Registered User
I don't think you're overreacting.
I think it's perfectly ok to use a disabled toilet if you have pram/trolley/kids. In fact, I can't recall ever seeing a disabled toilet in use by an actual disabled person. EVER!
Parent's rooms are for parents with kids. I will accept a disabled person using them. Anyone else can go to the normal toilets. A hundred meters is a long way when you have to go so I'm not surprised people are too lazy to go to the normal toilets.
My DH is a cleaner. He tells me the ladies is always more filthy then the men. It doesn't surprise me in the least from my experiences of female public toilets.
I was feeding DD in a parents room when two ladies came out of the toilet in there. Together. No idea what they were doing.
ETA Talking about poor planning - Where DH works, they have done renovations recently (as in within the last 12 months). They put the baby change in the female toilets. He was peeved because it basically means he can't change DD if he decided to take her there without me.
Registered User
I use the disabled toilets when I have the kids with me. I feel it is safer to do it like that but now the kids are older I let them go to the normal toilets, except for DS2 who stays with me. We often use the parents room toilets too. I don't use disabled toilets when I'm on my own though and I can understand why some people would use them. Going to the toilet with 5 other people can be a little disconcerting at times and I imagine that it would make some people feel vunerable to do that.
Moderator
That really is bad planning, having the baby change inside a female toilet! And basically its gender stereotyping, discriminatory, all sorts of good things. He should complain!
When we were in these same baby change facilities one day, my sister saw three high-school kids come out of one of the curtained-off feeding cubicles - two girls and a boy. No kidding, they were all mussed up, straightening up their clothes, doing up buttons, laughing and looking very pleased with themselves. My sister went an reported it to security.
A little off topic but I was changing a massive poosplosion that DS had at Brisbane airport a while back and some dude came in wearing tradie gear and a high-viz vest with his lunch, looking to microwave it. Guess where the micro was? Right under where I was changing said poosplosion. I said to him "Well you're just going to have to wait til I'm done, sorry, its going to be a while, this is a real mess." He said he didn't mind and then I said "Don't they give you a lunch room?" and he said there was one but it was way over the other side of the facility.
So he'd rather microwave his food in an area recently used to clean up poo
I'm not so fussed about the disabled toilet being used at this shopping centre, as people point out, if they are busting, fine, it is a bit of a walk to the other one. But using the one in the parents' room irks me.
Registered User
We use the disabled one when I have all three and a pram or trolley if its the only place we fit. Got told off by an abled looking lady who wanted to use it once but we can't use the parent one at that shopping centre as I am not leaving my son and shopping unattended. If I have just one of the girls we use the parent or 'big ones'
Registered User
I often used disabled loos when pregnant and when out with ds. It would annoy me seeing people using parent/disabled loos for no good reason if I am waiting with ds. Its another thread but I get mad seeing people in parenting parking with no kids/pram etc, I often see motorbikes in them too, it makes my blood boil and I feel like kicking them over!
Registered User
I was going to post about toilets today too! But I saw your post and just thought I'd add my bit (maybe TMI).......If you don't mind
When making my way out of a major shopping centre earlier, I was busting for a wee. So I saw the sign for the toilets and headed toward them, and the foul stench of #2 was wafting towards me. And I was still a good 8 metres away from the door! This happens EVERY time I need to use shopping centre toilets. So much so that I refuse to use then unless totally necessary.
Why do women always have to do #2 every time they are out!? I don't think I've ever been and not had to put up with that smell!! Save it for home!
Oh and OP, If I HAVE to use public toilets I won't use parents toilets, but I have been guilty of quickly using the disabled if the others are all taken.
Registered User
He did mention it to the manager but by then it was already done & couldn't be changed. It's not the first time DH has mentioned some of the moronic things they do lol! That manager is no longer there strangely enough
Registered User
OK Nae I get that... I just think we all have different rules about when we can make exceptions for disabled / parent toilets. What flies for you might not fly for others and vice versa. I personally think this is a relatively minor issue and wouldn't let it cloud my day.
(In general, not directed at anyone)
I also think we should be very careful before yelling / making a scene / throwing daggers at someone for using a disabled / parent toilet until you really really are sure there are no extenuating circumstances... and people aren't always open about these circumstances (injury, etc).
Registered User
This is so true. A friend of mine has MS. On a really good day, she looks like a beautiful, vibrant 40 something woman. On a bad day she can't get out of bed. Those days in between can be really hard for her when she's out - walking an extra 10 metres can send her physically over the edge and result in her being bedridden for days. She has been abused many times for parking in a disabled bay (which she is entitled to) just because she can look healthy externally
Registered User
I'd be so so so careful not to judge someone 'not disabled' using a toilet. There are too many reasons to write but they could in fact need the disabled toilet.
Registered User
But, isn't the disabled toilet meant for people with physical disabilities? That's why the only thing that makes it different than the regular toilets is the railing and the space (for wheelchair etc)
I would have thought that if you don't have a physical disability you would just use the regular toilet?
ETA: Oh I see, I just saw LuLu's post!
Registered User
A person may have a catheter or colonoscopy bag that would require more space and privacy then a small cubical.
Those are not visible disabilities.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Registered User
Ahh, yes. I didn't think of those!
You were RAK'ed in 2015.
SO we will try and use the parents room when out, then the female toilets, then the disabled. All depending on the circumstances. But you what is worse in my books than having someone walking out of the disabled and parents room who is neither disabled or with a child? Is the darn druggies who use the rooms to get high. Once when DD1 was busting to go to the loo, we raced into the parents room. No one was there, no noise, yet the toilets were engaged. After knocking and getting no response, we got ready to find the next bathroom. Then out comes these people who were so high and had left their needles on the floor. And the looks they gave us!! far out I wanted to slap them silly. And whats worse is its happened a few times, and in different shopping centres. Oh and if DH has the girls then he will try the parents room first then go to the disabled toilets, I prefer that to him taking them into the male toilets.
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