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Do women enter the bathroom backwards or something? How hard is it to check to see if the seat is down. I check to make sure the lid isn't down before I pee, surely you gals can check to see that the seat isn't down. If it's dark, close the door and turn on a light or use a nightlight!

Sorry, that second sentence should have ended with a question mark.

That's gonna make praying and passing out at the Porcelain Altar an even rockier road to travel on Saturday nights from 3:35-4:15 am.

You say there's "no harm to the closer", but you don't know how difficult getting those toilet seat marks off your face can be on "Hangover Sunday" mornings...

Yeah I don't understand the toilet seat situation with women. I don't sit on toilet seats willy-nilly. You never know what might have splashed onto the toilet seat the last time it was flushed. It seems like it would be more fair if everybody just left it how they used it. Men don't expect women to lift the seat for them each time they go to the bathroom, so women shouldn't expect men to put the seat down each they use it.

I gotta say - I may be a guy and stand up to pee, but all my other business is done sitting down. And I have never, ever....ever fallen into the bowl. Its really not that hard to look and see if you've got a green light before you set all systems to go.

I may be a woman, but I've never had any difficulty determining whether a toilet seat is up or down before using it. Is there some complexity beyond "look at the toilet" that I've been missing?

Leaving the lid up is disgusting no matter who does it. Things can fall in there, water can splash up when the toilet is flushing. When I lived with roommates, I would always put the lid down when using the bathroom for other purposes. They left it up. Guess who wound up dropping hair pins and toothbrushes into the loo?

Erika, this is why I don't like to keep things above the toilet seat! Scared of them falling in. :) Plus I hate those metal shelf things that people put over the toilet. They don't look good and they wobble if you try to take something off of them, making it more likely that something will fall in. So I leave the top of the toilet clear and leave the seat up (less splashes directly on the seat).

Our toilet seat has a similar mechanism thing, and for the life of me, I can never figure it out. Is it closing, is it yawning, what? Still, it bugs me when my husband and son leave it open. Things fall in and smells come out.

Also, the REAL problem is the noisy pipes. What can they do about that?

The lid should ALWAYS be down. Problem solved.

Lid Down!
THis was the First (and Only) argument I ever won with my Girlfriend.

On our first date she told me we couldnt date if I didnt promise to always put the seat down. I said that is not Fair and she fell for it!

After she ranted for awhile I told her about the lid down thing! That Won her heart.

As a kid my mom was just happy if all us boys just put the seat up to Pee. Boys are bad aim!

I would buy this in a heartbeat if it really closed the LID and not the seat. We cannot convince my mother-in-law to put the lid down when she visits no matter how we beg, how often we explain to her the backups that result when our son sees an open toilet and throws toys into it and flushes, no matter that once when he was younger and learning to walk that he tripped and fell right into the open toilet after she had left the lid up (and she was even right there to see it happen.) If she weren't my husband's mother I wouldn't have let her back in my house after that incident. It's like she takes the request as a personal affront.

I'm with the lid-closers, obviously; safer, more sanitary, and way better for parents and pet owners.

Wow. What a stubborn Mother-In-Law!!
what, does she figure since she won the 'seat down' debate 30 years ago that there's no room to bend?

How can anyone argue with LID DOWN??? There is no argument. None.

Luckily, I have a tankless toilet and you pretty much have to put the seat down in order to flush. I win. I win!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/singleclickchick2/306336776/in/set-72157594392114578/

I'd never flush the toilet without having the lid down. (think about the "aerosol effect" -- that's why you shouldn't keep toothbrushes near a toilet. So if the lid is down after every use, no surprises for anyone (especially the cat!).

Lid down. Duh. Things don't fall in. Stuff doesn't spray out (I'm the least germophobic person in the world, but I've had small bathrooms and my toothbrush is nearby, for Pete's sake). You don't have to look in the bowl. Everyone is on equal footing (seating?) in terms of having to put the seat down or lift it up. Problem solved.

yes. at our house the whole thing is shut including the lid. I HATE walking in and seeing an open toilet. It's just so much tidier to have the lid down.

I've never understood the men-vs.-women argument about toilet seats. It takes exactly the same time and effort for a man to check that the seat is up before using as it does for woman to check that the seat is down. If a person of either gender finds the seat in the wrong position for what they need to, they can move it. What's the argument?

What's wrong with guys sitting down to Pee.

Nashdp the issue is there is a big differnece between peeing on the seat and falling in.