The toilet seat is the source of much anguish in many households. Women want it up, men leave it down. Arguments ensue.
What many people don’t know is that the seat should be the least of your worries, such are the abominable horrors that lurk underneath it – the lid, and the closing of it before you flush, is of infinitely bigger importance.
Leaving the lid of the toilet up when you flush sends an explosion of bacteria (the technical term is ‘toilet plume’) from the toilet bowl into the air.
What goes up must come down and toilet plume is no different; it lands all over the surrounding area, spreading fecal bacteria, microorganisms and viruses from the bath tub to your toothbrush.
Toilet plume has been linked to gastroenteritis outbreaks on airplanes and cruise ships and may even have been responsible for a SARS outbreak in 2003. More commonly, it’s a vehicle for stomach bugs in homes, schools and offices.
When a team from Leeds University carried out tests on a sterilised toilet cubicle, they discovered that Clostridium difficile (C. diff – the bacterium that causes diarrhoea and more serious intestinal conditions such as colitis) could travel up to ten inches above the toilet seat after flushing… and it lingered in the air for more than 90 minutes afterwards.
Yikes. We’ll might have to start storing our toothbrushes in a drawer from now on…
