It’s called toilet plume.
A toilet plume is the invisible to the naked eye, cloud-like dispersal of raw, infectious sewage particles as a result of flushing a toilet. Flush particles rapidly rise out of the bowl and several feet into the air after flushing. Aerosolized droplets can remain suspended in the air for tens of minutes between users, posing an inhalation risk. These invisible particles go on to coat and spread onto surfaces like floors and counters or objects like hand towels, bathmats, or even toothbrushes.
You close the lid to avoid a plume of fecal particles. I close the lid because otherwise my dumb cat jumps directly into the bowl. We are not the same.
who keeps towels and toothbrushes in the shit room to begin with.
thats already gross.
Exactly, personally I like to keep them on the opposite side of my house so that you can’t dry your hands at all.
Edit: I especially love it when my guests go to dry their hands and then have to start rummaging through my cupboards to find a towel, only, jokes on them! We don’t keep that in the bathroom!
Or, you know, in the linen closet outside the bathroom door, if you’re not a smart arsed twat.
Are you grabbing a new towel every time you ash your hands?
“A 2024 study showed evidence that even closing the lid may still lead to small viral particles escaping through gaps under the lid, resulting in viral cross-contamination of the air and surfaces in a washroom.”
This is what I remember, there’s no actual solution to this. Still close the lid though!
That same study also includes this figure,
But the study doesn’t measure other surfaces or things like “a nearby sink” or “a hand towel”. Perhaps for airborne particles they roam more freely, but what about surface particles? I feel like there is more to study.
I put the toilet lid down all the time.
People are fascinating.
There are people who follow the “10 second rule”, i.e. food hits an unclean surface like the floor and they will pick it up and eat it.
Meanwhile, every single person who was born naturally has been shit on at birth. This is a thing that happens. And studies show that excessive cleaning of newborns leads to all sorts of allergies.
So there has to be a balance.
I’m sure a non-zero number of people have gotten ill from toilets flushing. I’m also sure that number is pretty small. And I’m as sure from studies that show that keeping the lid closed still lets particles out that it’s going to happen.
I’m of the opinion that this is a very small problem.
But as it happens, I keep my toothbrush at my desk because it’s more convenient for me.
So if it bothers you, keep your toothbrush in a cabinet and/or in one of those little cases.
Every other sexual post these days seems to be about eating ass, I’m not sure toilet plumes are high on the GenZ+ concern list.
Why do (especially public) toilets even have a lid that stays up?
It also stops things from falling into your toilet, pets from getting to the water, etc.
Closing the lid is the only sensible thing to do.
Unless your toilet lid is airtight, you’ll never fully defeat the plume.
Just keep your toothbrush in a case
YSK that your toilet lid isn’t a gasketed seal.
https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(25)00630-3/abstract
Putting the lid down does reduce the amount of shit mist, but it does not even get close to eliminating it.
I’d much rather have something fall onto the toilet lid than into the toilet. That alone makes closing it worthwhile.
Got me there, but not really relevant to the subject here. Maybe make your own YSK post?
Kinda is tho: We’re discussing closing the toilet lid, so… yeah.
YSK to not be scared of every little mundane thing in life. It will paralyze you
I wouldn’t consider being cautious about having literal fecal matter in my toothbrush mundane, but you do you.
How is this considered being afraid? It’s science. It literally happens so why not just close the toilet seat it’s not like it costs you anything
true, but if I gotta close the lid anyway to stop the cats from drinking from it, I may as well do it before flushing rather than after
Along with this… Normalize dudes sitting down to piss.
No thanks. Balls and dick touching toilet waters a thing for some of us. Having to sit in a tiny ass toilet and somehow maneuver your junk with your hands also getting in there…nah.
I’m sorry but are you 120 y/o and are your balls sagging to your ankles? I have at some time experienced the head of my dick touching the bowl but I have never, and considering the designs of toilets will never, experienced my balls touching the toilet water. And I am not ashamed to say that I sit down to piss pretty much every time
Just do it. But also accept folks will laugh at you.
Hell, if you were my friend, I’d rag on you all day for it, but that’s because we were friends, and I also have sat down to piss before. It’s not my preferred method.
Like now that I think about…isn’t it really actually nasty to sit down with our junk dangling inside the toilet bowl? We are all sitting here talking about shit atoms floating through the air… but wouldn’t we be trapping our junk in there with it?
Sit if ya want, but just accept the judgment of others. You can’t escape it.
EDIT: I see I got downvotes. Fuck you all. (Joking) My bad if I hurt feelings or made anyone mad. I’m not perfect, and when I said I’d rag on em it’s not like I’d be 'hurr durr you pee sitting down like a girl!" I mean, yes, I would in a sense of making a joke out of a joke. I pee sitting down plenty. 5 am? Fuck standing. So high my head spins? I’m sitting. Old age got my knees shaking? I’m sitting.
Hell, I make fun of my best friend whose gay for sucking dick. And I suck dick myself! Really sorry if I came off like I was making fun of women or people peeing sitting down. I gave an example of if I was a friend to the person, they’d have to deal with me ragging on em a bit. Which I’d hope they return the favor for something I do.
Again my bad yall.
