Hacker News Reader

Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Someone needs to develop a public toilet that's self-cleaning but doesn't cost more than some houses. The problem is making it homeless and drug dealer proof. SF has had major problems with their self-cleaning toilets.[1] Portland succeeded, but theirs is armored to contain a velociraptor and provides limited privacy.[2]

[1] http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/occupied-san-francisco-... [2] http://www.citylab.com/design/2012/01/why-portlands-public-t...

View on HN

Homeless proof - I'm really hoping the problems that Sidewalk Labs is working on don't include making sure homeless people don't have access to public bathrooms. I'm honestly not thinking of a lot of reasons for public bathrooms to exist aside from making sure people without houses have someplace they can use (whether that be as a bathroom, washing laundry, shaving, etc.)

If you read the linked article you will find that he means it is resistant to non-bathroom activities such as using it for washing clothes. I'm not sure why that would be a big problem, but the design isn't intended to prevent the homeless from using it as a bathroom.

Because homeless people should look and smell homeless, right?

Probably more because using it for other purposes degrades the facilities, and makes it unusable for its intended purpose.

Santa Monica, CA, has SWASHLOCK, which provides showers, washing machines, and lockers for homeless people. That should be copied elsewhere.

Hasn't this already been invented? With the problem being that most westerners don't like the solution because it looks unfamiliar:

    * You install a squat toilet
    * It's cleaned by flooding the entire
      toilet area with water, which once
      turned off all washes down into the
      toilet
    * No toilet paper, you clean yourself
      with water

The biggest problem is not even that it looks unfamiliar, but that the majority of “westerners” have insufficient ankle flexibility to squat, due to a lifetime of sitting in chairs and no experience squatting.

You might be able to build a squat toilet where the feet rested on a ramp (i.e. raised at the heel side), though I suspect most Americans would still refuse to use it.

Not just westerners; squat toilets, while in theory are good for the rectum, are not accessible to the disabled.

You don't need a ramp to squat on tiptoe. I squat with my feet flat on the ground, but I have been told that doing that is hard for most (US) people. Still, Americans do squat. They just don't do it with flat feet.

Have you actually tried pooping while on tiptoes??

No, for multiple reasons. But if you're looking for people with that experience, I suggest talking to some American backpackers.

That comes pretty fast with time. I was surprised I could crouch like a baby, after 3 monthes, something I couldn't do anymore for decades. I believe your back will thank you too.

That’s how many public toilets work in China.

Many of those I saw were pretty disgusting, and my travel companion reported that it also applied to the toilets for the opposite sex.

Sounds like a waste of water, though.

What is "homeless proof"?

If you have so many homeless people, maybe you should solve that problem first?

If you have so many homeless people, maybe you should solve that problem first?

Solving homelessness isn't an on/off switch; people are still going to need a toilet while homelessness is being "fixed".

(It's a problem with saying why not solve X instead? You end up with neither fixed, and everybody loses. I mean, why solve homelessness when there are hungry kids that need feeding? And so the cycle continues.)

As an aside, I'm not convinced that it's homeless people per se that are the problem; it's people with issues that abuse public toilets, whether through drugs, alcohol or being a general malcontent, and "the homeless" get blamed as convenient name.

It's not like corporate headquarters are invulnerably to toilet abuse, least of all from the execs.

When someone says they want to make something "homeless proof" I assume they mean something like this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/homelessness-...

Hence my comment - if you're worried about homeless people in your precious toilet, you (as a city/society) have bigger problems than public toilets.

I don't have sources at hand but it can actually be cheaper in the end to give homeless people homes than to keep them homeless. It's apparently mostly due to emergency police/hospital response which costs a ton.

    ...it can actually be cheaper in the end to give homeless
    people homes than to keep them homeless.

Here's a source:

"The surprisingly simple way Utah solved chronic homelessness and saved millions" - http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/04/...

That's not necessarily the best source - it just happened to be towards the top of the following SERP, which finds quite a few articles: https://www.google.com/search?q=give+homeless+homes

I realize we're all programmers but why does this have to be a complex self-cleaning toilet rather than, say, hiring a few people to clean them? It's not like there aren't plenty of people looking for steady work and humans have the advantage of being really flexible when something breaks in a novel manner.

Yes, hire cleaners to staff the restrooms and charge a small amount to use them. Its not rocket science, it works (see European train stations), and it puts people to work. Its a shame we don't have more of that here in the USA.

Ugh. As an European, I really dislike this new move to charge for bathroom use. It's often expensive, it requires having change (yay, trip to the ATM!) and it means having to wait if the staffer is him/herself in the loo.

I would not call it a "new" move. It is an old idea that works. I would rather come up with a coin or two than use a toilet stall sprayed with diarrhea on the floor and walls (and sometimes ceiling :-) ).

It's new around here; until a couple of years ago, I don't remember any paid toilets.

And there are other choices besides "diarrhea floors" and coin payment; in train stations, for example, they could simply charge a fee to the train company to pay for the permanent staff, which could then (very slightly) increase the price of tickets to accommodate it.

If it works it only works by making most of the people avoid them :). I don't expect much from a free toilet but I usually don't have spare coins with me to use (especially abroad) so I end up going to various establishments like McDonald's hoping they don't lock down the toilets. Even if they do, I can buy a cheeseburger for the same price, which buys me both a clean paid toilet and something to eat.

Because within half an hour of being cleaned those toilets will be unusable again.

a) Do you really have flying bathroom defacement squads? Most of the places I've seen, even once a day would be fine.

b) In the few locations with particularly bad problems, isn't that really telling us that e.g. the problem is not something which can be solved by technology as opposed to, say, funding mental health programs?

Then you should hire people to clean every half an hour.

Amsterdam has these:

http://www.street-art.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/1-1.jpg

and

https://pinkylightsaber.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/public-t...

while useful, they usually are quite smelly though.

Something that only works for one gender, and only for urinating is not solving the problem of public toilets.

The second ones are not permanent toilets, on that same spot we do have permanent ones now that stay in the ground for most of the day and come out at night (in a nightlife area):

http://f00.inventorspot.com/images/urilift-public-pop-up-toi...

I don't know whether i would call that a toilet. They're literally doing their business in the street.

Paris has over 400 of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanisette

They're free to use, not drug dealer proof, and close at night. I'd say they work well, but they're rather ugly.

The biggest culture shock of visiting the UK was paying to use toilets. Do you want people pissing against walls? Because that's how you get people pissing against walls.

It's more pronounced in Southern France, where every town and little mountain village will have fountains spouting a constant stream of what amounts to essentially Evian for anybody off the street to drink and fill bottles from.

Then they charge you to pee.

Create a problem. Charge for the solution. Genius.

I think that’s a London thing rather than a UK thing.

I recall the toilets at Birmingham New Street station being paid for, and also recall the chap getting off the train carrying a few cans (and having drank a few!), observing the fee required for a toilet, swearing and then urinating in the concourse area....

The toilets in my hometown (Warwick) were closed. There used to be some on the castle walls at the top of Smith Street (near the East Gate) but they were closed. Also I think the public toilets in the main square (by the Rose and Crown?? where Woolworths used to be) are shut too.

And I don't even know of any public toilets in the town I am living in now (perhaps because I always just go home)

"spend a penny" is an old British expression, I think toilet charging goes back a long way.

Yeah, it's pretty lame. I've been reduced to carrying a coin purse (!) in my day-to-day/commute backpack containing just 20p and 10p pieces so that I'm always able to use a public toilet if I need to. Nothing worse than really needing to go but not having any change on you.

Seems ripe for disruption...introducing PeeCoin a new altcoin to solve the most human needs of society one transaction at a time.

It wouldn't be so bad if you could use your Oyster/contactless card to get in

One time I had to jump a barrier because I was bursting to go and had no change. I understand that there's a need to offset the upkeep and maintenance but had I not been able to get in, I'd have had to piss on something - preferably something other than my pants.

The trend in the UK now is to just pay pubs and places like Macdonalds a small fee from the council to let the general public use their loos. It saves on having to have separate public loos.

That applies to Sweden and the major cities as well (Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmö, Uppsala). All cities that used to have public toilets, regrettably no more though.

50p at Victoria station!

They need to improve them by using antimicrobial copper: http://antimicrobialcopper.org/

Weird, always assumed they weren't free. Seeing so many people "not seeking" for one late at night reinforced that idea.

Lausanne have transparent self cleaning toilets that are drug dealer / homeless proof :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WL2ZnE1vAU

it's called starbucks

Reply on news.ycombinator.com