You know you’ve seen it. I have and it’s enough to make you want to throw up – feces smeared on the toilet seat, menstruation products left for all to see, urine sprayed on the floor, graffiti on the walls, full unflushed toilets just waiting to be flushed – and I’ve been told that used condoms have appeared in the men’s room. Sound familiar? It should – because that is the condition of the campus restrooms much of the time.

Why should I take up space to write about this? Because it’s just downright gross and childish for adults to treat their college this way, and someone has to say it. The filth is a total disregard for the maintenance crew and your fellow students. I’m not asking you to carry around a plunger and a bottle of Lysol, just clean up after yourself! What must visitors and prospective students think!

One student has had it, and wrote to the Times to share his thoughts on the raunchy restrooms. Bernard Suide, Human Services student, attends the Downtown Milwaukee campus, and when asked why he felt compelled to write the letter Suide said, “Because I don’t think that the bathrooms have to be filthy,” a simple yet profound answer.

Suide has witnessed “students as well as faculty” walk past gobs of toilet paper and paper towels on the floor, just inches from the garbage can. And instead of picking it up themselves and throwing it away, they ignore it.  Suide said that he realizes that people are wary of germs but that they should just “pick it up, throw it out, and wash their hands.” (Perhaps latex gloves are needed  in the bathrooms for the Good Samaritans.)

While the college encourages respect for one another, isn’t leaving the bathroom in an acceptable condition for the next person a form of respecting that person as well? Kenneth Utsey, Graphic Design student, said he is “AFRAID to use the campus bathrooms!”

It has been said that you should go into the bathroom of a restaurant before you sit down to order, because if the bathrooms are clean, then most likely, so is the kitchen that your food is coming from. Why? Because it’s the behavior of a person when no one is looking that is the best indicator of their character.

Suide said that he has used the bathroom right after being cleaned, and went again after an hour or two, and it was in the same deplorable condition as before it was cleaned.

Adults should not have to be told to clean up after themselves, but someone is making the bathrooms disgusting, and it’s not the people being paid to clean them. Do we need a bathroom attendant in each restroom to inspect the bathrooms after each use? If we did, would it make a difference? It shouldn’t.

Where it came from – I don’t know – but I’ve passed this ditty on to my kids:

This little place we call our own,

We keep it clean and neat.

So please be kind to your behind,

And don’t dirty up the seat!

On that note, I’m going to go clean my bathrooms.