Public Restrooms - the home of many nanobugs

I just returned from a business trip to Kimball, Nebraska - a community of 2500 just off Interstate-80 at the border of Nebraska and Wyoming. At the Ogallala (NE) interchange I spotted a huge yellow sign on the side of a gas station that read, "The cleanest restrooms on I-80".  I had just made a pit-stop for a sandwich and a bathroom break so I wasn't interested in stopping again - though I was curious and tempted to make my own evaluation as an infection preventionist and self-proclaimed restroom sanitation expert. 

The sign was obviously a marketing tool that would help the gas station compete with all the others who claimed only, "clean restrooms".  I guess when you can't compete on the price of gas, you go for some value-added services.  We have all been in those situations where we have a toddler in the car whose all knotted up, in tears and screaming "I REALLY gotta go!"  If the quick choice you make for a "clean restroom" does  not measure up to the claim - who 'ya gonna tell?  The attendants seldom care -they are usually males who "use that 'can' all the time and have no problem with it".  They are just happy that the old method of quality assurance (locking the restrooms so we had to ask or sometimes beg them for a key) is no longer the standard.  And what are the criteria for "clean restrooms" anyway?  Does it mean clean floors? clean toilet? No paper towel waste on the floor?  Or just a sickening cover-up smell being squirted from a blinking machine above the door? Or blow dryers that turn on -but don't dry anything in less than 5 minutes? Do you ever wonder what the criteria are for the check marks in the little boxes on the back of the door in public restrooms - especially in fast food restaurants?  And what recourse do you have if there is check mark missing?  Or the checkmarks are all there, dated and timed but the place is a pit?  I think it is usually a teenager that is assigned to these duties and I wonder about their competency.  Have you seen their room at home???? 

This entry was posted on September 19th, 2008 at 12:00 am. RSS | Back to Blog Homepage.

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