Do You Flush?
January 29, 2008 by Kailani
Filed under random thoughts
Okay, this is a question that I never imagined I’d ever ask but . . . Do you flush after you pee?
The reason I’m asking is that Girlie Girl came home from playing at her friend’s house and informed me that the family does not flush the toilet after they pee. In fact, her friend’s mother told Girlie Girl not to flush unless it was poop.
Now, I know it’s not to save money on their water bill since our homes are part of the same association and we all pay the same maintenance fees no matter how much or how little water we use. Is it a personal thing? Cultural? Just plain conservation?
Then I started to wonder if more people didn’t flush after they pee. After all, it’s not like I go to someone’s home and ask if they prefer I not flush when I’m done. I just assumed that everyone did.
So, do you or someone you know prefer not to flush after peeing? Curious minds (well, me) want to know. And for future reference, if you ever come over for a visit, I prefer that you DO flush! Thank you.
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Well, it’s a little talked about fact that if I’m alone at home I will wait until I have “peed” two or three times before flushing. But when I’m not alone I flush everytime. Occasionally if it’s during the night I don’t.
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FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK…..
I live in GA. we are in the middle of a severe draught. it was actually on the news (out of atlanta) tips on saving water……ONLY FLUSH IF YOU GO #2, flush at the end of the day for pee pee! REALLY, THEY SAID THAT…ON THE NEWS
OHH, but FYI, I always forget and flush anyway
When I first read your question, my immediate thought was “who DOESN’T flush.
But after reading some of the responses, it gave me reason to ponder.
I guess, if you’re short on water, you may not flush every time. But for me, as long as we have plenty of water, I’ll flush every time.
Sher
’s last blog post..January Giveaway!!!
Country folk don’t flush for #1 in summer, especially. But when you have a septic tank, you are mindful of your wastes.
witchypoo’s last blog post..Cheese and Bandwidth and Awards Oh My
We don’t flush after we pee, either, for two reasons:
1. The local municipality that handles our water/sewer is infamous for loading the highest amounts of chemicals in our system that Federal Law will allow–and we live only miles from the Cedar and St Croix Rivers. So, we flush to contribute as little as possible to the poisoning of the local ecology.
2. I am a staunch Traditionalist Catholic and believe, along with mystics like Francis of Assisi, San Juan de la Cruz, Teresa de Avila, etc. that water and other natural recourses are sacred gifts and should be preserved whenever and however possible.
If that makes me gross, so what? I pick my nose and eat my boogers, to….lol….
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BTW:
For whoever’s interested, and thinks pee is gross….just an fyi.
I worked in nursing (hospitals) for 15 long, tortuous years. It always cracked me up to watch new cna’s and housekeepers trying to clean up tinkle off the floors, or change wet bed sheets. Why?
***URINE IS STERILE, PEOPLE!!!***
…Dermatologists even recommend the first fresh pee of the day as a skin cleanse for those people who have bad acne, but who are too sensitive to take harsh medications.
The mineral salts and urea in pee have other medicinal uses as well.
Pee is also great for houseplants and gardens as fertilizer, not to mention keeping the deer out.
Oh, and Gandhi used to drink his when he fasted (look it up–it’s true) so that nothing of his life was wasted….
Betcha never wanted to know any of that, did ya? ;o)
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Shoot, so sorry.
And, one last thing.
We grow houseplants in our bathrooms. So, no, even though the toilet only gets flushed a couple time a day by either of us, it smells like Dove soap, and that’s all
miki’s last blog post..Orthodox Leader Dies
What I want to know is do you flush after you FART in the toilet? Just kidding.
We usually do flush after peeing, but I have known people that didn’t..and I don’t think it is horrible to not flush (though we do).
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I don’t always flush after I pee. I doesn’t matter to me if the other people in the house don’t flush either. The only time it does matter is when their urine smells like some kind of sulphuric toxic waste and they leave it floating around the toilet for me to sniff when I have to pee myself.
If the pee stinks then flush it! If it doesn’t, you can flush if you want.
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The only time I’d heard (before today anyway) of people not flushing was a little girl who came to visit when I was young. She never flushed when she pee’d…but then she also still had an outhouse in her yard. I always thought it had something to do with that. Of course, that was many MANY years ago!
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I flush, except when I get up in the middle of the night to pee because I live in fear of waking up my twins. Our toilet is loud and their room is right across from the bathroom!
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Well, now I’ve heard everything.
And today of all days! Why? Because when I went to court this a.m., the topic of conversation was about the human waste in the stairwell of the parking lot adjacent to the courthouse.
NO joke. It was beyond disgusting.
I went to my car at lunchtime because I went back to my office for awhile.
When I returned to court at 1:30, I refused to park in that lot again and look at that. I decided that I don’t earn enough money to have to walk around that. So I went to the lot around the corner.
So how ’bout we talk about the homeless problem and how it impacts those of us just trying to earn an honest day’s pay . . .
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I don’t care if it’s a little dribble – please flush! Eeewww, that’s just nasty!
I’ve been reading some of the comments and am quite surprised myself at many of the answers, aren’t you?
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We do flush for any and all things that go into the toilet. And I recognize the waste, but I don’t like pee smell and if it just sits there then it’s all pee-smelly and YUCK.
I have good friends where the rule is pee does not get flushed. I follow their rules in their house.
I also go camping in places where that is the rule, and I follow the rules there too.
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The only time I let “yellow mellow” is when I pee during the middle of the night, because heaven forbid ANYTHING wake the sleeping toddler! Otherwise, yeah FLUSH PLEASE!!! EWW!
Was just laughing at desi’s comment, because I am also in GA where we have “Water Watch” on the news! I can totally corroborate her post about the news reports telling you not to flush “every time”! I couldn’t believe it either…but if it’s going to be the difference between water for my shower in a month, I’ll wait to flush!! LOL
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I have heard of others doing this before, but here in our house we always do unless its in the middle of the night and since we co-sleep, do not want to wake the girls.
Jen @ One Moms World’s last blog post..Another Sign My Big Girl is Growing Up
here in Mexico it is very much “If it’s yellow” . . . but we do and don’t follow that . . . It’s a mood thing, but at other peoples houses, most definitly we flush.
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We’re definitely having a water shortage/drought here in Georgia, and I’ve heard of people doing this. Actually, I’ve heard people on the radio actually advising us to do this. Somehow, I just can’t. Seems to much like a port-a-potty to me.
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I come from a very dry place which constantly has water restrictions, so I don’t flush after every pee. If we have visitors I flush, but when it’s just my family I don’t. I think it is extraordinarily wasteful to flush after every little dribble. If you are lucky enough to live somewhere with lots of water, be very grateful because a lot of the world is very dry. And in not too many years your little part of the world might be dry too.
I think we should all treat water like every other consumable we use – don’t waste it because it costs the earth!
Very important topic!
I’m with the conservation-minded people above, and don’t flush every time – and not because we have metered water, because we don’t. I just don’t want to waste it.
Just checking: have you all put bricks, water-filled plastic bottles, or purpose-made hippos in your cisterns to reduce the amount of water that you flush each time?
There is a huge volume of clean water wasted each time you flush … here in the UK you can get these hippos from the water companies to help conserve water. These days I think low-flow has become standard, but if you have old-style plumbing, as we do, it is horribly wasteful.
We used to have a septic tank, and had to explain to visiting women about not flushing ‘everything’ – now that’s an embarrassing discussion. One time I’d left it too late, and the plumbing team were out there with rods to unblock the system while our visitors were still here. Oddly, they have never come back to visit again …
We flush as little as possible to try and save water (not because of cost to ourselves, but cost to the planet).
I flush.
I saw a neat toilet handle in a Starbucks a while back. You pull it up for #1 and down for #2. It uses less water to flush the pee. Quite fascinating!
Too funny! It’s probably related to conservation, rather than money. I’ve heard many times, “If it’s yellow let me mellow; if it’s brown flush it down.” My husband does not like for me to “let it mellow”. I usually flush every time I use the bathroom. Sometimes if he’s not around, I’ll leave it until the next time I go. It makes me feel good to help out a bit with saving our water.
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At night I don’t flush because it wakes my son. He always forgets to flush after peeing but will often “courtesy flush” while going poop. Go figure.
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I’ve never heard of anybody having a no-flush policy in their home. But with all of the focus on living greener these days, it really doesn’t surprise me. Seems like a stinky way to conserve though!
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ok, now that is gross! But I do admit that I won’t flush if I have a midnight pee, simply b/c I don’t want to wake up my girl, who sleeps next to the bathroom. But besides that, flush is a must!
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I do flush after i pee.
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I always flush…and always wash too.
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Nope.
We’re a “If it’s yellow let it mellow” type. Saves money and water.
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i am a flusher — it is out of habit and the way i was brought up. my parents always said it is out of cleanliness, good bathroom hygiene and politeness of the next person using the bathroom.
if it is a water drought i see the point but unfortunately a lot of younger kids/ teens do it because their either lazy or forget to do it. I see some adults in public rest stops not flushing too and it’s just gross.
to me, i really hate to see a toilet not being flushed and it grosses me out big time. plus I would think the smell of a collection of pee from multiple people not flushing may just be too much for me.
I’ll go as far as to say that if there ever was a water drought in an area for an extended time where i was living — i’ll move as i am NOT cutting back on not flushing!
Please tell me that even if you are conserving water by not flushing that you at least wash your hands after you do a pee. Sterile or not sterile, I am just cringing at the thought of shaking hands with someone that doesn’t wash their hands when I visit their house.
Saying that, there are couple of new rest stops that have the new waterless urinal system.
The Foo’s last blog post..To pee or not to pee
We definitely flush! I have never lived somewhere where we had to conserve our water. That would be an easy way to do it.
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Kailani:
Thanks for contributing this post to this week’s Carnival of Family Life, hosted at A Child Chosen. The Carnival will be live on Monday, February 5, 2008, so I hope you and your readers will stop by and check out all of the fabulous entries included this week!
And just for the record: FLUSH. Every time. No exceptions. No debate. To not flush each and every time is disgusting and uncivilized, in my not very humble opinion.
If you’re not going to flush, just get a portapotty, install it in your backyard, and go for it. You’re turning your indoor bathroom into a portapotty by not flushing, so if you really want to save water, get the real thing already. Jeez . . .
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LOL! I found you through the Carnival of Family Life, which I submitted an article to, also.
I am one who lets it mellow in an effort to conserve water, but I’d never make that request of anyone else.
I actually wrote a post on this awhile back, included in my Gross and Not-So-Gross Ways to Save Water post. This being the gross part.
These comments have been great fun to read!
[...] have been lost in the shuffle. Also at that carnival, I chuckled when I read kailani’s post Do You Flush? posted at An Island Life. She obviously hadn’t read my post Gross and Not-So-Gross Ways to [...]
We always flush, but we have lots of rain water from our water catchment where we live on the Big Island. In Maui where my sister in law lives in Haiku, they have a mandatory voluntary water restriction of I think 20% because they are in a drought.
Needless to say, they only flush for #2.
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We ALWAYS flush here, but we have a well, and plenty of water.
One of my friends on city water doesn’t flush unless it’s #2. They really need to save money, and the city has gone up on prices because of a perceived shortage. I’m not convinced. Anyway, my kids were very confused when they visited.
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Yes. I do. and if I find myself at someone’s house who doesn’t, I will flush before I pee too. (backsplash grosses me out) I am pee-phobic.
jessica
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