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AIBU

To complain about public urination

(148 Posts)
Babs03 Thu 10-Oct-24 21:30:51

Sorry, I know it isn't pleasant, but it really winds me up. Went to visit a friend in a block of flats near us the other day, is a nicely maintained block but when I got in the lift was the unmistakeable odour of urine as well as the tell tale stains. And of course it is men doing the honours. Seems that we can't use a subway, enter a public stairwell or lift, or take shelter from the rain inside a shop doorway, without the smell of urine assailing us. Just because men find it easier to urinate in public than women surely doesn't mean they can do it whenever and wherever they want. And they aren't all drunks. In a park across from us we often see men just out walking the dog etc., dodging into the bushes for a wee, thing is there are two lots of public toilets in the park, well signposted and open all day.
Is sheer laziness and a lack of consideration for others.
Would like to see a national campaign aimed at preventing this, I know is a public offence to urinate in public but who is policing this?

Sara1954 Fri 11-Oct-24 08:07:29

No I agree, but I don’t think it’s just men in public places.

Gingster Fri 11-Oct-24 08:10:35

OMG * GrannyGravy *. That really is disgusting. 🤢

Babs03 Fri 11-Oct-24 08:11:18

Gingster

OMG * GrannyGravy *. That really is disgusting. 🤢

I agree 🫣

Babs03 Fri 11-Oct-24 08:13:50

@sara1954 I take your point, some inebriated women may well do this but is a tiny percentage compared to the men who will do it either inebriated or stone cold sober. 🙁

Luckygirl3 Fri 11-Oct-24 08:14:06

Virtually no public loos in.our local town. Bit of a trial for those of us with weak bladders ...
I do not get too panicked about peeing behind a bush though ... it's lifts etc where it is so objectionable.

GrannyGravy13 Fri 11-Oct-24 08:14:34

Gingster

OMG * GrannyGravy *. That really is disgusting. 🤢

If he had been a few minutes later the senior school opposite, the junior and pre-school next door but one to me would have been coming out.

Sara1954 Fri 11-Oct-24 08:24:51

Babs, I agree, I just think women are much less fussy than they used to be, I’ve seen women urinate in the car park on more than one occasion, and once out for a walk, a lady, and I mean a lady, not a young girl, having a wee in a bus shelter, one of the brick type, so not so obvious unless you’re walking by.

MissAdventure Fri 11-Oct-24 08:51:30

Bloody disgusting pigs!!!
angry
I can't stand anything like that.

dogsmother Fri 11-Oct-24 09:18:36

Maddy4 surely it wouldn’t need to be so complicated for the police. Maybe on the spot fines / tickets much like traffic fines a d speeding tickets.

shysal Fri 11-Oct-24 09:40:10

I was guilty of this sin yesterday. I was suddenly desperate when my daughter was driving me home from day surgery. She pulled in to the motorway services, but I knew I wouldn't make the building, so she stopped for me to squat in some bushes!
Loss of dignity, but as my mother would have said 'nobody knows me'!

MissAdventure Fri 11-Oct-24 09:42:20

At least you didn't go through someone's letterbox. smile

Cossy Fri 11-Oct-24 09:43:16

It’s disgusting and unsavoury!

Honestly can’t they wait 5 mins? Unless it’s delivery drivers (still absolutely no excuse)

We do need far more accessible public loos though

keepingquiet Fri 11-Oct-24 09:44:56

It happened in a supermarket car park. I watched it with another woman from inside my car- when he turned round we shouted there was a toilet in the store! Some men are just disgusting...

Babs03 Fri 11-Oct-24 09:46:22

I imagine all of us have been caught short and nipped behind a bush at some point. But I doubt many of us would do it in a stairwell or lift etc. I remember Sarah Millican saying that once in a traffic jam that
lasted hours she took off her knickers and sat on the passenger seat to wee, then sat back in the drivers seat. She did then clean the car thoroughly, but I imagine in those circumstances your options are very limited. For a man he can use an empty bottle or container.

MissAdventure Fri 11-Oct-24 09:47:53

And she blamed her dog!! 😂

Babs03 Fri 11-Oct-24 11:39:54

MissAdventure

And she blamed her dog!! 😂

Yes I forgot that 😂

eazybee Fri 11-Oct-24 12:15:17

It is very common on the continent; I will never forget the expression on my mother-in-law's face (and the English guests) when her new Belgian son-in-law and his friends urinated all over her freshly weeded flower beds at her daughter's wedding.
Perhaps mothers, and fathers, could instruct their sons. Teachers are tired of having to install basic human manners because parents can't be bothered.

sodapop Fri 11-Oct-24 12:30:05

I know of two people who were fined £150 each for peeing behind a hedge in the Lincolnshire countryside.
Men tend to pee by the roadside here in France although not as common as it used to be. We also see bottles of urine on the roadside thrown from lorries.

Babs03 Fri 11-Oct-24 13:18:15

I just don’t understand why some men can’t use toilets, and have seen men peeing next to the road in European countries, sometimes right into the road seemingly targeting passing traffic, but that doesn’t make it ok, it just means that men over there are behaving disgustingly too.
This freedom they feel to pee anywhere is one freedom too far, goodness knows they have far more freedoms than women to start with. And I do think could be a ‘man’ thing, like they are too big and important to use a toilet so they will wave their willy at the world and wee where they want.
Time to call time on this awful habit, or perhaps women could go out enmasse and squat everywhere to wee and see what society has to say about that.
Not sure I’d do it in this weather though 😂

grandtanteJE65 Fri 11-Oct-24 13:21:46

How clean are the park's public toilets?

If they are as filthy as most public conveniences, I do understand why people (of either sex) would rather go behind a bush.

But I agree, it is a filthy habit to wee just anywhere, and a potential spreader of germs.

The trouble is, and always has been, that mothers of little boys give up trying to persuade small sons to use the toilet before going out. Ringing down the years I hear, "But I don't need to wee" followed five minutes afterwards at the bus-stop, by"I need to wee." As it is easier to let a boy, even in a flying suit wee outdoors than a little girl who has to be undressed more-or-less, mothers, aunties, grandmothers, you name us, gave in and said "Well, pop behind that tree"

But that is no excuse for grown men, is it?

More public toilets, kept reasonably clean might help, but will probably have about the same amount of luck and users as the bins for putting dog-do, suitably wrapped, in!

Grantanow Fri 11-Oct-24 14:09:42

I recall long distance coach holidays in which there were comfort stops when men and women relieved themselves on different sides of the vehicle: gentlemen to the right, ladies to the left. Are we not being a bit precious about all this?

MissAdventure Fri 11-Oct-24 14:14:48

Well, I don't want to flash my fanny around in public.

If that's precious, then I'm it.

Babs03 Fri 11-Oct-24 14:16:33

Grantanow

I recall long distance coach holidays in which there were comfort stops when men and women relieved themselves on different sides of the vehicle: gentlemen to the right, ladies to the left. Are we not being a bit precious about all this?

If there were no loos and this wasn’t in a lift or stairwell, bus shelter etc., but out on the road, presumably in the countryside, then t this is fine, but we are talking about people urinating in shared public spaces or in the case of men abroad, doing it in full view rather than looking for a tree or bush.
Is just good manners.
We all have to go, but doing it in public and stinking up public areas is a no no xx

Dickens Fri 11-Oct-24 15:18:10

Grantanow

I recall long distance coach holidays in which there were comfort stops when men and women relieved themselves on different sides of the vehicle: gentlemen to the right, ladies to the left. Are we not being a bit precious about all this?

I think what you've described is a bit different from random men urinating against the first convenient 'prop' in public. I saw one man peeing against a car along the main road - not his own car.

On Rugby days in Twickenham, Middlesex, it's the bane of resident's lives; their front gardens and paths are frequently used as public toilets, especially in the evening after the fans spill out of the pubs. Some even defecate in the gardens - others throw their fast-food containers and wrappings over hedges and walls, too.

I don't know what it's like now, but when I lived there, residents complained, and little to nothing was ever done about it - I think the fans were exhorted to be "more considerate" - fat lot of good that did.

Fortunately, I didn't live on the main-drag, but I think I would definitely have felt a bit precious if I'd had to put up with random (frequently drunk) louts using my front garden as a toilet, or finding a heap of human excrement the next morning.

MissAdventure Fri 11-Oct-24 15:20:58

There is no way in this lifetime my mum and dad would have gone on a coach trip with mass piddling going on, in view, and my dad was a coach driver for a while!