Almost a third of UK adults are willing to spend money in a café as an excuse to visit the facilities, a new study has revealed. Nearly four per cent admit to sneaking into an eating house to use the loo after having ordered nothing at all. And all of them claim to be carrying out these practices to avoid using a public washroom!
A survey of 2,500 UK adults conducted by online company Soap Supplier asked respondents to rate the public washrooms of their town or city out of a maximum of 10. The overall score in the UK was just 3.9. Worcester came top in the poll with a hygiene rating of 6.7 followed by Edinburgh which scored 5.6. The worst result - recorded in Lisburn in Northern Ireland - was a mere 2.1 with Southampton and Portsmouth following closely behind with scores of 2.5 and 2.7 respectively.
Public washroom users complained about bad smells, a shortage of toilet roll, lack of mirrors, no soap, broken hand dryers and toilets that failed to flush. When asked about the most off-putting scenario in a public facility men cited unpleasant smells whereas a lack of toilet paper was the number one turn-off for women.
Other survey findings were that faced with a variety of empty cubicles, 47.5 per cent of people would pick the furthest away from the door while 37.4 per cent would pick the closest. And most people consider the middle cubicle in a public washroom to be the cleanest.
