I hate using the bathrooms at school. Whenever I enter, they’re filled with girls gossiping and taking selfies. The toilet seats are stained and there’s never any paper towels. Several stalls are blocked off because they aren’t working. That’s too many problems for something that is a human necessity.
It’s not just the girls bathroom that’s a problem. While I can’t walk into the boys bathroom to observe how people in there act, I’ve heard about it from people that can.
One bathroom stall has been boarded off, but that doesn’t stop some guys from finding a way into it. Last year, a toilet was literally flipped over. Janitors reportedly dread days with apples and oranges because guys will throw them all over and they’ll be jammed into toilets.
This is so strange to me. Do people actually have fun damaging somewhere that is used for disposing human waste? I want to spend as little time as possible in the school bathroom, yet there are people in our school that spend entire periods causing trouble in there. Can they really not find anything better to do?
“If you’re the one making the mess, think about if you were the one coming into that mess, how you would feel if you had to deal with it,” janitor Jennifer Martin said.
Martin has been a janitor for 30 years. She wishes that students would just treat the bathrooms with respect. It’s just common courtesy for students to pick up after themselves. Martin wants students to put themselves in the shoes of other students. How do they feel when they come into the bathroom to a huge mess? They probably don’t like it, so they shouldn’t leave a mess behind for the janitors to have to clean.
“You know, we’re all about the same thing. We’re all here for you guys, to make sure the building is as nice and clean as possible, and to keep it as clean as possible,” Martin said.
Don’t even get me started on the people who vape in the bathrooms. Ignoring all of the negative effects that are caused just by vaping, they’re inhaling every germ in the bathroom. Human waste particles are being directly placed in their lungs. Being in a bathroom without lids on the toilets to prevent these germs is bad enough, but now they’re directly breathing them in. Same with the people who eat in the bathrooms. Those particles are in their stomachs now. Is it really worth it to these people?
I witnessed a fight in the first floor bathroom during lunch. I was about to leave my stall, when two girls started hitting each other. One girl’s friend joined in. Someone threw off their Crocs and their feet were placed on the disgusting bathroom floor. Looking through the cracks of my stall, I noticed that everyone except the girls fighting left the bathroom. A teacher came in and separated them.
I thought to myself, “do I leave? Will I get hit if I do? What if the teacher makes me go into the office and make a statement?”
I eventually left when the girls were taken to the office. I wouldn’t have to ask myself those questions or go through that awkward experience if something had been done to prevent it in the first case. Although, that raises the question, what can be done?
A teacher could be placed inside the bathrooms, but that might make some people uncomfortable. The teachers themselves probably wouldn’t want to be assigned that job. I personally wouldn’t mind it, but I know others would.
There is no straightforward solution. No rule will be followed by everyone. What we need to do is be decent human beings. Don’t purposely mess up the bathrooms. Don’t make fun of people actually using the bathrooms for their original purpose. If someone wants to skip class and hide in a stall, fine. That’s their own problem if they miss out on work and get in trouble. But they should at least not be destructive and laugh at the girl whose pad made a sound when it was opened.
