The First Floor Women’s Bathroom Review
By Makeda Viechweg
Illustrations By Katie Herchenroeder
Thefirst floor bathroom is a heavy-foot trafficked bathroom in the North AcademicCenter building. Attempts have been made to improve its cleanliness but itstill is not the most clean.
Duringrush hour times, between noon to 2:00 PM or right after classes finish, youwill find a line of women waiting for the bathroom.
Atthe start of the Fall semester, the school installed automatic flush functionsin each stall of the bathroom in hopes for it to be more sanitary.
Thedownfall with the automatic flush is that it flushes when it wants to not whenyou want it to.
Itflushes before you wipe and then it does not flush again to flush your tissue.So, you are left dangling, shaking, and fake squatting, trying to trick thetoilet to flush but it simply will not.
Sometoilets’ flushes are so powerful that they spray on your clothes whileflushing. Women are forced to squeeze themselves in the stall corner to avoidgetting sprayed on while the toilet fills back with water in the bowl.
Squeezingyourself in the corner of the stall puts you at risk for touching the wallsthat are coated with long strands of hair from the woman before you. But, youalready are at risk of having someone’s hair get on you when you hang your bagon the hook behind the door.
Moststalls are either missing the metal sanitary bin lid, the bottom piece, or thewhole thing all together. Some bins are overflowing with waste.
Womenhave to do the walk of shame holding their sanitary napkin wrapped in tissue tothe outside garbage in the bathroom. Some stuff it in their coat pockets andthen dispose of it on their way out after washing their hands.
Otherwomen avoid the embarrassment all together and leave the wrapped up sanitary napkinin the back of the toilet bowl or on the floor. There are a few that do notwrap it in tissue and leave it out bare in the open for the next person to seeand this is the biggest concern of hygiene for some students in the women’srestroom.
“Ilook for the little bin on the side all the time,” says student Farija. “Mostof them don’t have it or they are filthy with exposed pads and tissue.”
“That’smy main concern. That we don’t always have a place to put it,” concludesFarija.
“It’srepulsing seeing open feminine products. There should be a place for them” saysFatou K. Fatou K. prefers the automatic flush than the handle, because it’smore sanitary. “I actually prefer it than the handle one because now I don’thave to touch it,” says Fatou K.
Butwhat needs to be automatic is the faucets and paper towel dispensers. Somefaucet knobs you have to hold down while you take turns washing one hand at atime which is not the proper way to wash hands.
Thereis no telling how many germs are being transferred onto your clean hand whenyou press down the knob to wash your dirty one.
Otherfaucets, if you are lucky to find them, give you two seconds to wash both handsbefore you have to push down the knob again.
About5-6 pumps at the paper towel dispenser gives you a medium sized piece to dryyour hands. But the pump is already wet by previous hands pumping at thedispenser, which is also probably filled with germs.
Womenhave to hold onto their wet paper towel to open the door. The good thing isthat it is one of those handles that you have to push down and pull open andnot turn and pull. You get a better grip on the handle if push down rather thanturn.
Butthe garbage can is placed far from the door, so it becomes a basketball game toshoot the paper towel in the can. If you miss the shot, nine out of ten timesit stays on the floor and becomes a part of the cluster of those that missedbefore you.
Somegoers throw out the paper towel and use their hands to open the door which isnot sanitary, but if it avoids being stuck with the paper towel afterwards thenby all means.
“Idon’t go here. I only come to study but our bathrooms are far cleaner than here,”says a Brooklyn College student about CCNY’s bathrooms.
“Ionly come here because it’s a quiet place to study and I live nearby,” shesays. “I try my best to not use the bathroom here.”
Theautomatic flushes with their operating malfunctions still a step up for thefirst floor bathroom but more work needs to be done.
Somewomen are not fazed by the bathroom conditions. They get up close and personalputting their makeup on, fixing their hair, and outfits. Others laugh and chatwith their friends not bothered by the state of the bathroom.
