This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UC Irvine chapter.
Public bathrooms can be disgusting and horrible to use. Some people have an extreme fear for the dreaded thought of using a public bathroom. The thing with public bathrooms is that you never really know how clean it really is or who had previously used the stall. In other cases, public bathrooms may be horrendous right when you walk in—unflushed toilets, no toilet paper, papers everywhere, and so on. UC Irvine, generally considered as a clean school, notoriously, and surprisingly, contains dirty bathrooms. Her Campus assigned me to check out the “dirtiest bathrooms” on campus. I asked fellow friends of their bad bathroom experiences and decided to venture to the realm of gross bathrooms. To my surprise, none of the bathrooms mentioned were that dirty (and I do take cleanliness to heart). I did my search on a Wednesday afternoon and concluded that I must have gone on a day that the bathrooms were cleaned. Here lies a list of the “Top Disgusting Bathrooms” on campus. Note: I only went to women’s bathrooms. I do not dare to enter a college men’s bathroom.
Gateway Study Center
Of course, this bathroom was mentioned since Gateway is one of the most crowded study centers on campus. To get to the bathroom, you have to go downstairs to a basement-like area. When you finally reach the bathroom, you must enter one room before you enter the bathroom. What makes this bathroom creepy is that it is not only an obscure location but they are random stains on the wall and floors. Not so pleasant.
Langson Library
Like Gateway, Langon Library is another top study area on campus. So given the popularity of the location, I checked out the first floor’s bathroom. I expected it to be a lot worst. Of course, there was paper towels on the floor right near the trash can. But, what makes Langon’s bathroom memorable is the high school-like bathroom wall writings. It reminds me of high school and one of the writings even said, “stop writing on walls and acting like you’re still in high school people.” Langson’s wall writings make me wonder if people spend more time thinking of clever things to write on the bathroom stall walls rather than studying.
Biology Science III
Located conveniently against the walls of Biology Science III lecture hall, my friends told me this bathroom was disgusting. I walked in and this bathroom was huge! It was dirty, but not disgusting. I am guessing it just got cleaned. The search continues…
Science Library, Floor 5
A friend told me that this bathroom was downright gross, because whenever she walked in, she would always find something super gross like period blood all over the toilet seat cover. After hearing those horrors, a normal person will never enter this bathroom but when you are assigned to write about disgusting bathrooms then this bathroom is on the list to visit. All right, this bathroom is not for those who suffer from claustrophobia since this bathroom is cramped with only one stall. I did not see anything that grossed me out. The usual toilet paper near the toilet have writings on the wall.
Engineering Lecture Hall
This was my last stop on the journey of exploring the many bathrooms here at UCI. People told me this bathroom should be avoided. Even though engineering has the lowest female enrollment on campus, this bathroom is highly used since it is located against the wall of ELH. This was another one of those bathrooms with the room leading to the bathroom. When I walked in, there was an extreme stench that filled the air. I finally thought I found the “Holy Grail” of gross bathrooms on campus, but to my dismay, it was like all of the other bathrooms—dirty but not unusable. The only thing I found unpleasant were the unfamiliar stains on the wall. As I was walking out, I ran into one of my classmates, and told her about my bathroom excursion. She told me that she tries to avoid this bathroom because it is usually unclean but she really needed to go to the bathroom. Like me, she was also shocked that this bathroom was cleaned.
Okay, so maybe our bathrooms are not that gross or I just came on the wrong day. But when you think about it, do you ever want to enter a dirty bathroom? So, perhaps, we all got the memo that we should clean up after ourselves when we enter a public bathroom. The cleanliness of the bathrooms angers me a little and leaves the excitement of this article flushed down.
Links
Facebook page dedicated to public bathrooms: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Public-bathrooms-are-disgusting-scary-and-usually-haunted/235876291835?sk=info’
