Airpnp: Like Airbnb, but for toilets
thenextweb.com
thenextweb.com
In all seriousness, this is an issue I deal with frequently in NYC. I'm out and about in Manhattan all day, get struck by the need to pee, and then run around trying to find any place with a restroom. Paying a buck or two would be a negligible cost if it meant immediate relief.
If they expanded and got enough supply, I'd definitely use their service.
I'd use a service like this.
Walk into Starbucks or McDonalds, always worked for me. Never had a cleanness problem. I usually only pee when I am in an establishment as a customer though.
At http://www.clnli.com we're a big fan of the subscription idea. But we source our bathrooms differently.
My standby move is to find a decently busy restaurant that's upscale enough to not have a lock on the bathroom like a big-city Starbucks / McDonalds. They'll almost always have a host / hostess stand at the front where people intercept you and prevent you from using their restroom unless you're a customer.
So I've started just walking straight past the stand while 'scanning' the restaurant. If they slow you down (they probably will) to ask if they can help you, just tell them that you're meeting some people and are going to check if they've already been seated.
Walk straight to the bathroom, do your business, and right back out the front. "I didn't see them, I'm going to wait outside." It's never failed me. Use responsibly.
One of the worst moments I had was in a rural part of Belgium, I had a call of nature whilst in the cafe, after completion I realised I had no euros left. Walk of shame to my table, the waiter notices nothing went in the basket and says something about Englanders just loud enough for me to hear.
I've had a few businesses (even chains) in NYC insist that I purchase something before using their restroom. As someone who has a comfortable living, I don't hesitate. At the same time, I make a mental note to not give that store my business if I can help it. The whole kindness to strangers thing .. yeah .. that's mostly dead.
I understand the problems caused by homeless individuals when using restrooms or camping out in stores. I even get that the rest room maintenance costs money. In Europe, when you have to pay those old ladies to use the restroom to pee ... that's their income. But still ... when you turn away someone when they urgently need to go ... that's just wrong.
The local bus and train terminals are 2DKK to use the restrooms, but you do really use cash to pay for your travels anymore, so the assumption that you would have a 2DKK coin is a bit flawed. Why can't I use the same card I use to check-in to bus/train to check-in to the restrooms?
Would be even worse abroad (though can't think of a time I've run into it), as apart from places where cards aren't enough (of the places I go to frequently, just Dublin and Amsterdam really), I don't take any cash, even notes.
And free across the road at St Pancras...
Tho' in all stations it should be free if you have a ticket/travelcard/oyster/whatever.
Just recently I was in central london on a busy saturday night and finding a toilet was seriously hard work. Macdonalds had long queues for toilets, so did many other retail outlets and many tube stations dont have toilets. I know residential areas are a little further out from the city, but i'm sure people could get creative and make it work.
I'd even check the toilet "spots" before I went to a crowded area so I know i could pop in when needed.
On the flip-side, acting as a host however, I dont think I could do it. With the state of toilets in most service stations, I couldn't give up my toilet to someone to come in and pee all over the seat or forget to flush or something.
The irony is that, that's going to be the real sticking point.
From a planning perspective, do users have to set this up with some time in advance. If I were to rent out my toilet, I wouldn't really want to be sitting around like a bathroom attendant waiting for strangers to enlist my accommodations. If this were during a big event in my area, I'd rather a) be at the event, b) be as far away from the event as possible. Not stuck inside managing my commode.
If I were on the other end of the transaction, I wouldn't know when nature would be calling. Making it hard to figure out in advance where I need to "rent" a toilet.
After that, how truly rewarding is a couple bucks a pop to allow strangers into your house to relieve themselves? The barrier to entry is not that high and the risk/inconvenience is not trivial. Does it really pad your income that much? To me it just wouldn't be worth the hassle and it's not like they're going to clean up if they make a mess.
Maybe I am just an "old fogey" but some ideas just aren't that good.
I think the idea is that the app allows you to find a toilet immediately in your immediate area -- not that you reserve, for example, a toilet for 5 minutes at 10:30 PM on Sunday three weeks in advance.
Edit : Found it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinfeld_(Curb_Your_Enthusiasm)
Other than that, I wonder how this works for private customers; seems the number of ... transactions per unit of time can be a lot higher than for somewhere to sleep.
(It's especially amusing when you take into account the stories (whether exaggerated/apocryphal or not) of people using AirBNB as a means to identify places to hold such "parties").
The toilets do not have to be located in the main building, but be within the property of the main building.
This applies to neither private clubs nor private businesses (i.e. shops).
One thing to consider, in the US many states have instituted "Ally's Law" where businesses are legally required to allow people who need immediate restroom access, assuming it doesn't put the business or person in harm's way.
I think you're an order of magnitude too high on that estimate. If a bathroom was used for 45 seconds, cleaned for 15, and then immediately back in use every minute of the day (which is probably a crazy estimate), it would generate $30 an hour, or $720 a day.
We're going with a totally different business model. It's really good to see another player on the block.
Chicago definitely has a bathroom problem though. See, e.g. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-08-21/opinion/ct-per...
Also, for example I remember exactly where every McDonald's and KFC in my town's centre is only because I sometimes need them as an emergency toilet and/or free Wi-Fi provider. Guess what places come to my mind first when I'm hungry and in the area?
Lucky for me, the door was half open already.
I doubt I would use an app just for that though...
I would have thought that being a two sided market, any available public information would have been already entered, rather than relying on others to submit toilets.
For example, entering all 33,000 McDonalds locations would have been a great start. I'm pretty sure that is a true global source of toilet location data.
I'm convincing the inlaws to to a PPP model in their gallery today.
That approach might work pretty well on Queen's Day in Amsterdam, too. (Well it's going to be known as King's Day from now on, now that the queen has abdicated.)