Name: Anonymous 2005-11-26 8:09
I used to work in Redwood City, at a startup located in a converted print shop in the gritty section between Woodside and Fifth.
That place had the most lo-flo toilet from hell I ever saw. Basically, the rule was that if the flush was 100% liquid (no solids or paper) you could safely flush once. Otherwise, you had to carefully look at what you were about to flush, and decide if it might stick to the pipes- and if you thought it might, then you had to flush twice, maybe three times. And you never knew what the toilet was going to do when you flushed it. If people before you hadn't been flushing it enough, it would take revenge on a random flusher by regurgitating several gallons of filth all over the floor. Everybody had a horror story of being caught when that happened, frantically trying to stop it with a plunger and then mopping up the mess. When we had customer visits the toilet became horrible- the customers weren't used to our toilet and would single-flush which quickly made the toilet very angry. We were chronic customers of Roto-Rooter, who was over every so often to fix recurring problems with the toilet and the landlord got so sick of the costs that he secretly installed illicit toilets from Canada.
Now I work at a place in Santa Clara. This place has one evil urinal that flushes forever. God knows how many gallons this thing rips through in one minute. Since even the normal urinal flushes are so remarkably prolonged, the flusher is usually gone before realizing that his flush is never going to end. (This is even granting time for the customary pro forma soapless hand rinse to acknowledge any possible witnesses to his hygeine who are in the restroom with him and who forced him to flush the urinal in the first place.) I see it happen all the time. I come in, this thing is flushing, and I stop it by flushing one of the other urinals (usually the one with yellow water, there's always one of those). The drop in pressure disrupts the eternal flush and it stops. Then someone I don't know will come in, use that urinal, start it flushing, quickly rinse and dry his hands without soap to acknowledge my presence as a potential witness to his hygeine, and leave before realizing he's just started an eternal flush.
That place had the most lo-flo toilet from hell I ever saw. Basically, the rule was that if the flush was 100% liquid (no solids or paper) you could safely flush once. Otherwise, you had to carefully look at what you were about to flush, and decide if it might stick to the pipes- and if you thought it might, then you had to flush twice, maybe three times. And you never knew what the toilet was going to do when you flushed it. If people before you hadn't been flushing it enough, it would take revenge on a random flusher by regurgitating several gallons of filth all over the floor. Everybody had a horror story of being caught when that happened, frantically trying to stop it with a plunger and then mopping up the mess. When we had customer visits the toilet became horrible- the customers weren't used to our toilet and would single-flush which quickly made the toilet very angry. We were chronic customers of Roto-Rooter, who was over every so often to fix recurring problems with the toilet and the landlord got so sick of the costs that he secretly installed illicit toilets from Canada.
Now I work at a place in Santa Clara. This place has one evil urinal that flushes forever. God knows how many gallons this thing rips through in one minute. Since even the normal urinal flushes are so remarkably prolonged, the flusher is usually gone before realizing that his flush is never going to end. (This is even granting time for the customary pro forma soapless hand rinse to acknowledge any possible witnesses to his hygeine who are in the restroom with him and who forced him to flush the urinal in the first place.) I see it happen all the time. I come in, this thing is flushing, and I stop it by flushing one of the other urinals (usually the one with yellow water, there's always one of those). The drop in pressure disrupts the eternal flush and it stops. Then someone I don't know will come in, use that urinal, start it flushing, quickly rinse and dry his hands without soap to acknowledge my presence as a potential witness to his hygeine, and leave before realizing he's just started an eternal flush.