New Schoolers Drop Their Duty to Flush

Bathrooms in the University Center are filled with pungent toilets brimming with human waste and toilet paper. Users routinely forget to use the high-tech flushing system, said students and administrators.

“I would say 4 out of 10 toilets are clogged everytime I go,” said Julie C., who declined to give her last name, a third-year student at Parsons. “I always have to see someone else’s shit and I ain’t about that life.”

Both male and female users have expressed discomfort with the anti-toilet-flushing trend. In the hallways, groups of girls can be heard commenting on how disgusting the stalls are, and guys in need of more than a urinal mutter curses under their breath as they search for a clean stall.

Casey Barber, a junior at Parsons, feels like she spends more time looking for a stall than she does actually using it

“Every time I go in I have to check multiple stalls before I find one that’s clean,” she said. “It’s either not flushed or there is toilet paper or other things everywhere.”

Some believe that the toilets go unflushed because their users assume the flushing systems are automatic, and so forget to wave their hand over the sensor to activate.

“Literally, it’s so easy, you just have to wave! It’s sanitary and everything,” Barber said. “The only reason I can think of is that they don’t understand.”

Thomas Whalen, Director of Facilities Management, said the lack of flushing is something he and his staff have noticed increasingly in the last month or so.

“Nobody wants to walk into a bathroom that smells like… you know…,” Whalen said.

During the planning stages for the University Center, wave-to-flush technology was the latest and greatest because it allowed users to dispose of their waste without having to touch anything, Whalen said.

Flushometers with this technology are in all bathrooms throughout the University Center, including the dorm suites.

The handle-less toilets may, however, be a little too advanced for even some of the best design students.

Whalen mentioned that complaints regarding the toilets go as far back as the opening of Kerrey Hall in Fall 2013, when residents said they were confused about how to flush their toilets in their suites.

Forgetting to flush can actually harm plumbing. Urine contains different types of salts and minerals that, if not disposed of, can harden over time resulting in clogged pipes and plumbing, Whalen said. It is imperative that students dispose of their excrements properly. He also acknowledged that replacing the toilets is an option, but is too expensive. Whalen’s team plans to put small instructional diagrams in the stalls and above the urinals reminding users to flush.