Astonishing

[oldbloke]

The old "germ aerosol when you flush" thing came up in a newsgroup, so I did a bit of Googling.
Feeling a bit sick now.
Look for Chuck Gerba, the Prof who investigated this stuff.

Comments

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

It is pretty gross, but the actual effect seems to be pretty minimal - it's not as if we're all going down with tummy bugs etc. all the time. The same's true about living with (and being licked by) pets - germs or no germs, the evidence is that on the whole they make people more, not less, healthy.

The real reason to put the loo lid down before flushing is because every so often, not very often but it does happen! - you knock something in. The more the lid is kept closed, the less you have to worry about fishing somebody else's toothbrush out the bog and then rinsing it carefully and not saying :=D

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I put the lid down before brushing teeth (or whatever); relying on putting the lid down when flushing would fail every time someone who didn't have the same policy used it.

[the-muttster.livejournal.com]

I don't worry about it since my sink and toilet are in two separate rooms. At least, for the next month they still are...

Too right.

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

I only live with one other person, and encouraged them to leave the lid down as follows:
Fished out one of the house's many large, cuddly penguins.
Sat it on top of the toilet lid.
Said, "this is [name of penguin]'s new nest".
Made a tremendous fuss of the cuddly penguin whenever I found it displaced from its nest.

Worked, too.
Anthropomorphism rocks!

Re: Too right.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

We only have one cuddly penguin and he seems quite happy downstairs. The other penguin is probably too big for your idea to be practical...

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I've been telling imc about this for years but lack of any hard facts (like names and universities) means he doesn't believe me!

[imc.livejournal.com]

I still don't believe you. :-p

But I put the lid down anyway.