Today I gave two of the restrooms in my campground a scrub down cleaning.
I was at it at a little after six in the morning. The first thing I did in each restroom was use a big garbage bag to cover the toilet paper so it wouldn’t get soggy. Next I used soapy water and my brand new scrub brush to thoroughly clean the toilet (lid, seat, risers), the floors, the walls. The insides of the toilets were still pretty clean after the scrubbing I gave them a few days before, but I swished the toilet brush around inside and made sure everything looked really good. Then I hauled a bucket of water for each restroom, sloshed the toilet, floors, and walls to rinse away the suds from the Micro-Muscle cleaner.
I swept out the water as best I could, but the floors were still wet and slippery. I left the restroom doors open to help with the drying process, but set my bucket in one of the doorways and propped my broom diagonally to block the other.
If you were staying in a campground and walked up on a restroom with an obstacle in the doorway, a wet floor, and black plastic covering the toilet paper, what might you think? Might you think you should use the restroom on the other side of the campground? And if you didn’t know the location of another restroom might you ask the camp host–who was outside puttering around on her own campsite–where you might find another restroom?
Not my campers. Oh no.
Four of the seven people staying on the side of the campground with the toilets I’d scrubbed not only bypassed the obstacles in the doorways, but moved them completely in order to close the door. Four people also moved the black plastic over the toilet paper. Not a single one asked me if there was another restroom to use.
The only conclusion I can draw is that these people are idiots.
(These are one set of restrooms in my campground. I took these photos.)
As someone who also “camp hosts” I can totally sympathize. I usually wait to do my scrub-downs until most everyone has checked out on Sunday, otherwise I just can’t get anything accomplished, and people just keep tracking mud inside. I have 1 fourplex, 4 duplexes and a single (13 vaults total), so I’ve seen all the stupidity first-hand. Sounds like I might be a little luckier than you in one regard: I have hose hookups so although I’m still hauling buckets for scrub-down, I can blast most of the yuck off the insides with a spray nozzle first. And rinsing is easier…
Last weekend, I had people using trashcans for urinals, and after wiping their poopy butts, they threw the dirty TP into various corners in the bathroom, until there were large piles of it, then they peed on the piles. This occurred between 7pm when I last cleaned for the night, and 7am the next morning. And I always find women’s underwear thrown into those corners, too. And in the campsites. Some people really are just idiots.
Tammi, sounds like you have it a lot worse than I do. How many campsites do you have? I just have nine, so there’s just a lot fewer people around to do their stupid stuff.
I’ve yet to find underwear and dirty TP tends to make it into the toilets.
And if someone is going to pee in a trashcan, why not just go behind a tree? I don’t understand people… (I suspect at least some of those peeing in the trashcan people are drunk…)
I can’t remember why I did the scrubdown when I did. I work at the parking lot in the afternoons, so maybe I wanted to get it done before I went off to do that. By the time I get back from the parking lot, I am TIRED.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. It’s good to hear from someone else who is going through what I am going through (and worse!)