apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Exaggerate, much?

And, um "no wonder NY is full of infestations"?!! Dear god.

There is nothing wrong with peeing in the shower. There's a drain.

Man, this is almost like reading poopreport.com!

My father always hated to have us flush after peeing (he usually doen't) because of some fear about wear and tear on the septic tank.

My brother now has a problem septic tank of his own. I am not looking forward to the annual Christmas lecture on "pulling the chain." :-(

Not my idea of a great family tradition.

ick. I always puruse AT over lunch...not a pleasant visial while eating...

I'm shocked and confused by this post!

Ditto: I definitely enjoy the sneak peaks into the world of MGR/SKGR, but mostly just in the form of clever uses of small space and their recent apartment renovation. This was TMI.

I know the saying as, "If it's yellow let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down."

Equally yucky, but still.

And personally, I was a mellow-yellower for all the good eco reasons until I started living in small NYC apartments where yellow always contributes to less than happy odors when left to mellow for any amount of time....

I know what pee in a toilet looks like, no need for the visual aid!

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this. There are enough of us living here that "mellowing" doesn't tend to be a long enough time to get noxious, so I will do it unless there are guests around or soon to be present. And it's sterile anyways. We also just got an awesome new low-flow toilet that works great so I don't feel as bad about wasting water with every flush.

How about some recommendations for good low-flow toilets? We have a Kohler, something ridiculous like "The Cimarron" which has an extra large pipe for letting in the water so it comes out with more pressure and works just as well as a non-low-flow toilet.

This is pretty gross over lunch. But I'll answer anyway. We used to let it mellow, but then I realized that it made it necessary to clean it a lot more often. So now we always flush, but we're sending a smaller volume of chemicals down the drain.

Sorry about that! It was the lunch comment that really got me ;-).

Switched picture and hope that removes the gag reflex. I don't want to derail the real point of the post.

Thank you, Maxwell!

If home alone I follow the rule my parents taught me once I was old enough. (And always put the lid back down.) The water bill rather that ecology was the factor in their choice to be "mellow".

i'd be happy to use some other less-water wasting toilet option, but "letting it mellow" is beyond the pale for me. i can't quite explain why, but it just is. maybe because i have a roommate, and seriously, i love him to death, but i do NOT need to see his urine on a regular basis. i think if i lived alone i could let it mellow if i weren't expecting guests or anything.

i'm definitely interested, however, in greywater recycling, composting toilets, and other less ick inducing responses to toilet water waste (the "we flush drinking water" comment is particularly telling).

Actually in more water-constrained foreign countries they have two pipes coming out of the toilet, and that allows them to reclaim the waste as water. It depends on the water infrastructure in place and the general age of the system. In the US we have one pipe that handles everything, which makes it a very inefficient system from an environmental standpoint. But we do have a fairly well-developed and plentiful water supply, so we don't have the problems that they have in say, India or Singapore....

One way to conserve is to not flush, although out in California we've always reserved that for times of severe drought only...Obviously the newer your toilet, the higher the likelihood that it's more efficient...

People don't always flush? Wow, that just seems to be really gross. I can understand the idea of saving water and all, but, really now...what about that smell?

This is very normalized in places with serious water problems, like California. I'm always shocked at the responses of people in places with no water issues. I'd like to see the responses to this question in CA.

Ugh ... this is one way I don't mind being (apparently) not eco-friendly. I cannot stand the "mellow" method, it just makes me ill the idea of it. I had friends where I used to live that were really into this and they took it to an extreme ... they wouldn't even let their guests flush ... so it just ended up a big slosh-bucket for everyone.

I feel really sick just remembering it. I'm really big on conserving water and electricity in other ways, but I refuse this option.

While "mellowing" may seem gross to most of us used to modern plumbing, just imagine what it was like in the days of chamber pots. My grandfather's old farmhouse had no indoor toilet plumbing. No deoderizers were ever much help.

I'm from Australia, where PSAs exhort us to take three minute showers, not to wash cars, and to water gardens at dawn.

Dual flush toilets are extremely common, although not always in older houses. I've known people in older houses to put a brick in the cistern so that it doesn't fill up so full. It's a pretty clunky solution, though -- I assume you have to take it out when you need the full flush.

Our toilets also have deeper bowls than one sees in the US; I assume this gives you more pressure in the flush because the water is falling from a greater height.

It's pretty bizarre to me that people are so grossed out by life. People can't deal with death, eat meat but can't deal with killing an animal, and are disgusted by their own bodily functions. It's truly disturbing how "far" our culture has come. You do not need to flush your toilet every single time - it's just wasteful. OBVIOUSLY if it stinks you flush it, and if it's dirty, you clean it. You should clean your toilet every day anyway. Spray with vinegar and water and wipe down please.

I had aspargus for dinner.
My pee smelled bad this morning.
It wasn't brown but,
I flushed it down anyhow.

I don't like it when I poop and other people's urine splashes into my butt. That's disgusting. So I always flush. My toilet is black so you can't really tell anyway. Can't tell if someone left a turd in there either.

Ralph, do you also not believe in washing your hands afterwards because that "wastes" water too? My friends were that way, and I wouldn't touch a doorknob or a light switch in their entire house.

From a medical standpoint, if your urine stinks after you use the toilet once and leave it in there, you're probably dehydrated. Drink more water!

That aside, I live alone and "let it mellow" within reason. The only problem I've ever had was not noticing the amount of T.P. that can build up in the bowl if you aren't careful.

Obviously if someone else came over, I'd flush immediately no matter what, and if I forgot, I would expect that they would flush BEFORE using. But this is more of an etiquette thing than anything else. The only time I see "letting it mellow" as being disgusting is in a public toilet.


In Japan, a lot of times there is a sink above the tank, and the water you wash your hands with goes into the tank to become the next flush. Genius. I can see certain kinds of handwashing soaps/solutions helping cut down on the amount of times youd need to clean the toilet.

I'm definitely a flusher.

Especially after my golden retriever got thirsty...and gave me a very friendly hello.

it's far more wasteful to clean the toilet every day than to flush. not to mention that in order to clean a toilet you must flush it (and flush it at least twice if something's been "mellowing"), which unless you have a lot toilet traffic in your house probably cancels out the mellowing. also definitely something only a man would say -- i've spent my whole life with guys who have disgusting toilet habits and yet assume that the women of the house will take care of it.

and while i generally agree that we're a bit too grossed out by our bodily functions, bringing up chamber pots and latrines doesn't really mean anything. chamber pots were for nighttime use only, and each member of a household had their own which would be emptied outside first thing in the morning. they were a stopgap measure for if you had to piss in the middle of the night, not equivalent to a toilet at all. and latrines are dug deep for a reason. do they smell a bit? sure, though i think modern ones smell worse as they're often made of air-trapping plastic and meant for super-public use; a household latrine is no dirtier or smellier than a home toilet, and it doesn't have to be scrubbed out on a regular basis by the women of the house. in a latrine you're not faced with the sight of other people's intermingling slop every time you use one, thanks to the nice deep dark hole. which is precisely my opposition to mellowing at this point -- i don't need to have up close and personal experiences with my roommate's urine, thanks.

Yay for the water savers out there. Dual flush toilets would be a great compromise for the squeamish. Why do we have to be such wasteful pigs in North America? *That* disgusts me.

My dog Kermie drinks out of the toilet, so I always have to flush.

Last year he ate my Easter ham (which i stupidly left out to thaw) while i was at church, and when I came back Kermie had emptied the toilet. If I hadn't flushed that morning it would have been a diaster.

I am trying to teach my cat Muffy to use the toilet, but I am afraid if she learns, Kermie will start eating her feces when he gets thirsty (dogs tend to do that I hear) has anyone else had concerns like this?

Okay excuse the pun, but I am really pissed at being called a "wasteful pig" just because I like a clean fresh-smelling bathroom in my house. I take very short showers, only use one light in my house at a time, don't drive, etc. to do my part, but if I want to live in the 21st century by disposing of my waste the way technology has allowed me to, then so be it.

I'm for choice, but give me a break, people. Don't persecute Joe Average for choosing to flush.

Ditto on the toilet serving as a pet drinking bowl. We tend to always flush because our animals prefer the toilet water to their water bowls.

The Aquia is a very swell looking, good for small spaces, dual-flush toilet made by Toto. We plan on installing one in our bathroom next month.

When I lived in CA during one of the many long droughts, I followed the recommendations for flushing. These days we still do, mostly because we have a big, blue wasteful toilet from the 60s. It never gets stinky (you flush before that happens!). But, if I had a roommate instead of a spouse, I would be a flusher. I like to choose who I might exchange bodily fluids with. It's context dependent (oh, and we flush before guests arrive).

regards,
trillium

I'd consider myself something of an environmentalist, but I just can't keep myself from flushing the toilet :(

You are all really showing how we are controlled by social constructs by your general disdain for this idea that makes sense environmentally and economically.

I advocate the low-flow/flush-always solution. I also just finished "The Gospel of Germs" which reinforced my already-firm belief in an ever sparkling toilet.

I'm as green as I can reasonably be, and it seems that toilet-water wasting is pretty low on the list of things we need to do to decrease our footprint on the planet.

Here's an article you might find interesting:

"The Lowdown on Low-Flow Toilets"
http://design.hgtv.com/bath/Article_detail.aspx?id=528

You can save water buy, say, placing a plastic coke bottle full of water (with the lid on) in the tank, so that it won't take so much water to fill it up.

But leaving germy, smelly pee in toilet where it can stink up your bathroom and your house, and promote mold growth inside the toilet bowl is not in the interest of good hygene.

I have low-flow toilets and flush after going, thanks. Don't wee in the shower, either!

I don't think it's particularly squeamish or wussy to not want to view or smell human waste products. That's not being particularly delicate.

I always flush - we have efficient toilets anyway, so I don't see the danger. My office is located in an environmentally friendly apartment building, so the toilet there uses recycled waste water, which I think is a better idea than letting it "mellow". Too bad most of the buildings in NY just don't have that option.

I love these conversations. Personally, I rent. No one's buying me a low flush toilet. As for mellowing the yellow, someone made the point of how much tp can accumulate.

I think we all need to do what we can for the environment. If you can let it mellow, then do. If you can't, then don't, just pay attention in another area.

I don't think being environmentally aware should make one anal (pardon the pun). Balance is a good thing. If we'd all practiced balance in the first place, the earth wouldn't be so screwed up.

One more thing, I have to laugh at people when they think "yuk" at the mellow thing. You go places during sex that you might not want to share here but you'll say "yuk" at the idea of pee in a toilet. Funny. Aren't we all so weird.

I don't think the comment about us all being conditioned by societal constraints or whatever is valid. You're not conditioned by society to think a skunk stinks ... it just stinks. Conversely, I'm sure there are tons of things that are socially acceptable that I would find personally gross, like eating salty fish eggs, or whatever. Not wanting to walk into my bathroom and always see/smell human waste (my own or someone else's) is my own personal attitude about it, not what "society" taught me was the right or wrong thing to feel.

I keep checking back into this thread, but my intial shock is subsiding to fascination. I hear what josh and others are saying about being environmentally conscious, but what about your own personal environment? The Japanese system seems to make the most sense to me.

I would absolutely question my host's hygenic practices if I found urine in their toilet. I'm not trying to be a snob, but I thought you might want to know what kind of message this could be sending others. The idea that someone wouldn't wash their hands in order to save water is one that hadn't even occurred to me. Does this mean they don't wash their meat and vegetables? Do they wash their cleaning rags often enough? Do they re-wear dirty clothes? Am I a germaphobe?

Like somebody already mentioned, but people keep complaining about: if your pee stinks, you're not drinking enough water.

Also, in Finland (never seen it anywhere else) their toilets tend to have two flushing options. Instead of a handle there's a flat panel with a big water drop on one side and a small water drop on the other. Kind of self-explanatory I guess. It makes sense as an alternative to letting it mellow: just a little stream of water to wash the pee down...

I have friends who do not flush and their bathroom smells like a urinal. Completely disgusting. For those who so earnestly claim a toilet full of old pee is fine you can all trade in your toilets for a nice big bucket, and dump it down the sewer on the corner every other day.

After you're all done saving water by filling your toilets with pee you might want to consider eating on lightly dirty dishes, wearing underwear 3 days before washing it and quitting your daily cup of java. Then there's riding your bike to work, trading your light fixtures for candles and burning corn husks in your new cast iron stove for heat. Otherwise you really must not care about the environment.

yellow or brown - not flushing is flat out disgusting.

this whole topic is vile and so not appropriate for AT - what were you thinking maxwell????

When I first started dating my fiance I was THRILLED to find out that not only did he flush after he pee'd, but he also put the top down and washed his hands. I said to myself "I'm gonna marry that boy one day". And I will. :)

Flush the toilet and seat down.

End of story.

Quit being hypocrites, AT.

You are worried about water waste and wonder if we should flush each and every time we tinkle but you want your house to smell like "Christmas" so you condone chopping down tress because they were farm grown anyhow?

Green or not green...which is it going to be?

I say seat AND lid down ... all one has to do is watch that show where they put glow-in-the-dark stuff in the toilet and turned the lights out to show you where the stuff goes when you flush ... unless you want that water and pee all over your towels, walls, etc. (even in minute amounts) put the lid down!

All this talk just made me give my toilet a massive scrubbing...

Yes by seat down I mean shut the whole thing down.

I won't have a fake tree, either, for god's sake.

I find it hilarious that people feel the need to couch it as an environmental practice. I don't always flush, but I live alone, admit to 3rd generation hygiene practices (soap? what's that?) and laziness. And I was shaped by growing up in drought stricken areas.

Not dead yet,

atomic librarian

amused, are you my boyfriend? You might be if 1) everywhere we go, you clog people's toilets with excessive amounts of toilet paper; 2) we just went to Japan; and 3) you're a doctor. If you're not, the parallels are startling.
(And if you are, what are you doing posting on AT when you should be WORKING?)

Haha pvd, it's like a modern day version of the pina colada song.

jennie (2) - Yes... except no one in his/her right mind would go looking for someone who clogs toilets with such frequency and gusto. :)

Amusing reading the comments...people are always so opinionated or caustic. Hmmm my wife and I don't flush the yellow... Our bathroom never smells like a urinal and if someone is coming over I flush out of common courtesy. But I guess the whole idea of flush toilets in America is still a bit of an environmental sin (I'd have a compost toilet if we had our own place)

Well, if you don't have a Japanese recycled water toilet, you could theoretically wash your hands over a bucket and use the run-off to flush with.

Toilet contents flush with a bucket of mop water, too.

And I keep my counter cloth in a bucket of warm bleach water. I suppose I could get a flush out of that.

It'd be even simpler to just skim some out of the pool. Oh yeah, I don't have a pool.

This seems like a more appropriate topic for treehuger, perhaps?

I'm neither yay nor nay for the topic of flushing. I just wonder what this has to do with apartmenttherapy? C'mon, what does personal preference on hygiene mean to how my apartment looks? Maxwell, you're on crack!

Unless you simply want to discuss appealing low-flow toilets. In which case - let's start collecting the links.

Fortunately, I have the Toto Aquia dual flush toilet, which solves this problem and, yes, I do love it!

i only let it mellow at night. if i get up to pee in the middle of the night (usually this happens more than once) i let it go till the morning. i figured why waste the water and why wake up the husband with the flush? works fine.

It doesn't matter what people do in their own homes. There are definite merits to both mellowing and flushing. I think the most important thing is to flush when you're visiting other people's homes. Really. I have had several visitors from CA who let it mellow in my bathroom. Not cool.

Cari--
Christmas tree farming/harvesting is NOT "anti-green."

To the people who need to flush because your pets use the toilet as water bowls, two questions:
Do your pets lick you?
Do your toilets not have LIDS?!?

Pee S:
I think new construction should REQUIRE dual flush toilets.

Lids are no obstacle for a thirsty dog, not even the heavy ceramic-type lids. I stepped on enough toilet-bowl drool water in the foyer to know.

This is as much fun as discussing money. Thanks for a rowdy topic, Maxwell.

(and all the more reason that residential urinals are not entirely ridiculous...)

maybe everyone should just pee into their shower/tub drain all the time.

urine is sterile, after all, and that'd solve the issue of the presence of visible urine in the bathroom. you could just quick rinse with a cup or so of water, or run the faucet for a sec.

ok, this post started out sarcastic, but now i just don't know... it sounds so sensible... it would also help me get ready for my big India trip in the spring (kinda sweating the 3rd world squat toilet issue).

Parents of infants and pre-toilet-trained toddlers talk about pee and poo a lot, without remembering that some of us are not parents of these (or any) children.

Maxwell's not on crack for bringing up this subject, he's just being a new father!

i enjoyed reading all the previous posts, it's amusing that some people mentioned that others are ashamed of their bodily functions. But that's why we call it waste and your body want's to expel it. we have water saving toilets and i say flush away.

If we lived in California -- OK, I agree to not flush. Else, I'm for flushing. This is not because I am ashamed of my bodily functions. It is because urine, like feces, is waste. Why keep it around unless absolutely necessary?

I feel the same way about sanitary napkins and pads: there is no reason to keep a used sanitary napkin visible in the bathroom wastebasket. The worst: a used tampon visible in a wastebasket. Ugh! I realize that menstruation is a wonderful way to clean the vagina and I'm glad that I menstruate. Nonetheless, I don't want to see anyone else's used feminine products.

I've never heard of this practice (despite growing up in a developing country) and find it gross and incomprehensible. As many people pointed out, it's smelly, unsightly and unhygenic, even if you clean the toilet every day. And if you're going to clean the toilet everyday, why don't you using similar amounts of water anyway?

And not flushing when you have people in your house or at other people's places is just beyond the pale.

last note: so glad I didn't chance upon this while eating!

Here in NSW (Australia) we are going through a massive drought and the Government has (rightly) imposed some very strict water use restrictions, particularly regarding gardens, washing cars etc. Still, to do our bit (we don't have a very big garden) we "mellow the yellow" (but NEVER overnight and the lid must be down). But we also collect & save our shower water and use it to flush when we do flush. It doesn't look as pretty as nice clean drinking water but it works just as well.
And no, we don't expect guests to do the same and make sure there's nothing "mellowing" when visitors arrive - and if it starts to smell, well we just use some of that shower water to flush it down.
Good, clean drinking water is a rare and lovely thing and shouldn't be wasted.

Terry--
That "not in my backyard" (sort of) thinking about California's situation is REALLY short-sighted.

And btw, nobody is talking about going without flushing for DAYS for chrissake.

Having lived overseas in drought countries, we always "let it mellow" as does almost everyone else I know. But we accompany it with a "lid-down" policy, and always flush b-4 company. In fact, we once had two bathrooms, so we always kept one pristine for company and used the back one for ourselves. It was also where we kept the bucket for cloth diapers.

As for cleaning it, at the end of the day a quick swipe with the brush and flush was all it took.

Of course, living overseas, you also have more of a Zen approach to germs.

Having lived overseas in drought countries, we always "let it mellow" as does almost everyone else I know. But we accompany it with a "lid-down" policy, and always flush b-4 company. In fact, we once had two bathrooms, so we always kept one pristine for company and used the back one for ourselves. It was also where we kept the bucket for cloth diapers.

As for cleaning it, at the end of the day a quick swipe with the brush and flush was all it takes.

Of course, living overseas, you also have more of a Zen approach to germs.

Why bother to flush at all even with faeces? - "you might want to consider eating on lightly dirty dishes, wearing underwear 3 days before washing it" - just go outside and pee and poo onto the sidewalk - no bad smells in the apartment and no water usage - for gods sake people!!!! - where are you going to draw the line? - people in the middle ages would have given their right arm for a flushing toilet! - no wonder NY is full of infestations if this is your level of hygiene!!

Not flushing after urinating is just disgusting - there are better ways to save water

This is a design site that regularly features wallpaper for hundreds of dollars a square yard, sofas for 10K, MCM pieces that represent the annual incomes of entire families outside the first world.

The suggestion that leaving old urine in your toilet is somehow less wasteful than supporting the economies that support our ability to purchase such products (to say nothing of the electricity involved in allowing all of our computers to stay on so that we may monitor design blogs) is, to me, the height of hypocrisy.

I'm not saying we should shut down the internet and live with a pallet on the floor; I'm saying let's call a spade a spade, folks.

What a funny topic. I flush, but not because I'm embarrassed by bodily functions. If I wanted my urine to sit around, I'd use the aforementioned chamber pot. I'm all for greywater usage and low flow, when feasible. Seeing as it's not feasible for me in my rental apt, I flush. My mom grew up in her early childhood with an outhouse...and though she was plenty familiar with bodily functions and having that odor, it was never pleasant, ever. Trust me, she flushes.

How is the ability to spend a bundle on wallpaper related in any way to concern for water resources?

"How is the ability to spend a bundle on wallpaper related in any way to concern for water resources?"

Read my post. Again.

Read it. Again. You don't make a great case or clear connection, imho. Supporting economies and conserving limited resources are two separate topics, no?

Btw, it's also a site that promotes green living, recycling, conservation, living with less, and slow food. AND expensive wallpaper.

That's your opinion, I guess.

definitely mellow the yellow!