll tell you there are rocket scientists everywhere. Keep up the good work, I love your rants, they make me laugh a lot. Your Cuz.
August 23rd, 2008 at 2:40 pmI’d leave a long witty comment, but I have to go clean my bathroom.
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:06 pmTile/linoleum/vinyl. That is ALL that should be on a bathroom floor. From that limited and narrow comment, you probably think I only believe woman should be on the bottom. But, . . . I’m only talking about flooring in the watercloset! In the rest of the house, my mind runs . . . wild, baby, wild!
Now, just HOW naughty are YOUR thoughts, eh?
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:13 pmRachel, you have found a flameproof topic in this. Everybody agrees that pee-soaked carpeting is icky.
Now let’s all sit in a circle and sing Kumbaya.
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:27 pmSometimes I think it would be a good idea if private homes’ bathrooms came equipped with urinals. Just sayin’.
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:00 pmLuv this blog! Always GREAT for a good laugh. No one says it quite like you, Rachel!!!
My DH had a crash-pad when he was a commercial pilot. Seven pilots in a two bedroom - two bathroom apartment. I’m pretty sure none of them cleaned any thing, ever. And I think I recall that they didn’t get the security deposit back on the place, either. I spent one weekend there and NEVER let my bare feet or any bare skin touch ANYTHING! I took a shower with my flip-flops on. It was pretty disgusting. The bathroom was “furry” as well as “yellow.” Why doesn’t this bother some people?!?
August 23rd, 2008 at 7:42 pmsarahk, Thanks! - I followed the link maze through yours and Serenity’s impressive recounted experiences only to be cruelly denied by the restrooms site no longer existing.
Ack. (I’d even mentally prepared myself for the content after heeding the warnings, and they were indeed appreciated when I encountered the word ‘kegel’ (ugh)and various other phrases on the “This domain is now available” page).
But now that I know that out there somewhere is an explanation of how it can be done, I await the brave new world I will encounter when I plug that into Google, lol.
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:50 pmAngel,
You can pull up an archive of the missing page via the Wayback Machine at:
All you need is the URL to the missing page.
August 24th, 2008 at 1:06 amI don’t like carpeting at all very much. IMO, it’s a pain in the ass to keep clean anyway, especially when you have indoor pets and just generally hate housework anyway, like I do.
Some crappy places I’ve rented have been carpeted in order to “hide” defects in the floor, such as holes and other uneven places. Yep, that’s right–they carpet right over the damned floor, WITHOUT fixing it at all. So there’s a dip in the floor which you can trip over, even with the carpet on top.
Next place I rent, I’m going to try to get a place without carpeting at all, if I can help it. Maybe some place that’s been rehabbed with Pergo floors… something I can mop. Anything but carpeting.
And on top of all that… if your house/apartment is carpeted, and if previous tenants had furry pets with fleas, those fleas more than likely laid eggs in the carpeting… and come the first week in spring, your house will be so full of fleas that you and your beloved furry friends will get eaten alive.
Yecch. IMO carpeting isn’t very hygienic at all.
August 24th, 2008 at 2:14 amI am repulsed by carpeted bathrooms. For the following reasons:
1.Knowing how most guys piddle everywhere but in the toilet, there is a serious bacterial biohazard all around the base of the toilet that gets worse with years of males dropping trow and blasting the porcelain or not.
2. Knowing that men and women at times have hard turds that splash as they land in the bowl, water mixed with excrement sometimes will splash out of the toilet between the seat and the bowl and then land on the carpet. Now you have shit mixed with urine and bacteria all ground into that very same carpet in which your feet sit as you use the toilet.
I could go on with describing how when you drop your pants to sit on the toilet your pants are dropping into that mosh pit of nastiness. Then you carry those jeans out of the bathroom to contaminate other areas of your house and other people that your jeans touch.
August 24th, 2008 at 3:37 amPshaw, this toiletry propriety means nothing, So I’m tooling down I-5 and think whew I have to go. I stopped at the rest area outside of Bakersfield (yes I know, Bakersfield but that’s no excuse for what happened.)
Do, do, do, I’m properly using the urinal, when this fellow comes in, drops trou, backs up, and proceeds to crap in one of the urinals.
As I was running out the door, the last thing I heard was, “why won’t this flush down?”
So hell no Rachel I have no sympathy.
August 24th, 2008 at 3:44 amThe entire concept of carpet in general was created by assholes. I mean really…who was it who first said “hey, let’s take our floors–surfaces that we walk over, eat and drink over, occasionally stab and shoot each other over–and cover them with this fibrous material that is hard to clean and absorbs stains and odors like Amy Winehouse absorbs drugs.”
I’m hardwood and tile all the way, baby. Tootsies get cold? Wear SOCKS, for pity’s sake.
August 24th, 2008 at 9:43 amYour the best Rachel. Truly a bringer of smiles.
August 24th, 2008 at 9:52 amBest as anyone can figure, the Turks and the Persians are the original culprits. So you can blame them, I guess.
August 24th, 2008 at 11:17 amAngel,
Brave new world indeed. teaches women to be sprinklers … the very women who should be duct taped to a toilet and thus integrated into the seat itself. Nothing’s worse than entering into a public ladies room (which does not have seat covers — there are NONE on the campus where I work; these buildings are old, poorly lit and not well-ventilated) and plopping your unsuspecting derriere into a cooling puddle of someone else’s waste products. There are a lot of international students where I work, and in perusing their public toilet facilities, I noted that even the women’s are designed as a stand up facility; hence the “standing to pee” cultural norm. Now if we could just train people to lift the seats, this might be a feasible option.
, on the other hand, offers a disposable paper product designed to allow a woman to stand up and pee into a funnel like object one can point into the direction one wants the urine to splatter. Which effectively turns us into the anti-aimers we constantly bitch about. Unless, as discussed above, the seat is lifted.
The whole issue boils down to practicing the appropriate use of a toilet, whether peeing in a carpeted restroom or a public facility. If we were still a hunter-gatherer culture, and thus compelled to shoot our own food, one can only extrapolate that our ability to aim well and hit a target is so shitty we’d all have starved to death long ago. But then again, I know men who can place a 12 round grouping tighter than a cat’s asshole and hit a coyote running 25 mph at 200 yards but leave crystallized lemonade fountains running down the shop wall.
So I guess the best advice can be found in the graffiti left in almost any American public school:
“If you sprinkle when you tinkle,
Please be sweet and wipe the seat.”
Or maybe these should be in public (possibly private, depending on your roommates) restrooms right next to the seatcover dispensers …
Fun, educational and sanitary! Just plop into your toilet, drown that stupid fucking smile, and flush!
August 24th, 2008 at 11:35 amMy mom had carpet installed in not one, but TWO bathrooms. For a family consisting of six boys and one girl. Even at the age of 16, I, oldest child, male, thought she was out of her mind.
August 24th, 2008 at 12:53 pmEvery one’s going on about shit and piss but what about that other nasty bodily fluid Blood? Everyone I know keeps their first aid and feminine hygiene products in the bathroom. So where is the first place people go when their bleeding? It’s next to impossible to get bloodstains out of carpet.
August 24th, 2008 at 4:40 pmThe former owners of our house thought it would be nice to put carpet in the main bathroom. What was worse was that the carpet was PINK. (I guess to match the homemade pink curtains…). First chance we got, we had the entire bathroom torn down to the studs and remodeled - with a porcelain tile floor! And white wood blinds for the window. No more carpet, no more cheesy pink accents.
August 24th, 2008 at 5:59 pmI got one to add to your asshole list, if you run out of material.
Pee Drinkers. Yep, just do an innertubes search on Urine Therapy to see the next new “in thing” for the new agers.
August 24th, 2008 at 7:02 pmgrimmy: that’s gross!
But not all that surprising that you can find that crap on the Internet.
August 24th, 2008 at 8:16 pmJust something else to consider: Grout. You can’t get anything out of grout completely. It’s still there…
August 24th, 2008 at 8:21 pmStill laughing at Boyd’s and Maya’s comments.
But all you guys who SWEAR that you never miss? I got two words for you. Split stream. Tell me you can control that and I’ll be impressed.
August 24th, 2008 at 9:35 pmSometimes we miss on purpose, or so I have heard.
August 24th, 2008 at 10:02 pmLOL! Classic.
August 24th, 2008 at 10:22 pmMaya, I actually saw a program on that very thing the other day - Taboo or something. Its absolutely gross. It took all my willpower not to gag on the living room floor the 5 minutes of my life I spent watching it. The urge became so strong I had to change channels. Its just gruesome.
I don’t care how freaking antiseptic and *healing* it is - your body doesn’t want it and gets rid of it - take a freaking hint people!
August 24th, 2008 at 10:34 pmOh, and if you happen to be diabetic, ALL your bodily fluids have enough extra sugar in them to serve as agar jelly. Think guys can’t get yeast infections? tell that to the brewery vat between the legs….
August 25th, 2008 at 12:02 amSigh. Regarding “The Cheerios Challenge ™”, I tried that with my oldest when we were potty training him - he refused to sink ‘em. Talk about assholes…
Oh, and some people are WAYYYY too paranoid about a few germs. I mean, yeah, let’s all try to keep the place clean, but sheesh.
August 25th, 2008 at 12:16 amI’m a guy and I have carpet in my bathroom. I don’t miss: I sit when I wish to urinate. The carpet is small enough that if it were to get heavily soiled, I would just rip it out.
August 25th, 2008 at 4:18 amIf you don’t like the carpet, rip it out an put in tile. It’s not that hard and does not cost much. Quit whining and do something.
August 25th, 2008 at 7:19 amCarpet is cheap compared to tile. That’s why the @$$holes put it in there. Fortunately, I’ve never had carpet in the bathroom of any house I’ve lived in. I’d have ripped it out.
My current house has carpet in the living room and master bedroom only. I’m replacing that in the next couple of years with something that isn’t carpet.
August 25th, 2008 at 7:48 amAllen, your “Do, do, do, I’m properly using the urinal” cracked me up, because all I could think of was Butters standing in front of the urinal singing:
August 25th, 2008 at 8:20 amWhen we moved in our 75 year old house, someone had put yucky, green shag carpet in the bathroom sometime back in the 70’s. It was beyond disgusting and we ripped it out the first couple of days after we moved in. The padding underneath had turned to powder. Nasty! Even linoleum gets filthy 5 minutes after you mop it. I don’t even want to think about what was in that carpet.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:18 amBTW, I agree with The Chief. I hate carpet because it makes me sneeze. We pulled all of it out of our old house to reveal beautiful hardwood floors. Aside from a few area rugs, we’re largely carpet-free.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:21 amLOL 14K - that is a brave new world that scares even me! I was cracking up as I read your post. I responded to you last night, but as was about to hit submit, we lost power.
I’m actually amazed at how gross women can be in bathrooms. The bathrooms at work are a place I avoid at all costs, unless I can’t help it. I even know how much I can drink in a day so I don’t have to use them. There is some woman who needs to bring her own Oust to work - such is the stench she leaves behind - not for just a minute but for hours. If I ever find her I will discreetly leave a can on her desk. Don’t even get me started on feminine hygiene product disposal - just gross.
August 25th, 2008 at 10:04 amI have always thought of myself as an asshole. And I have been trying to decide what sort of floor covering to put in my new bathroom. Thanks Rachel!
August 25th, 2008 at 11:17 amHGTV had a special a while back with all their decorating show gurus telling the world about the top 25 decorating no-nos. The NUMBER ONE thing NOT to do was to put a rug in front of your toilet.
’nuff said.
August 25th, 2008 at 11:47 amRandom thoughts:
- When I worked at Taco Bell (somewhere in the late Cretaceous period), my greatest terror was when it was my turn to clean the restrooms. The men’s, eh, bad but workable. The women’s… Oh. My. God.
- If you have a lad who can’t/won’t aim, make him the official cleaner of the bathroom, and be sure it’s done regularly. I guaran-freakin-tee the aim will improve, post haste.
- I see Sparrow’s sign, I pee in the sink.
- For reasons covered voluminously above, no, sitting to pee is absurd and unworkable. Get over it.
August 25th, 2008 at 12:03 pmHow bout this. A carpet DESIGNED to be pissed on. Velcro strips hold it in place for easy removal and replacement. It could be made of some sort of absorbant, liquid lock (like diapers) and it could contain some placebic sterilizers to keep the germfreaks happy. Once it gets a little puffy, rip it out and put down a new one. Clean floor without the scrubbing!!!
omg I’m gonna be a millionaire! Or at least a thousandaire!!!!
Pep
August 25th, 2008 at 12:07 pmSo pull the carpet and put in some tile.
(Me, I sit down to pee. Because I clean my own damn bathroom, and a nice restful sit-down to pee makes it that much easier to clean up (in other words, I get to wait that much longer before doing so).)
August 25th, 2008 at 12:47 pmWait until you have kids. .
As Sigivals has suggested yank the carpet and lay tile. It’s not hard, and it’s what we did on the bathroom at my old house (it came with navy blue SHAG carpet in the bathroom. YIKES!).
It took me about 2 days of work (one full weekend) to rip up the carpet, clean up, remove all the fixtures (including the sink) and lay down a nice green and white art-deco style mini-tile.
You can even buy stuff now that not only glues the tile down, but doubles as grout between the tiles, and once dry can be scrubbed off the tile surface with a slightly damp sponge, and then sealed with a spray-bottle sealant.
It really is incredibly easy.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:05 pmOur builder had tile in the toilet vestibule but carpet everywhere else. He, I suppose, was just an ass. We were already furious at the guy because he said he would tile the counters and floor. Well, he tiled behind the counters and around the jacuzzi but not on the floor. I didn’t worry at first because my better half is incredibly talented. Ten years later, we tiled around the tub and the shower stall but decided not to go further because we’re adding an addition adjacent to the master bath. Thirteen years later, I’m still waiting. We’ve taken to cutting out the disgusting pieces and laying in cuts from the roll the builder left. Looks like hell but provides some degree of sanitation.
August 25th, 2008 at 1:59 pmSP: “…a little puffy…” EL-YUCKO!!
August 25th, 2008 at 2:02 pm