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Toilets---those Sh_tty Places

Toilets---those sh_tty places are in the news again. Recently we had the " National Clean Toilets Campaign. Looks like the campaign has yet to produce results. According to this Star report, the Johore Local Government Committee chairman Datuk Jimmy Low said that local councils have been empowered under the Public Lavatory By-Law to carry out enforcement on restaurants, hotels, coffee shops and shopping centres. Looks like the local councils will be removing their kid gloves. “The time has come to shed the bad image of Malaysian public toilets,” said Datuk Jimmy Low. Low also said under the by-law, those providing public toilet facilities could be fined up to RM1,000 for dirty toilets.
There is also this report in Youth Quake which says that a recent survey by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government showed an estimated 90 per cent of school toilets are not in proper working condition. Reasons for this state of affairs boil down to insufficient funds. But, but we were told that a whopping Rm 720 mil is used annually for our toilets and the recent stimulus package carried another Rm 200 mil for maintenance and cleanliness. If school toilets can be in this sad sad state, can we realistically expect toilets in coffee shops and shopping centres to be well maintained? One only have to visit goverrnent complexes to see how well the loos there are maintained, no better than in schools mostly. The article in Youth Quake should be read, apart from the laughs that it provides, in toto to understand why school toilets are in the state they are in. School kids do come up with the funniest of things regarding the state and uses of their school loos and they do have such odd expectations.
Read all of the gems dropping out of their mouths, they include the following ::
"It's interesting that in Living Skills classes, we learn how the plumbing system works. In Chemistry class we learn to analyse the chemicals in toilet-cleaning fluids, but we (are not) taught to keep the toilets clean."
"I once asked my teacher why there was no running water in the toilet taps. The reply? 'No money, no water'.
"I don't bother keeping the toilets clean myself. What difference can one person make? Besides, it was dirty to begin with. Not just me, almost everyone has an indifferent attitude to the toilet's cleanliness."
"In Singapore, I was told that they run courses on how to use female urinals. I know it sounds like a ridiculous idea to ask teachers to teach students how to use the toilets but if they don't do that, who will?"
It looks like our school teachers need to educate kids plenty more. Believe me, not one of the kids interviewed said it was his or her responsiblity to keep their school toilets clean. As adults later on, this attitude continues, leading to the sh_tty state of our public loos.
Our toilets have also been use for purposes other than answering nature's calls and the occasional freshening up. According to Suresh and others, toilets do function as kitchens too. Lastly, this is what a school kid had to say about other uses of toilets, "Some students have turned the school toilets into a smoking-den. I normally hate the smell of cigarettes but in this case the cigarette smell helps reduce the pungent and acrid smell in the toilets."