50 Fun Toilet Facts

Toilets. Everybody needs one, yet no one likes to talk about them. Well, following are fifty fun facts about the crapper, the loo, the john, the TOILET!:

1. The average person spends three whole years of their life sitting on the toilet.

2. The toilet handle in a public restroom can have up to 40,000 germs per square inch.

3. The film “Psycho” was the first movie to show a toilet flushing – the scene caused an inpouring of complaints about indecency.

4. Pomegranates studded with cloves were used as the first attempt at making toilet air-freshner.

5. Hermann Goering refused to use regulation toilet paper – instead he bought soft white handkerchiefs in bulk and used them.

6. Over $100,000 US dollars was spent on a study to determine whether most people put their toilet paper on the holder with the flap in front or behind; the answer: three out of four people have the flap in the front.

7. King George II of Great Britain died falling off a toilet on the 25th of October 1760.

8. The first toilet cubicle in a row is the least used (and consequently cleanest).

9. An estimated 2.6 billion people worldwide do not have access to proper toilet facilities, particularly in rural areas of China and India.

10. The toilet is flushed more times during the Super Bowl halftime than at any time during the year.

11. 90% of pharmaceuticals taken by people are excreted through urination. Therefore our sewer systems contain heavy doses of drugs. A recent study by the EPA has found fish containing trace amounts of estrogen, cholesterol-lowering drugs, pain relievers, antibiotics, caffeine and even anti-depressants.

12. While he didn’t invent the toilet, Thomas Crapper perfected the siphon flush system we use today.

13. In a 1992 survey, British public toilets were voted the worst in the world. Following quickly behind were Thailand, Greece, and France.

14. An average person visits the toilet 2500 times a year, about six-eight times a day. You spend about three years of your life in the toilet!

15. There are toilet associations worldwide promoting toilet education and culture.

16. Chinese Emperors first felt the need for something to use to clean themselves and thus they ordered the first ever toilet paper in AD 1391. Each sheet of toilet tissue was then two feet by three feet.

17. In 1890, the Scott Paper Company manufactured toilet paper on a roll, much as we know it today.

18. The first time there were separate male and female toilets were at a posh party in Paris in 1739.

19. Here are some words used for the loo: powder room, lavatory, outhouse, ladies, convenience, washroom, men’s room, bathroom, dunny, bog, khazi, gents, garderobe, necessary, women’s room, restroom, potty, privy, the smallest room, cloakroom, latrine, place of easement, water closet (WC), john, can, little girls’ room, little boys’ room, throne room, facilities, House of Honor (by the ancient Israelites) and the House of the Morning (by the ancient Egyptians).

20. Most toilets flush in the key of E flat.

21. World Toilet Day takes place on November 19 of each year.

22. We use an average of 57 sheets of toilet paper a day.

23. One-third of all Americans flush the toilet while they are still sitting on it.

24. 40,000 Americans are injured by toilets each year.

25. The first toilet ever seen on television was on “Leave It To Beaver.”

26. In 1996, President Clinton passed a law on toilet paper, taxing each roll six cents and increasing the price of the product to thirty cents per roll.

27. The average desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat.

28. Car steering wheels carry more than twice as many germs as a toilet seat.

29. Urine on the toilet seat–athough disgusting, is a nearly sterile liquid.

30. The faucet handle in most bathrooms at work have 400 times more germs than the toilet seat.

31. There are 333 squares of toilet paper on a roll.

32. The standard size of a sheet of toilet paper is 4.5″ by 4.5″.

33. In 1890, the Scott Paper Company manufactured toilet paper on a roll, much as we know it today.

34. Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least six feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.

35. Advice in one book suggests that a person exit a public restroom stall immediately after flushing, since “fecal matter” can fly twenty feet into the air when flushed.

36. Deriving in 1828, the original meaning of toilet, or toilette, is of French origin meaning the “act of washing, dressing, and preparing oneself”. As the years went by, the word evolved into actually being the room or facility in which one arranges their toilet. In modern days, toilet refers to the plumbing fixture that one might use in the “bathroom”, with “bathroom” now describing the facility one would go to for the purpose of using the toilet or lavatory.

37. New Yorker Joseph C. Gayetty produced the first packaged bathroom tissue in the United States in 1857. The Gayetty Firm from New Jersey produced the first toilet paper named “The Therapeutic Paper”. It contained an abundance of aloe, a curative addition. The company sold it in packs of 500 sheets for fifty cents, and Joseph Gayetty had his name printed on each sheet.

38. The Scott Paper Company is the first company to manufacture tissue on a roll, specifically for the use of toilet paper.

39. Early Scott Paper advertisements suggested that “over 65% of middle-aged men and women suffered from some sort of rectal disease”. Inferior toilet paper was deemed to be responsible. It was printed in Scott advertisements that “harsh toilet tissue may cause serious injury”. The ad said ” ScotTissue, Sani-tissue and Waldorf are famous bathroom tissues specifically processed to satisfy the three requirements doctors say toilet tissue must have to be safe: absorbency-softness-chemical purity”.

40. Before toilet paper was invented, people used:

41. Newsprint, paper catalogue pages in early US

42. Discarded sheep’s wool in the Viking Age, England

43. Frayed end of an old anchor cable was used by sailing crews from Spain and Portugal *Medieval Europe- Straw, hay, grass, gompf stick

44. Corn cobs, Sears Roebuck catalog, mussel shell, newspaper, leaves, sand- United States

45. Water and your left hand, India

46. Pages from a book, British Lords

47. Coconut shells in early Hawaii

48. Lace was used by French Royalty

49. Public Restrooms in Ancient Rome- A sponge soaked in salt water, on the end of a stick

50. The Wealthy in Ancient Rome-Wool and Rosewater