Seatless Toilets
Who Took The Seat?Sometimes you will find that a toilet is missing its seat.I don't mean a squat toilet, but a raised porcelain commodethat has holes for mounting a seat and lid but has neither.It seems to need a seat, but the seat is missing.Why does the owner do this?It's for hygiene.Toilets can be much cleaner without seats.
Toilet seats are made of relatively soft and somewhatporous plastic or painted wood.That soft, porous surface provides plenty of opportunityfor dirt and microorganisms to take hold, and it isnearly impossible to get it completely clean.
The bowl itself, however, is vitreous.That is, glass-like.A toilet bowl is extremely hard and non-porous.The outer surface of the bowl is a ceramic glaze that hasbeen fired or baked to convert it to a material similarto glass.
You can be about as harsh or aggressive as you want,mechanically or chemically, in cleaning a toilet bowl.
Meanwhile the entirely non-porous glass-like surface providesno place for microorganisms to hide.
So where do you sit?On the rim of the bowl, of course!If you complain that it isn't very comfortable to sit onthe rim of a porcelain toilet bowl, I would ask just howlong you plan on sitting there, and why.
Notice the non-porous vitreousness of thishigh-tanked seatless model in the Akti hotel inKorinthos, Greecenear the train station for theΠροαστίακοςor Proastiakos line to Athens and themain line continuing west along the Gulf of Corinth.
The vitreous material means that the seating surface getsless dirty, and can more easily and effectively be cleaned.
Have you ever really cleaned your toilet seatand lid, getting down around the hinge and under the rearof the seat where you can't easily clean?Nasty, isn't it?Wouldn't it be much cleaner if that seat and lidweren't there at all, so you could easily wipeit clean?
Just be careful that you don't fall down into the bowlwhen using a seatless commode!
The immaculate seatless model seen belowis in theVatican.Seatlessness is next to cleanliness.
This isn't the Papal Throne, this is a public toilet inthe Vatican Museums.
This toilet gets a lot of use, and it gets more every year.4.3 million people visited the Vatican Museums in 2007,and just over 5 million in 2011.
Of course they didn't all use a toilet while they werevisiting the museums, and there were several toilets otherthan this one, but still, this one gets a lot of use.
Notice the dual-flush mechanism on the wall.You can press the smaller oval to get a smaller flush,or the larger oval to get a larger flush.
Public toilets throughout Europe may be seatless.Seatlessness gets more common as you go further south.Very few public toilets in Italy and Greece have seats.
By the time you get to Greece,you will find that even toilets in hotel roomsor in pensions or domatia(effectively extra rooms in private homes) lack seats.Strangely, the seatless toilets in Greece often have theremoved seat and lid sitting in the corner somewhere, asif the owner recently got fed up and ripped the thing loose.
Someone has forcibly removed the seats and lidsof these two intensely avocado toilets in theIonian Domatia in Vathy town on theisland of Samos.Notice how the lid is sitting on the floor, leaned upagainst the wall, in the picture above.
In the second picture, it looks almost as if there isa seat and lid raised up against the tank.No, that's just a design on the front of the tank.
There's neither a seat nor a lid.Notice the two empty mounting holes where they would beattached at the rear of the bowl rim just below andin front of the tank.
This lovely Russian toilet is in a train station inMoscow.
Note the standard Russian lack of seat,just a refreshingly cool porcelain bowl.These are especially bracingduring those chilly Russian winters.
