To complain about public urination

We live opposite a beautiful park. The start of it is woods. Gorgeous trees, which are a joy to look out on.
But, we have so many men pulling up for a wee. It’s disgusting, they don’t even hide what they do. I’ve yet to see a woman doing it.
I’d sign the petition. 👍👍

No-one is defending louts of either sex who gratuitously urinate in public places but there are occasions when it is justifiable and especially given the shortage of public lavatories. I noticed recently at a country railway station in Wiltshire that both gents and ladies were locked with no staff present to unlock and I've seen town conveniences chained during daytime hours and frequently at night. Sometimes public conveniences are out of order through lack of maintenance. Long distance lorry driving and major traffic delays can be a serious problem, as can medical conditions. Pubs and cafes are not always open.

Try living in The Netherlands seems to be the norm there especially on weekend evenings and this is in spite of there being several 'open air' type urinals in city centres.

Lay-bys have become urinals and men don't even bother to do it discreetly now, they just stand there in full view of passing traffic, lorry drivers at motorway services are as bad.

meddijess

Not defending men urinating in public at all, but public toilets seem to have vanished, don't they? Cash-strapped councils say that they can't afford to run them. Striking a different note, last winter my DD, Gd and I were stuck outside the Blackwall Tunnel going north, returning GD to Halls after the Christmas break. After 3 hours we all wanted (in my case needed!) to spend a penny. Luckily there was a gap in the queue of cars beside us, so we took in turns to hold both the car doors open and squatted down. Never been so embarrassed in my life, but it had to be done! I hope nobody noticed us.

I think we are talking about two different situations here.

Being in desperate need of a wee and doing it as discreetly as is possible when there are no public toilets anywhere is quite different from men (usually men) ambling along deciding to urinate against a shop doorway, or someone's alley / front garden - or just doing so casually in full view of everyone or anyone.

I think it's rather ironic that some (I don't mean here on GN) social media commenters make derogatory comments about 'third-world' countries when, currently, the lack of public services which include public toilets are gradually reducing us to a similar status.

Public toilets are such an essential and basic requirement for a civilised society, yet they are disappearing; our streets are frequently full of rubbish, road drains blocked with debris causing flooding, pot holes everywhere... but, hey - we don't want 'state interference' in our lives, do we?!

I don't understand why people would wee in a lift
I understand homeless people weeing in stairwells at night but not people who have no excuse

Me neither, apart from the fact that there are some filthy pigs around.

The point is discretion, which you'd think people would want if they're caught short.

None of us would know, if everyone was discreet, assuming they absolutely had to wee.

Mt61

In India it’s the norm to urinate & defecate in the streets, my friend went for her holidays & said it was he on earth 😩 people here should get a hefty fine & that includes spitting & dropping chewing gum

My husband was sent to Bangalore, India on a work trip and said locals just squat to defecate wherever they are on the roadside.

Years ago, when dds were young, we passed a very scruffy old man peeing at the bottom of the stairwell of the car park.
Another man, passing by said, with feeling, ‘You disgusting man!’
The old scruff mumbled, ‘I was bursting…’

I never thought those ‘pissoirs’ you used to see in the streets in France (maybe still do) were exactly a pleasant sight, but maybe they wouldn’t be a bad idea. Public loos hardly exist any more in the U.K. - you have to use one in a shop, pub or cafe.
I’m thankful that at least there are some at the park habitually used by the Gdcs, but I will confess that Gds will usually find a secluded tree….

Imagine living somewhere with piles of crap dotted along the roadside?
Oh, it wouldn't suit me at all.

When we first lived in Oman, back in the mid 70s, occasionally we’d see locals (only ever men) defaecating in public spaces, inc. on the beach, right at the edge of the wavelets.

But at the time, many local people wouldn’t have had loos to use, and I dare say the same would apply in rural India and elsewhere.

Those places do have signs up, informing people not to poop in the street, but whether it's law, I don't know?

It must be a health hazard!

Am not sure whether anyone remembers the documentary where Sue Perkins visited India, she was in a street full of human poo and I think she slipped on it and hurt herself if I’m not wrong. The smell in that heat must be vicious.
🥴

OK, we all agree it's disgusting and unacceptable, so going forwards what is the answer?
- More public loos open at night? ... but wouldn't that then give rise to a hue and cry for them being dangerous (few people about etc) And who maintains them?
- policing? already decided they don't have the capacity!
- education? Parents should but don't and teachers already have too much of what parents should be doing on their plates (even toilet training in some schools!!!)
Perhaps someone should invent "peeing pipes" in laybys (like a drainpipe which goes into a drain or soakaway and in lifts, have cameras which feed directly to the police (like speed cameras)
Any other ideas?

Yes.
"Go before you go out", just as our mums used to say.
Don't drink 50 gallons of skinny frappe blah blah lah when you go out for a walk.
Don't drink 12 pints of beer when out for the night.

If you're caught short, find somewhere discreet and away from where the public, including children, can't see you.

Remember, exposing yourself in public is illegal, and who would want that on record?

I have a portable loo in my car, just in case. I haven't needed to use it yet. But it's reassuring. If I get stuck on the motorway for hours. My knees won't let me squat!

I once let my Youngest granddaughter wee in the street, only because I dragged her half way across town to find the loos closed. That was a tourist town on a Sunday afternoon, she wasn’t going to make it any further, so I just let her go outside the locked toilet.
Sometimes, councils really don’t help the problem.

My house is at the end of an unadopted road with a gate halfway down. I have a CCTV camera alerting me of anyone coming up to or through the gate. The amount of, mostly men but some women, using the road as a toilet is daily. Gross.

Sara1954

I once let my Youngest granddaughter wee in the street, only because I dragged her half way across town to find the loos closed. That was a tourist town on a Sunday afternoon, she wasn’t going to make it any further, so I just let her go outside the locked toilet.
Sometimes, councils really don’t help the problem.

Sometimes, councils really don’t help the problem.

With squeezed budgets - they don't always have too many options on where they can make "savings".

The previous government continued the march towards "small-state".

This is what small state means. Public loos, day-centres, libraries, etc, being closed down. And pot-holes - lots of lovely pot-holes!

It is against the law. It can mean an instant fine.

Are there no cameras in the block of flats? None in the lift? I am surprised. Cameras can be small and hidden from vandals, but in this age, there should be cameras - in all the places which stink.
It attracts vermin and spreads disease.

Spot on Dickens

So disgusting. Unfortunately “for men the whole world is a urinal”.

Does anyone remember Esther Rantzen on That's Life, and the mystery of the poo in the block of flats?

MissAdventure

Does anyone remember Esther Rantzen on That's Life, and the mystery of the poo in the block of flats?

???