• Diddlydee@feddit.ukEnglish
    0·
    3 days ago

    America? America.

    The rest of the world somehow manages to make doors the size of the frame that go pretty much to the floor.

    • Noobnarski@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 days ago

      Yeah, here in Germany we usually have kinda big (30cm or so) openings at the bottom and at the top, but it’s impossible to accidentally look through those due to their position.

      The side openings of the doors are usually completely closed or it’s a very small slit, you definetly cannot look through them.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      0·
      2 days ago

      I think it’s meant to stop people from shooting up and/or fucking and/or falling asleep and/or dying in stalls.

      It is fucking annoying though.

    • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      0·
      3 days ago

      In America, the reason is basically “religion”. There are architectural standards which designers refer to for guidance, and the dude who did the architectural standard for restrooms was super hardcore religious. His standard called for big gaps in all the seams, to prevent people from masturbating in the stalls. Basically, he wanted people to be able to peek into stalls, as a sort of modesty check. And eventually, it just became accepted as normal, even though everyone (including Americans who were born and raised with them as the standard) hates the huge gaps.

      In modern day, they’re mostly done to deter drug use. I guess the reasoning is similar, with the large gaps intended to allow people to peek into the stalls and see if someone is doing drugs.

      • vfsh@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        0·
        3 days ago

        For what it’s worth regardless of how it started, it’s now enforced by ADA as an accessibility compliance issue, so that a wheelchair users feet can get under the stall door so they can get close enough to reach the latch. Seems like a stretch to me but I’m not a wheelchair user

        • arrow74@lemm.eeEnglish
          0·
          2 days ago

          Sure that explains the bottom gap, but the side gaps are the issue. I’ve never made eye contact with a grown man that’s crawled under my stall. I have made eye contact with someone walking by the stall door through the door crack.

          • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            0·
            2 days ago

            I’ve never made eye contact with a grown man that’s crawled under my stall.

            Oh god, for some reason I just pictured this but in the style of the artwork of Junji Ito. Nightmare fuel.

          • vfsh@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            0·
            2 days ago

            Yeah that’s a really good point, one of the bathrooms at my work is particularly egregious and I’m about to buy and install a privacy thing to cover the gap at this point, there’s a legit 2" gap between the wall and the stall, and it’s right by the door to the bathroom so it’s inevitable that you’ll make eye contact with someone as they’re walking out, so that stall never gets used and instead the wheelchair accessible stall next to it is always used

            • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              0·
              2 days ago

              If there’s a coat hanger on the inside of the door, sometimes hanging a big coat (or something else) can cover the gaps. I’ve done it unintentionally.

        • silasmariner@programming.dev
          0·
          3 days ago

          I’m not sure what kinda gymnastics the wheelchair user’s got to be doing to get on the shitter once they’ve rolled themselves into a stall backwards… Or why it’s only after a shit that they can’t use doors

        • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
          0·
          3 days ago

          Some stalls are tiny, and in old construction there’s not a lot you can do with out major renovations. I’m sure the extra leg room is appreciated by taller folks, or if you can’t really bend your lower legs in towards you.

      • Diddlydee@feddit.ukEnglish
        0·
        3 days ago

        I travel a lot for my job, maybe fifty different countries the past 5 or 6 years, and I’ve never seen toilet doors as silly and poorly-designed as US ones, except in places where they’re just making do with what they have.

        • Owl@mander.xyz
          0·
          3 days ago

          I didn’t travel as much as you (far from it)

          But in every contry I’ve ever been there were toilet doors reaching the ground and floating ~20cm over it in about equal amounts

          • aramova@infosec.pub
            0·
            3 days ago

            Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, France, South Korea, Japan were all essentially private booths. Should be standard.

            UK was a bit of a cluster, Philippines had doors sometimes, Italy was almost like America at least around Florence when I was there 20 years ago

  • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 days ago

    This is absolutely by design, and it is so users can be provided the absolute minimum of Privacy-ishtm, but also explicitly so that management can easily verify if a stall is occupied in case any poors/junkies are camping out in there.

    It’s also so that public bathroom facilities can be spray-down, and you can wedge a brush in the gaps easily without there being crevices for mold/mildew and other… substances… to remain in.

    • rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      3 days ago

      … except the recently renovated bathrooms at the Denver Public Library have individual locking shit-shacks with communal sinks. It’s not like junkies avoid the DPL, they have a box of Narcan bolted to the outside of the building.

    • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 days ago

      Yes that makes sense

      You seem to be misattributing the causes of homelessness with public restroom design, though, which are two different things. It’s an arms race if anything.

      Idk maybe you live somewhere where there are a lot more problems with public toilets than I do

      • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        3 days ago

        I’m not attributing anything to anything, I am just stating an established fact as to why public bathroom stalls are designed that way. If you want to stick motives on people, find their original designers.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
    0·
    3 days ago

    Does anyone else remember that very brief window where places like highway oases were putting in stalls where the door and walls only went up about halfway to the ceiling, making it so that if you were taking a dump, everyone could just watch you from the chest up?

  • Technoworcester@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    3 days ago

    You know outside of the US most countries bathrooms stalls actually work / fit / don’t have peekaboo gaps?

    • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 days ago

      In a lot of public stalls in Japan, the outer end of the door is rounded. And the wall it connects to when closed is concaved. So even though there’s a gap to allow the door to open and close freely, there no direct line of sight.

      • Hawke@lemmy.world
        0·
        3 days ago

        That sounds like it would cost 5¢ more to manufacture and install. Won’t someone think of the shareholders?

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          0·
          2 days ago

          It’s crazy how so many things like this just add up to a shitty life experience in general… Like every single product we use regularly has had its features and design strengths pared down year after year until we’re left with a thing that barely does the things it originally did, and it somehow costs more than ever.

          If it’s just one or two things, it’s annoying. But when it’s literally everything, it just makes life shit. Capitalism has ruined this planet.

    • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 days ago

      Peekaboo gaps exist outside the states don’t gaslight our readers. Urinals in Heathrow are just a fucking trough you’re supposed to piss in like you’re at a Red Sox game.

      Public restrooms in Britain at least aren’t any more enlightened than those in the States

          • WolfmanEightySix@piefed.socialEnglish
            0·
            3 days ago

            Yes. I’m very familiar with the both the kind on the floor where you have to stand in someone else’s piss and the kind bolted to the wall. I’ve never seen them as a problem, til the comment I originally replied to.

            • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world
              0·
              3 days ago

              What, is everybody else suddenly just cool with airing their dicks out together? What’s the deal with this? I’m queer and it even puts me off. I’m not looking for a peek, I just wanna take a leak. In the States we have some privacy, we at least put little dividers up. But I saw that shit all over the UK. London, Midlands, York.

                • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world
                  0·
                  2 days ago

                  But not normal-ass bathrooms in side-of-the-highway gas stations! When you’re expecting several thousand drunk losers to piss together in harmony, sure. That’s different. But that’s not what I’m talking about, I’m talking about public restrooms meant foe like 3 or 4 urinals that are replaced by a trough for no discernable reason.

      • Technoworcester@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        3 days ago

        Apologies if you feel I was gaslighting.

        I’ve never experienced Heathrow so can’t comment.

        I would argue from ‘my’ experience UK bathroom’s seem more enlightened but your own experience may vary.