Road house toilets

I think roadhouses offering toilets is just part of their 'value adding' to a business. Without toilets on offer many would just drive past and use council toilets or bush toilets. This would mean a loss in revenue for said roadhouses. Its in their interests to supply good toilets to entice customers to stop at their business.

I also believe (correct me if you know) that any business that serves food as a dine in must supply toilets. To charge for toilets is not in the charter.

It is disappointing when the few ruin it for the many like the rubbish we see on the road side. Understanding that rubbish can be there for years so in reality there is not a lot of build up of rubbish for the amount of people on the road.

Finally I do not believe roadhouse should charge to use but should reserve the right to have key for customers only.

Serendipity

We should fill up with juice at roadhouses between towns or, at least, where we use the toilets.

However, it is so tempting to stock up at Coles and Woolworths, and use the discount vouchers at their petrol stations.

I use the government rest areas and carry a toilet seat that fits onto a frame, and use a shovel ( to dig a hole in the dirt).

At roadhouses I try to buy a meal or beer and they are much friendlier if I then ask to use the "funny business" room.

It is also interesting to watch the non-customers shrink by and the grimaces of the roadhouse owners.

I find Barrow Creek a friendly and nice roadhouse, once they realise you're a genuine customer. And the Pink Panther at Larrimah. And Fran, at Fran's Devonshire Tea House at Larrimah, has never actually tossed a knife at me, though one of my fillings fell out.

When I was in Taupo N.Z a couple of years ago I had to pay 50c for the use of public toilet in this case it was for a number 1,number 2 was a dollar {only joking fellas lol). They were spotless.

Plus for extra you could shower and hire a towel

Sign off the times i guess.

Cheers

I have a slightly different view of toilet usage. In my view, they arepublic toilets, you may fill your tank at one servo and not use the toilet and the next guy might use the toilet and may have filled up at the servo in the last town. Its just the way it is! When we are heading west from Sydney, sometimes we have lunch at the Lithgow McDonalds, sometimes not but we may stop to use the toilet. Sometimes lunch and toilet stops can't be planned! I have to say that about 70% of stops are run down and just not cleaned at all. Cracked tiles and 40 yo vanity basin, stained and cracked,taps worn out, the old chain pull flush from 50 years ago, never had a clean mop over the floors, just pathetic really. There can be no excuse not to have modern and clean toilets to a high standard at all servos and roadhouses. If I owned a servo or roadhouse, the first thing I would do is make sure that toilets and showers are in top condition for my patrons or passing through travellers! Michael

Should be for customers only, as should air for tyres!

Allein,

Roadhouses, Pubs/Hotels, Caravan Parks etc... must & should provide clean, well maintained toilets... to their customers, no payment is necessary if you are patronizing the establishment.

If anyone is unwilling to patronize said establishment, if it is in the case of a roadhouse, just grab a cup of coffee or a snack, then use "Public" amenities, most towns provide them free of charge, if there are none, go in the bush, but do it properly!

Having run both Caravan Parks & pubs, then it is extremely frustrating when someone drops in "just to use the loo" most times not even asking if it was okay! If they ask then I'll usually say "yeah, fine go ahead".

It does have a cost involved maintaining & cleaning amenities, the cost is usually recovered from customers buying something, be it a beer, cup of coffee or a tank of fuel. those who don't are freeloading!

Personally I wouldn't & haven't used roadhouse facilities without either refuelling my vehicle &/or belly.

Done the caravan lap twice around Australia twice and some of the dirtiest toilets I’ve seen have been freebees at roadhouses and council public toilets.
The best I ever struck was toilet in New Zealand a few years back – cost a gold coin and well worth it – especially for the missus.

Roadhouse toilets are provided for customers not as a public service. If not refuelling and we need to use them, we always buy something like ice-creams and/or drinks or lunch.

When we toured Europe as a family in the 60s with a camper van, we gave back the portable toilet unused. There was nowhere to store it or use it in the small camper. It went outside in the rain overnight when we unfolded the beds which took up the full floor space. With short distances to travel and not the open spaces of Australia, Dad would purchase a small quantity of petrol every time someone wanted to go. Sometimes they had good clean customer toilets and other times it was just a French (squat) toilet out the back for the staff.

Some public toilets in towns in Europe had an attendant and charged a fee, others did not. Throughout UK they had penny-in-the-slot toilets.

I won't start on Asia :O

Some states have pit toilets at key highway rest areas, and by what it left at some of the others :O, there needs to be more as we have increasing numbers using our roads.

Alice Springs is one town it is hard to find a public toilet. Planning to go when fuelling, I was shocked to be told at the fuel servo they no longer had them due to abuse. Going into the CBD the ones at KMart seemed permanently locked. The only option was upstairs at Woolworths, for 50c. By the time I got there (after walking quite some way due to where we could park with the caravan) the attendant was cleaning and he called out I would have to wait a while. After all that time I dropped my 50c on the counter and said I was coming in regardless :O

In Kalgoorlie there was an attendant at the shopping centre toilets. I can't remember the fee but it made a very expensive pee.

Ah...bad toilets, who can forget them? The highlight of any trip. Australia certainly has a few but the worst ever for me was a roadside stop in the Czech Republic. It was impossible to walk in the door as it seemed like everyone had "missed" every toilet starting at the front entry door. The mens was even worse. On the bright side, they were free. :-)
PS The road sign called it a Pissoir....they got that right!

The problem is - there is not enough public toilets around the country - or even in the cities for that matter.

Gazz

thanks for the feed back and yes there are some rippers of pit toilets in the outback


have a good week end people

Ah, the joys of towing a van with your own toilet - always clean, just the way you like it ;=))

Doesnt need to be a public toilet to be bad. At a certain van park near some springs we booked an ensuite site . Floor was wet when we arrived. Used the loo and it all came up and out onto the floor (in lumps).

The office wasnt interested and refused to do anything at all. Had to tidy up ourselves. Shame about the family next door that were in a tent and all the effluent had flowed onto their site.

I work in a service station and have worked in roadhouses up north. Sorry, but anyone who says there is no excuse for a servo not to have 'nice' toilets is dillusional!
Truckies have by far (almost without exception) the most respect for helping to maintain the cleanliness of our toilets. You could have the dirtiest looking bloke in a truck and he will often thank you for having a clean toilet. Then they'll buy something out of respect. At the other end of the scale is the backpacker (obviously not all) who may be the cleanest looking person you'd meet and will leave the toilets in an absolute mess!! I've seen backpackers have a COMPLETE shower in a hand basin! And they will mostly never buy a thing! It's not as bad where I am in Victoria, but up north it was really a losing battle, the tourists just don't care (as mentioned, not all)!

Cleanliness starts with the person using it...

And yes, the cry might go out that we are all clean in our habits, so who makes this mess? I suspect the "my fart doesn't smell brigade"...

Hey, good weekend to all, Baz - The Landy!

Someone has to say it so I guess it may as well be me. After paying to use the loo around Europe and having experienced a rare experience in Florence where the public loo was 2 Euro (at the time it was close enough to $4) it was not good value by any stretch of the imagination. It was a rare ceramic squat toilet and the lady at the door gave me several sheets of toilet paper (was she kidding) and then actually going was a feat of exquisite balance and solving what to do with dangling trousers, when the flusher is a hose that had been liberally applied by the previous occupant.

Anyway, we would never need to discuss Nissan Vs. Land cruisers, Weaco Vs. Engels ever again if we had that experience here whilst travelling. There would be an uproar like never experienced here before.

I say Nay! Happy to buy and pee.

Kind regards

I have had quite a few nasty toilets in my time - aminly overseas (Asia). One memorable one was a train in Japan. No the Shinkausen, but an inter-city one. It was a 3 hour trip, and eventually I had to go. The urinal was in the centre of one wall of a room about 2.5 m square. The carriage was lurching around badly, and there was urine splashed on the wall - up to 1.2 m high, and over the whole of that wall. That surprised me, because everything else in Japan was spotlessly clean and tidy.

Conversely, at a KFC outlet in Jakarta, they had toilets (clean as) and outside the Kamar Kecil (toilet), they had a bench with 5 wash basins, each with liquid soap, but from memory, no hand towels. All spotlessly clean. We could do with that sort of setup here. Singapore public toilets charged a small fee, but those toilets were hygenically spotless.

Just thinking about bad toilets, just about any Chinese Restaurant in your town or suburb are usually disgusting. Even China town in Sydney, its hard to find clean modern toilets even in the most expensive restaurants. Its generally the only thing that lets them down! Michael

Thanks for starting this Allein, there's always some choice shirty stories from people's experiences.

Seen many filthy dunnies in my time, but the most odorous would have to be the toilets at the Mt Connor lookout. All those little bugs down "there" were just overwhelmed by the weight of travellers, and their leavings. Really, really stank!!!

One thing I'm bewildered by too, is just where people leave their excrement, and one wonders just what body position they were in to deposit said load. Went to a parking bay out of Longreach, seat was spotless, but the yucky bit was under the seat and to the right, as if the offender had his, or her, orifice at an angle 30 deg different to the rest of us.

With roadhouse toilets, I'm sure the cleaners/staff just get sick of cleaning up after the messy ones, and so leave this task for as long as possible, if someone complains or they are directed to clean up because of such complaints.

Sales of ports-pottis might well rise as others read the stories in this terd..........oh, sorry, thread.

Bob

we went to Mildura the other day and we do not stop at half way road house on the Silver city hwy way there is a public pit loo and area that our dogs can get out and strach there legs two


Normally it is ok there but this trip I walked in a there was a swarm of wasps right in the pit its self I backed out very quickly nothing good come out of getting in the way of a bunch of angry wasps

I meet the guy who clean the loos on that road every 2nd day he leaves Mildura and it take all day trip

I was camping atNanga camp site in WA one long week end and one guy a little worse than wear (drunk as a skunk ) dropped his very expensive watch but no one offered to go get it for him lol there is a leason some where in that one my ex wife said

Worst ever for me was in the Freycinet NP in Tasmania, a close second would be Durba Springs on the CSR.

Worst toilet stop ive come across was at the Coles Toilets in Katoomba!!!!! Apart from not being cleaned, lackof toilet paper n shyte all over walls it was disgusting!!!.
A very different Katoomba to what I knew as a young man ey. Was the prime of N.S.W.
as for clean toilets???, best ive come across apart from our own lol would have to be at a coffee Club in Vancouver Canada where they even have TV monitors above the urinals incase you get bored whist passing a wee (bit of urine thar is ).
Touring through variouse parts of Europe it wasnt uncommon to pay halfe a Euro for the use , and yes very clean.

Don't go to Widgie :-)

People like talking about bleep houses.

Just imaging in Roman time it was a public loo I have seen the rows of loos on concrete no doors all in one room I am not sure if it was both sexes but I just could not image what that was like

they had a totally different way of thinking towards sex from what I have rad basically any thing you can imaging was fair go and they loved a party

the loos must have stunk big time

We usually use the Council or town toilets when we travel through a place and when we are out in the scrub well the seat and shovel are just fine. When we stop at a roadhouse it is for fuel or to buy something or for a camping spot for the night then we use their toilets. We often, and dont mind, paying for a shower at a roadhouse because water out there costs money but I would hate to have to pay to use the dunny

My 2 cents worth.
I specifically aim this view at outer rural and remote facilties.
Some peoples expectations of superclean public facilities in outlying and outback areas appears rather high, there is a cost to any well used facility and priorities in some areas leaves the public convenience last!
Given the availability of Time, water, dusty/muddy conditions and persons whose state of being disallows using a facilty in a clean and sanitary manner often the staff/owners have a lot more to do than many realise in keeping a facility running.
My experience when working in remote areas was that keeping the generator running ie the freezers cold and stocked, cleaning the filters on the tank water, serving citicentric customers with expectations well outside the resources of staff working long hours 7 days a week in arduous conditions means that its not always going to be Westfield standards.
Remember major shopping centers charge extortionate rents to shop leasors to employ professional cleaners.
The staff often not only run the pumps and shop but clean the Dongas out the back, change the bedding , wash the towels and bedding, dipping the fuel tanks, change the tyres, and make the teas coffees and cooking that travellers expect. Keeping a keen ear out for the UHF to take the Roadtrain 5 miles out food order so he doesn't have to spend more time than neccessary to keep supplies up to the roadhouses and stations who needed everything yesterday!!
No wonder some tired overworked proprietors and staff find it hard to give the beaming Colgate smile when a well dressed nomad with city concepture grumbles because a menu item is unavailable due to delivery being late OR as I experienced a Melboune Range Rover driver complained bitterly when our tyre stock didn't include the low profile 220Kph rated 20 inch tyre he had fitted his new Rangie with, he had two damaged rims and a shredded tyre.....my fault I guess.
Many staff are inexperienced back packers who try their best in conditions well outside their normal experience. Staff turnover is high in some areas.
I certainly agree that a clean dunny is a wonderful thing but it is simply amazing what some people do behind a closed door then furtively leave the mess for overworked staff to deal with.
The cost of pumping a septic system in remote areas is high! Composting toilets are very misunderstood by most in regard to what is allowed down there for proper breakdown. Many people revere the "longdrop" in folklore or poetry, however are too squeamish to use one! There are a lot of alcohol riddled travellers and locals who don't give a rats ***** about the mess they create, let alone the drive offs at the pump forcing some proprieters to have to lock and unlock pumps or switch pumps off between sales.
The best that can be done sometimes is to hit the offending mess with a hose or a water blaster if the water supply is in a good state.
And I would agree with a previous poster that backpackers who are often the mainstay of staff in remote areas can also be the worst offenders, having a shower at the wash basin, washing clothes and undies in the sink leaving the tap running constantly then driving off after filling the van (mostly) with their spare jerry cans and pumping up the saggy tyre with the air run by the fuel consuming 25kva diesel generator that will need replacing soon!
If it appears that I am a bit critical of some coastal/city based travellers then Yup ! GUILTY! no political correctness here, there is quite a gap in the perceptions and expectations between rural/remote and the 88- 90% of Australians who live in by world standards pampered conditions. and have little understanding of the rigours of living and working in less than ideal conditions.
My vehicles all have a plastic bag under the seat containing toilet paper, matches (for burning used paper and a short shovel in the back for burying my waste. my caravan (yes I am semi retired now) and travel does contain a toilet.
I might add that like many other grey nomads I will bag up rubbish left along the way at pull in areas. I do believe that most Nomads are the best travellers in this regard and usually leave an area tidy. Their are a couple of groups who are the worst offenders, those who don't care (ignorant) and the heavy drinkers testified by the huge numbers of alcohol bottles, cans and wine cask bladders strewn up and down highways and the tracks.
I believe it is reasonable to charge to cover the costs of maintaining a reasonably clean facility and know what it is like to clean up other peoples ****!

Well here at Coombah Roadhouse- one of the roadhouses mentioned in Broken Hill's Barrier Newspaper the problems with customer toilets are varied.
Most customers are polite, understanding ( of rural/remote areas) respectful and considerate. The truckies are true gentlemen & ladies. Its that minority group of scum buckets ( aka oxygen thieves ) who ruin it for everyone. Some of the issues are:

1. The vandals- they smash pans, tear systems of the walls , breaking pipes & toilet roll holders , leave taps running ( this has caused a tank to run dry and 1 pump to blow-up) blocking basins and pans with hand-towel and toilet-paper ,disposable nappies, rubbish and food, graffiti etc. .

2. The "cheap-skate" travellers who dump their port-a-potty cassettes into pans and basins ( this kills the septic system) They are in a hurry - don't want to be caught , so the foul "grey" sewerage is splashed up walls and spilt all over the floors.

3. Because of "customer only" facilities , disgruntle people are verbally abusive . Some urinate and/or defecate on the doorstep /veranda or in the carpark , some climb the fence into the backyard.
They even bring their own toilet paper!

4. Location- this is not the city or suburbia where there is "mains supply" everything. It costs a lot of money to run things and keep them running. If there is a break down with power, that means NO pumps, No water, No toilets. etc. It costs approximately 38 cents to use the loos here. I know that it costs more in other places.

Repairs are very expensive in remote & rural areas (it can cost a days wages just in travelling time for a couple of tradesmen)
Currently the outside toilets are not in use so, the inside toilets are there for customers. So far no vandalism and very little mess but it has upset some. These are not Truckies, travellers or tourists, these people live much closer. Recently the abuse has escalated . Perhaps they are unhappy because they can get caught if they wreck things ? Maybe that is why the public toilets along the Silvercity Highway are being vandalised more often?

There are many posts that outline the difficulties in running a business "outback" .
So, with this knowledge do you think it is fair to open customer toilets to the public for free?
Considering it would be unfair to the genuine customer to increase prices to cover the addition costs - customer only is the best policy.

Roadhouse toilets - those purveyors of multi purpose toilet paper - so thin it could replace a broken windscreen, yet with the consistency of coarse grade sandpaper. After several "across the country" trips, we learned to carry three things into these establishments with us - disposable toilet seat covers, pocket sized packs of (soft) tissues, and small bottles of hand sanitiser. These covered most eventualities.
Obviously it costs the proprietors money to install these facilities - it even costs some of them money for cleaning (others don't bother) - so it is fair enough to charge those people who don't make any other contribution, but I think that the purchase of fuel, or even a couple of coffees, should be enough to entitle you to make a donation of another sort!