One fact that was lost in the reaction to Target’s April 2016 announcement that customers could use bathrooms and fitting rooms of the genders they identify with is that many Target locations already have single-occupancy restrooms available for customers, meaning the gender and genetics of the person using the toilet doesn’t matter because they are the only person in the room. Today, the retailer said it will spend $20 million to make sure that this option is soon available in all 1,800 Target locations. [More]
bathrooms
Tempered Glass Shower Doors Are Shattering For No Reason
By 9.23.15
The appealing feature of tempered glass is that it is supposed to not break into giant jagged shards that can injure you, but it’s not supposed to shatter in the first place. That’s what makes it an appealing material for, say, shower doors. Yet there’s a rare and terrifying problem: shower doors spontaneously shattering, sometimes while a person is showering, resulting in wet, naked, injured people. [More]
Hawaii-Bound Flight Diverted To L.A. After Half The Plane’s Toilets Stop Working
By 6.8.15
Because we all know how quickly a travel experience can turn from good to bad when there’s limited access to working toilets, the crew of an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Honolulu decided to make an unscheduled pit stop after three of the plane’s six lavatories malfunctioned. [More]
Man Allegedly Fights Employees, Officers After Peeping Over Women’s Restroom Stall At Walmart
By 5.11.15
Over the years there has been no shortage of stories on Consumerist about peeping Toms hiding in women’s restrooms (the guys who fell through the movie theater ceiling) or department store changing rooms (the man who was chased by a topless woman at Kohl’s). But the latest unsettling incident took a dramatic turn after the alleged ogler supposedly assaulted employees and police officers after being found out. [More]
Chicago Cubs Apologize After Long Bathroom Lines On Opening Day Led Fans To Pee In Plastic Cups
By 4.6.15
Opening Day crowds proved too much for Wrigley Field’s bathrooms, only two of which were open on the main concourse yesterday. The Chicago Cubs are now apologizing to fans, after the long lines prompted some people to seek other means of relieving themselves. [More]
Police: Kmart Shopper Left Bathroom Deposit In Box Of Store Security Tags
By 4.2.15
If there are aliens out there scanning our world’s media reports, at this point I’m terribly afraid they think humans don’t now how to dispose of their waste properly — from public bike paths to parked cars, we’re just a mess. In yet another instance of presumably otherwise functioning adults, police say a woman did her bathroom business in a box of security tags at a Kmart store in Wisconsin. Sigh. [More]
Police: Active Meth Lab Discovered In Backpack Abandoned In Walmart Bathroom
By 3.13.15
While running a successful meth lab isn’t easy even under the best circumstances — and this is coming entirely from watching Breaking Bad, obviously — keeping an active operation going in a Walmart bathroom doesn’t seem like a guarantee for success. To that end, police say they’ve discovered an active meth lab, hidden inside a backpack, abandoned in an Indiana Walmart’s bathroom. [More]
McDonald’s Sued For $10M After Man Dies Of Heart Attack In Locked Bathroom
By 3.5.15
The family of a New York man who died of a heart attack in a McDonald’s bathroom locked from the inside filed a lawsuit against the fast food company claiming workers failed to get the man help that might have saved his life. [More]
You Can Make Almost $100K A Year Finding Ideal Bathrooms For Seattle Bus Drivers
By 3.4.15
It might be smelly work, but somebody’s gotta do it: Seattle officials are looking to hire a “Comfort Station Coordinator” in Seattle, a veritable Goldilocks tasked with finding bathrooms that are just right for bus drivers. And stench aside, the gig pays pretty well, at a salary of $97,000 per year. [More]
Restaurant Co-Owner Accused Of Creeping On Women With Camera Hidden In Bathroom
By 2.24.15
Police in Maryland say the co-owner of a local restaurant group took advantage of his customers in one of the most invasive ways possible, by allegedly setting up a video camera in the women’s restroom at one of his restaurants so he could secretly film them going to the bathroom. And cue those shudders, folks. [More]
Amazon Wants You To Shop On The Toilet
By 12.3.14
Great news for hardcore multi-taskers: Amazon and Procter & Gamble are teaming up to deliver highly relevant ads to consumers while they sit on the toilet. They won’t just show advertisements to this captive audience, though: the placards will also have barcodes that people with Amazon’s smartphone app can scan as virtual coupons for Procter & Gamble products. [More]
Pregnant Woman Claims Starbucks Worker Wouldn’t Let Her Use The Bathroom
By 10.3.14
When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go. And when you’re eight months pregnant with a small human inside you, pressing on your bladder like the most relentless of torturers, you have to go right this freaking second or you will unleash what is not meant to be unleashed in public. But despite that obvious necessity, one pregnant woman says a Starbucks worker wouldn’t let her into the locked bathroom, even after she offered to buy something. [More]
Cardinals Fans Would Rather Not Eat Cotton Candy That’s Been On The Bathroom Floor
By 9.19.14
Perhaps officials at Busch Stadium in St. Louis need to look into not only a place for a lady to hang her purse in the bathroom stall (if they don’t already have hooks), but some kind of appropriate resting place for food vendors to set down their wares when nature calls. Because seeing bags of cotton candy on a dirty bathroom floor with some toilet paper is just… well, it’s seeing food on the floor of a public restroom. It’s gross. [More]
Another Passenger Pees On Another Canadian Flight, Wants Everyone To Know
By 5.27.14
Last week, we shared with you the story of a man who learned that the Air Canada turboprop plane he was on had no restroom facilities only after boarding for the three-hour flight. Now another passenger has gone public and admitted doing the same. Not because she wants to brag, but because she wants to highlight the lack of working facilities in small airports on Canada’s east Coast. [More]
Rent A Stranger’s Bathroom For 5 Minutes With Airpnp
By 3.5.14
The legend goes that the founders of Airbnb set out an air mattress in their living room and welcomed guests, and that’s where the site comes from. Staying in a stranger’s home can be like a bed and breakfast, often without the breakfast. What about when you want to take a crap instead of a nap, though. Is there somewhere you can pay a nominal fee to strangers to rent out a different room of their home? [More]
Cheese Grater+Bar Soap+Rubber Band = DIY Soap Dispenser
April 5, 2013
A Houston restaurant asked engineering students at Rice University to come up with a soap dispenser for its bathrooms that incorporate some sort of kitchen utensil. This is the result, and we kinda want one for Consumerist HQ. [Via Chron.com] [More]
Restaurant Lets Non-Customer Use Bathroom, Sends Her Bill For $5
By 2.28.13
Somewhere between “no non-customers in the bathroom, no exception” and operating a mini-homeless shelter in the middle of your restaurant is a happy medium. We don’t think that compromise is the approach that a Tennessee restaurant took, which was to track down a non-customer using her license plate information and send her a bill for the restroom fee. $5. [More]
How Strict Should Stores Be About Employees-Only Bathrooms?
By 5.10.12
While retail stores all need someplace for employees to wash up and occasionally relieve themselves, many stores have a “staff only” policy for access to the toilet. But are there situations where the store staffers should make an exception in the name of saving a customer from embarrassment? [More]
