Transcript

Portland Loos · Privycast

0:00
>> Speaker A: When you say, oh, I'm a city planner,
0:03
like, a non 0%
0:06
portion of your job is figuring out
0:09
where everybody's going to take a dump.
0:16
Welcome back to privy. Privy is a
0:18
podcast about bathroom
0:21
recorded from my home bathroom.
0:24
I'm your host, hunter Hoover, and
0:27
I love bathrooms. I want to give,
0:30
um, just another brief update here. So
0:33
I went to the doctor. I had an established patient
0:35
visit. For those of you that don't know,
0:38
healthcare in America is a flipping joke.
0:41
Uh, and I made an appointment for my
0:43
established patient visit back in July.
0:46
So, naturally, I had that visit in February,
0:50
and I decided that while in this
0:53
appointment, I wanted to
0:56
follow up. I wanted to verify some information with
0:59
this, with this gentleman. Uh, and so
1:02
I decided I'm going.
1:03
>> Speaker B: To ask this trained professional.
1:05
>> Speaker A: This guy went to school. He went to college of
1:08
some degree, get a degree, because that's what he
1:11
got. Um, but he went to college
1:14
in some capacity for, like, ten
1:16
years. And so, obviously,
1:20
if you go to college for ten years,
1:23
the thing that you are
1:26
trained and able to do is
1:29
answer podcast hosts
1:32
questions about things related to the bathrooms.
1:35
And so I asked him, I said,
1:38
we didn't get into the weeds. Like. Cause we don't need to get in
1:41
the know, stay out of the weeds. But,
1:44
uh, in more than one way, we're in
1:47
Oregon. You need to stay out of the weeds. You know what I'm saying?
1:50
But I asked a trained medical professional, uh, and
1:53
his student, by the way, which was a female,
1:56
uh, nice young lady, and I
1:58
just posed it to him. I said, hey, I have a question.
2:02
Have you ever heard that if a man pees
2:05
on a pregnancy test, it's an indication of a
2:07
hernia? And
2:10
the guy just kind of sits there for a moment. He's just like,
2:13
no, that's not real. And I said, okay, if
2:16
a guy pees on, uh, a pregnancy
2:18
test and it comes back positive, like,
2:22
is there cause for concern
2:24
at this point? His student, who is attending
2:27
him, is kind of, like, staring at me, and she has a
2:30
mask on, of course. So all I can see is her eyes, but
2:33
her eyes are telling the story. And her eyes are telling this
2:36
story. Who is this freak
2:39
that is in my
2:42
mentor doctor's office right now? Like,
2:44
what did he just say?
2:47
And sure enough, my doctor, my now doctor, uh,
2:50
at the point of this recording of all four days
2:53
now, he looks at me, and he says,
2:56
well, have you peed on one
2:59
recently? And
3:02
I regret it. To inform him that I had. Uh.
3:05
And he said, well, but was it positive? I
3:08
said, no, it was negative. I'm just curious, like, if someone
3:11
does pee on it and it is positive,
3:14
is there a concern? And the research is in.
3:17
Again, this is like on
3:20
the streets journalism I'm doing here.
3:23
You're welcome. I'll save you a trip to the doctor on this one.
3:26
This one is from a doctor. He said it
3:29
can be a tell for testicular
3:31
cancer, which is not good.
3:35
So if you're a dude and for some reason,
3:38
who knows, maybe you host a podcast and you
3:40
break down and you decide, you know what? I talked about pregnancy
3:43
tests, and I've never even used one, I might as well give it a
3:46
shot. Maybe that's you.
3:49
Maybe that's you, and you're thinking,
3:51
wow, I really need
3:54
to hose one of these things down.
3:57
Um, if it's positive and you are a guy,
4:00
you should go to your doctor. I can say that.
4:03
And since the pregnancy test episode,
4:06
again, I administered an at home test. Uh, it was
4:09
negative. I'm not pregnant, and I hopefully
4:12
don't have the aforementioned cancer.
4:15
Now, from that experience of peeing
4:18
on the pregnancy test, I
4:20
learned a very important lesson about
4:23
pregnancy tests. The first
4:25
is that the end you pee on, the
4:28
actual portion of the
4:31
test that you urinate on is
4:34
much more rigid than you would hope or want. Like, I thought it
4:37
was going to be like a brush, like a paintbrush.
4:40
>> Speaker B: Texture.
4:40
>> Speaker A: Ah, in texture.
4:43
Um, no, it is like
4:46
rigid. Um, it's still absorbent, but it's
4:48
rigid. The second, which
4:51
is related to that first gleaning, is
4:54
that pregnancy tests, to my
4:56
understanding, were meant to be administered below the surface
4:59
of the bowl. Because if you do them,
5:02
as some.
5:03
>> Speaker B: Podcast hosts have done them, above the.
5:06
>> Speaker A: Surface of the bowl, there is a level of splashing
5:09
and spraying that
5:12
occurs when your stream hits that rigid
5:14
edge. That is, just, for lack of a better
5:17
word, unwanted in every way we live and
5:20
learn. But there was just a level of splash.
5:23
That's not okay.
5:26
Speaking of levels of splash that are not okay,
5:29
something we talked about in the past is the
5:32
level of splash that
5:35
exists in public restrooms.
5:38
In the past, we have noted the tension of public
5:41
restrooms. There is the concerns of
5:44
paying for maintenance and upkeep, providing
5:47
access for people to go to the bathroom that doesn't
5:50
impose on local businesses who themselves struggle to
5:53
pay for the costs related to their
5:55
restrooms. I live in
5:58
the Pacific Northwest, squatchen
6:01
country, as the Discovery
6:04
Channel would remind me. And in some of our
6:07
urban centers, namely, they're called cities,
6:10
um, namely Portland, Eugene, and
6:12
Salem, it turns out.
6:14
And check your local municipalities before
6:17
you.
6:18
>> Speaker B: Go seeking to practice this air quotes.
6:20
>> Speaker A: Right, that I'm getting ready to tell you about,
6:23
but it seems that you're allowed to just go to the
6:26
bathroom outside as long as you do not expose
6:28
yourself to someone.
6:32
That's not a solution, but
6:34
it is helpful. Like if in a pinch,
6:38
go hit the bush and maybe you
6:41
got to use some bush to wipe, you know what I'm saying? You got to, uh, bush wipe
6:44
it.
6:44
>> Speaker B: But it would seem that these
6:47
cities.
6:49
>> Speaker A: Do not look at this as a long term
6:52
solution. In the city of Portland, there is an
6:54
estimated 33,000
6:57
to 5000 people who live on the
7:00
streets and are categorized as homeless or
7:03
unhoused. Likewise,
7:06
Portland's growing population in foot traffic
7:08
increased growing bathroom
7:11
concerns. At the turn of the millennium,
7:14
conversations began as to where all these people
7:16
were going to take a know
7:19
the hard discussions that city planners have.
7:23
Imagine sitting around when you say,
7:25
oh, I'm a city planner.
7:28
A non 0% portion of your
7:31
job is figuring out where everybody's going to take a
7:34
dump. Let's be honest, that is part
7:37
of the job. There's any city planners
7:40
listening to this? Reach out to me. I want to talk to you. I would love
7:43
to talk to you. In 2006,
7:46
Portland State University,
7:48
uh, published a report titled going
7:52
public. In it, the
7:54
researchers identified the need for new
7:57
and public access to restrooms.
8:00
24 7365.
8:06
This caused me to ask myself, and in
8:09
turn, Joe Byron's Google, a question
8:11
which is, what
8:14
is the history of public restroom in Portland
8:17
like?
8:17
>> Speaker B: What is the history of public bathrooms.
8:20
>> Speaker A: In Portland look like? Now?
8:23
To my basic amounts of research,
8:26
the history is limited.
8:29
>> Speaker B: From what I can tell, it comes.
8:31
>> Speaker A: Down to there being a pair of.
8:33
>> Speaker B: Underground paid public restrooms
8:36
at the intersection.
8:38
>> Speaker A: Of 6th and Yam Hill near the Portland
8:40
Hotel. These were built and
8:43
used in the early 19 hundreds and throughout the
8:46
rest of the century. But
8:49
I can imagine that the idea
8:52
of going below ground to use
8:55
the bathroom in a place where it rains like eight
8:58
to nine months of the year
9:01
really lost its luster as time went
9:03
on. I guess it's paid so
9:06
it would keep randos from going underground to do things under the
9:09
COVID of dark, but still, uh, also
9:12
more on doing things under the COVID of dark here in just a little
9:15
bit. And when it comes to the
9:18
history of public bathrooms in Portland, other than like
9:21
city park bathrooms that were
9:23
installed along parks, it's about,
9:27
it's, it's pretty rife. And
9:30
then for years, it's kind of like, figure it out. And then
9:33
PSU published their document.
9:36
And this document called for
9:38
new public bathrooms for the residents of
9:41
Portland, specifically ones
9:44
accessible at all hours.
9:46
>> Speaker B: Because if you need to drop a.
9:48
>> Speaker A: Liquid shaz at 03:00 a.m. You better be able
9:51
to out in the darkness of
9:53
Portland. Two years
9:56
later, after a lot of collaboration with city
9:59
planning and the city of Portland,
10:03
they teamed up with Portland based manufacturing
10:06
company Madden fabrication for the
10:08
production of this week's topic,
10:12
the Portland Loo.
10:16
Now, if you heard that and you misheard it and thought, uh oh.
10:19
Portland Zoo, where the animal
10:22
poop goes is a different conversation for another
10:25
time. But the
10:27
production of the first Portland loo
10:31
would be placed in the city's old Chinatown
10:34
in 2008. These
10:37
Portland loos, manufactured by Madden
10:39
fabrications, have many key
10:42
features, a couple of which are its,
10:45
quote, crime resistant material, single
10:48
occupancy, and exterior hand washing.
10:52
I will note they are not self
10:54
cleaning, which would be
10:56
rad, but drastically increases
10:59
the cost and maintenance upkeep.
11:02
More on that. The cost of a
11:05
Portland loo is about $90 to
11:07
$95,000 for the base model.
11:10
And there are additional costs of shipping and
11:13
insulation, as well as putting in.
11:16
>> Speaker B: The, uh, sewer, uh, line,
11:20
that are about $35,000.
11:22
>> Speaker A: So just to make one of these exists on the
11:25
streets of Portland is about 120 grand.
11:29
They estimate that yearly maintenance on a, uh,
11:31
Portland Loo is about $10,000.
11:34
In short, these are some expensive
11:37
toilets, and they plan to
11:40
generate no money off of them
11:42
except for the service they provide to
11:45
tourism. But there
11:48
was this boom. Madden
11:50
Fabrication found its stride
11:53
and really began producing these for more places
11:56
than just Portland. Because,
12:00
as it turns out, the question of where
12:03
tourists, the homeless and passersby.
12:05
>> Speaker B: Are going to pass their byproducts is.
12:08
>> Speaker A: A question to many city planning officials all over the world.
12:10
I'm telling you, these city planners are sitting
12:13
around just trying to figure out where their
12:16
residents and tourists are going to
12:18
poop. That's, like, what the job is. If you
12:21
tell me I'm a city.
12:23
>> Speaker B: Planner, I instantly assume you sit there.
12:25
>> Speaker A: To figure out where people go to the bathroom. Like that is part of the
12:28
job.
12:33
What do we got? Sparkling berry?
12:39
Yeah. Um, it ain't no orange vanilla,
12:42
but it'll suffice. It's perfectly
12:45
serviceable. Since the creation
12:48
and initial installation of the first
12:51
Portland loo, there have been
12:54
14 other loos installed within the city
12:56
of Portland, the most recent of which
12:59
was installed in 2018.
13:02
Six of these loos are open.
13:05
Twenty four seven to the people of Portland,
13:08
while the other nine follow the park
13:11
hours. The other
13:13
19, I believe.
13:16
No.
13:17
>> Speaker B: Yes.
13:17
>> Speaker A: The other nine. Sorry, M. Do
13:20
math. Do math.
13:22
The other nine follow the park hours in which they are
13:25
located. For its first five
13:28
years, the city of Portland was in
13:30
charge of marketing and
13:33
selling these loos like
13:36
they were in the business of selling some
13:38
toilets.
13:41
But Madden fabrication took
13:44
over the role of marketing in 2014.
13:48
Other cities which have ordered and placed
13:50
Portland lose include Victoria, British
13:53
Columbia, Cambridge, Cincinnati,
13:56
Missoula, Montana, Montreal,
13:58
Olympia, Washington, Seattle, San
14:01
Antonio, Austin, San Diego,
14:04
Albuquerque, Vancouver, BC,
14:06
Vancouver, WA, Galveston,
14:09
Dunedin, New Zealand, Miami, Emeryville, M.
14:12
Ketchikan, Monterey,
14:14
Arkata, Ventura, Sacramento,
14:17
Salt Lake, Reno, Kalamazoo,
14:20
and Santa Rosa. From Portland to
14:22
Kalamazoo, you can use a, uh, Portland
14:25
loo. These little boxes
14:28
for you to drop. Your stacks are all
14:31
over the place. They're spread all across these cities.
14:34
They're in other countries. They've made it to New
14:37
Zealand. To date, there have been
14:40
produced 62 Portland lose
14:43
as of 2022. I, uh,
14:46
feel like Dr. Seuss would be pretty proud of what we've done
14:48
here today. Like, the rhyme game has been on
14:51
point. Now,
14:54
while the Portland lose may have.
14:56
>> Speaker B: Solved one problem, answering the question
14:59
where.
15:00
>> Speaker A: People are going to go drop a hot, steamy
15:02
pile, as is the
15:05
case with pretty much
15:07
anything people get involved with,
15:11
they have created a whole nother problem.
15:15
Just three years after its installation
15:18
in.
15:19
>> Speaker B: 2011, an interview with a police
15:22
officer.
15:22
>> Speaker A: The police officer commented about the original
15:25
Portland Loo in Chinatown. He says,
15:28
well, it's a crack house. It
15:31
is noted the loo is a favorite nighttime destination
15:34
for drug dealers, prostitutes,
15:37
and a place for people to do nefarious deeds under the
15:40
COVID of a locked door in the dark. This
15:43
struggle was not isolated
15:46
to the streets of Portland. San Diego
15:48
PD noted an uptick in disturbance calls after
15:51
the installation of Portland Loo's.
15:55
Concerns all over the country
15:57
relating to the loo's byproducts
16:00
have been heralded. In some
16:03
cities, they have ordered the loo, and it
16:06
is sitting, waiting to be installed. And
16:09
on the side of all these outdoor public
16:12
stations, at least the ones which haven't been
16:14
vandalized to a point.
16:16
>> Speaker B: More on that in just a moment.
16:18
>> Speaker A: On the outside of all of these public
16:21
outdoor bathroom stations
16:23
is the statement. The Portland
16:26
loo, these tiny doctor
16:29
who shaped bathrooms that have been
16:32
plopped all over the country and in
16:35
some cases all over the world, they
16:38
have become beacons of
16:40
poop and pee,
16:43
as well as places for you to go commit a
16:46
crime. And as you take a
16:49
dump or sell methamphetamine
16:51
or whatever you've
16:54
got a name associated with that.
16:57
It's on the side of the box.
17:01
Portland. For those who
17:04
know Portland, you know how fitting
17:07
that is. So whether you're in
17:09
Albuquerque or Montreal
17:12
or kalamazoo,
17:15
Portland is the spot
17:18
for sex, drugs, and dropping a stack.
17:21
I've seen some public, um, bathroom
17:24
horrors in my life.
17:26
Uh, when I was, you
17:29
know what? Let's make it official. Let's make it official. This
17:32
is hunter's
17:34
anecdotes to keep you
17:36
afloat.
17:44
Once when I was mentoring in the streets of
17:47
Salem, uh, the
17:52
Salem riverfront bathroom,
17:55
riverfront park bathrooms were a
17:58
regular stop for my mentor youths. And I
18:01
I remember this one time.
18:02
>> Speaker B: I had a younger youth this day.
18:04
>> Speaker A: And he's like, I got
18:07
to go to the bathroom. I said, well, there's one over there. And I walk over.
18:10
>> Speaker B: I take him over the bathroom. He goes in there.
18:12
>> Speaker A: Single occupants. He goes in to do his thing, and he goes in,
18:15
and he almost immediately comes back out. He's
18:18
like, I, uh, can't use that.
18:20
>> Speaker B: And I'm like, why?
18:21
>> Speaker A: He goes, it's bad. And I go in, and there's,
18:23
like, soiled underwear and all
18:26
sorts of nonsense just spread hither and yawn.
18:29
And I'm like, okay, bud, you don't have to do that. And I go
18:32
on the next one over, and there's
18:35
just, like, someone has.
18:37
>> Speaker B: Like, halfway done their, uh,
18:40
laundry in.
18:41
>> Speaker A: The sink, but they clogged it and left it, and there's,
18:43
like, just used
18:47
underwear just in the sink.
18:49
And so finally, I just called it. I said, you know what, dude?
18:52
Let's just go over to the game store, and if I have to
18:55
buy you a snack to let you use bathroom, let's
18:58
just go over there. But I got to tell
19:01
you, while I have seen some
19:03
heinous public bathrooms in my time in
19:06
Salem, this week,
19:09
I took a trip to Portland,
19:12
impromptu as it was. Uh, we woke up
19:15
on Saturday. My m wife had made plans with her
19:18
sister to go to the Portland
19:20
zoo. Now, while at the Portland zoo, we
19:23
saw many great things. I saw an owl,
19:26
a, uh, uh, screech owl. It was really great. He was
19:29
half blind. Saw some cool condors.
19:33
Um, saw some pretty neat.
19:35
Uh, I saw elephants having sex.
19:38
Uh, so that was interesting. Um,
19:41
my son learned something about nature that day.
19:44
But one of the things that I'm sitting here,
19:47
I had done some research for this episode. I had
19:50
been researching Portland lose.
19:53
And here, just right on my doorstep,
19:56
just such, like a gift, is a trip to
19:59
Portland.
19:59
>> Speaker B: And I'm sitting here going, uh, I'm.
20:01
>> Speaker A: Going to be kicking myself.
20:04
I'm not going to be able to sleep well
20:07
if my fat duff goes
20:10
all the way up to the crap hole that is Portland.
20:13
And I don't investigate a
20:16
loo like, it had
20:18
to be done. And so
20:23
my wife's a very patient woman. Um,
20:26
because one of the things that is said on the way up to the zoo
20:29
is, hey, after we're done with the zoo,
20:32
I need to make a pit stop. Oh, where I
20:35
need to go find one of these Portland lose. I gotta go
20:37
check it out for myself. And of know,
20:40
my wife obliges. She's a very patient
20:43
woman. Um, and so we
20:46
go to the zoo. We do our zoo thing, and then we get in the car,
20:49
and I'm like, okay, I've done some research.
20:52
I know there's a Portland loo within ten minutes of the
20:55
zoo. We got to go hit it up.
20:56
>> Speaker B: And so we visited the Portland
20:59
loo.
21:00
>> Speaker A: At the waterfront park. I don't know remember the name of the park?
21:02
It's got a guy's name attached to. It's not important.
21:05
And we're driving, and we're like, oh,
21:08
I can't spot it. I can't spot it. And then I see it,
21:11
this wonderful little silver gray
21:14
box. So I make an illegal
21:17
uturn, and I parallel park, and
21:20
I jaywalk across the road. We're just breaking all the laws
21:22
here. And I get over there, and the first
21:25
thing that strikes me as I approach this loo
21:28
is behind the loo,
21:31
almost sharing a wall is a porta potty.
21:34
Like the city has brought in a porta potty. Now
21:37
I'm sitting here thinking to myself, this could
21:39
mean one of two things. Either
21:43
there's something going on with this loo,
21:46
or the foot
21:48
traffic, may I say, butt
21:51
traffic of this loo has become so great
21:54
that they have had to install
21:59
a porta potty. Either way, I'm sitting here thinking,
22:02
doesn't that kind of, like,
22:05
bode negatively for the
22:07
effectiveness of these loos? But I digress.
22:10
I approach the loo, I come around the corner.
22:13
Um, and if you want to see all this, it'll be all in this privy social.
22:16
I'll put the. Yeah. Um, but I
22:19
approach, and I pull the door open, and I
22:22
am just met with the most fecal spread
22:24
hellscape I have ever seen in my entire life.
22:28
I once stepped in a lake of backed
22:30
up septic at my previous job. Go
22:33
find that episode. I quit being a janitor, I
22:36
think is what it's called. But this
22:39
Portland loo is
22:42
wall to wall graffiti inside
22:46
and wall to wall floor
22:48
almost to ceiling, covered
22:51
in human waste.
22:53
Poop everywhere. Everywhere.
22:56
I opened the door and I looked down, and there was just
22:59
turd sludge just
23:02
right next to my feet. And I went,
23:05
oh, my gosh. I took pictures.
23:08
I took some
23:10
photos, and I got the heck out of there.
23:14
The toilet was, uh, I was originally, I told my wife
23:17
when I got back in the car, I was like, I had made plans to sit on
23:20
this toilet seat and take a picture, like, do the whole thing.
23:23
There was no sitting on the toilet seat. The
23:26
waste products have come up and out of the
23:29
toilet seat and are, like, sitting inches
23:32
above. The toilet was so clogged that the
23:35
city of Portland just gave up on cleaning it
23:38
and fixing the toilet and installed a Porta
23:40
potty. And you might
23:43
ask yourself, and I cannot stress enough,
23:46
this is not to disparage the people at Madden
23:49
fabrication.
23:49
>> Speaker B: This ain't their fault.
23:50
>> Speaker A: It's the city of Portland's fault.
23:54
I would say maybe the people using this thing,
23:57
but when it says
23:59
anti crime and it can't be vandal,
24:02
that only goes so far. There was
24:05
vandalism all up in it. This
24:08
thing hadn't been cleaned in ages. It
24:11
was one of the most foul bathrooms I
24:14
have ever seen in my entire.
24:18
>> Speaker B: I only.
24:19
>> Speaker A: I just went to one at random. Like, who knows what the others
24:22
are like? But it doesn't bow well. Like, the law of averages is, like,
24:25
they're just as bad. A Portland
24:27
loo wall to wall with fecal
24:29
matter. This has been
24:33
hunter's anecdotes to keep you
24:35
afloat.
24:43
And this brings us to the end of another episode
24:46
of the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. We're
24:49
glad you're here. If you would send us an email,
24:51
privycast@gmail.com, we'd love to hear
24:54
from you. Uh, send us episode suggestions,
24:57
comments, concerns if you want to be on the show. If you know
25:00
somebody who's got some wild bathroom stories, send them our
25:03
way. We'd love to hear from you. You can follow us
25:06
at social media, at Privycast, on all social
25:09
media. You can follow me.
25:10
>> Speaker B: I'm at owlette seven.
25:11
>> Speaker A: I'm putting weird stuff in my pie hole.
25:14
Uh, something I'm thankful
25:16
for is I'm thankful for clean public
25:19
restrooms.
25:19
>> Speaker B: When you find one, it's a gem.
25:21
>> Speaker A: When you find a clean public restroom,
25:25
it's a gem. Be thankful for it.
25:29
We've got a lot to be thankful for, and one of the ways
25:32
that.
25:32
>> Speaker B: We express that thankfulness is by giving.
25:35
>> Speaker A: Some money to the wounded warriors project. Um, for every
25:38
rating or review left.
25:39
>> Speaker B: We donate a dollar or two to.
25:41
>> Speaker A: Wounded warriors, um, as a recognition that
25:44
we keep pooping in the free world. But that free world was not
25:47
always free. Um, thank you to those who have fought
25:50
and served. Our meager donations are not
25:53
enough, but, uh, you can leave us a rating or
25:56
review. Five star options are preferred.
25:58
>> Speaker B: And we're going to give some money.
25:59
>> Speaker A: To the wounded warriors project as a result. So share
26:02
the show. Uh, send it far and wide
26:05
so that way more and more folks can leave. Those
26:08
reviews generate more and more stuff going on
26:11
there. We would love to do that. Um, so, yeah, share the
26:14
show. Tell somebody, tell three people, share it on social
26:17
media. Do whatever you need to do. Get the word out
26:20
there. Think of it as, like, what's
26:23
the way that I can embarrass hunter the most? Oh, share
26:26
the show he makes about bathrooms.
26:27
>> Speaker B: Okay.
26:28
>> Speaker A: I will share it to everybody. Um, it'll be like a
26:31
prank on me. As
26:34
always, we want to thank Kevin McLeod and
26:36
Pottington Bear for the use.
26:38
>> Speaker B: Of our music this week. Thank you, Kevin.
26:40
>> Speaker A: Evan in Pottington. This has been
26:42
another episode of Privy. Thank you so much for joining
26:45
us. Keep pooping in the free world.
26:48
Don't forget to wash your butthole. And
26:50
now, as always,
26:53
don't forget to flush.