A lot of people have a fear of public restrooms. Some feel nervous and self-conscious using someone else’s bathroom, while others have just seen too many disastrous ones to trust them at all. You roll the dice whenever you use a public restroom.
Who knows what you’ll find behind those doors – or if you can even close the doors. Busted toilets, filthy seats, grimy floors – it’s never a pretty picture. However, sometimes when nature calls, public restrooms are our only option.
So, what do you do when you’re forced to use a public restroom toilet? Do you lay down one of those protective seat covers? What if there aren’t any; do you build a toilet paper barrier instead? If the answer is yes, you need to stop.
People assume that toilets are covered in bacteria, but the actual seats themselves are designed to not pick up any. Their deliberate curve and smooth surface prevent bacteria from sticking around, so they’re rather safe to sit on.
Germs cannot multiply on bare skin alone, so don’t expect to get sick from sitting on a dry public toilet seat. Where are the real germs in public stalls? On the toilet paper.
Unlike toilet seats, nothing else in a bathroom stall is designed to prevent bacteria from sticking to it. Germs get spread all around the stall when we flush the toilet. They latch onto the walls, the door handle, the toilet paper dispenser, and, of course, the actual toilet paper.
Unfortunately, toilet paper’s surface is perfect for collecting bacteria. Germs settle right into the paper – which we tend to have no reservations about putting on our bodies, often using it to blow our noses or wipe our faces. By doing so, we make it awfully easy for these nasty germs to get into our bodies
