The scene is something out of a horror movie, water pools on the floor because the drainpipe is once again clogged. Trash litters the walls and floor. There’s strange writing on the wall that you don’t understand. You don’t want to be in this place, and you try to avoid coming here as much as possible, but today it was necessary. You do your business and go to wash up, but It’s hard to find a place when every drain is clogged with trash and what you hope is human hair. There are no supplies left and every box is empty. You leave feeling relieved but dirtier than before. 

It would be more comforting if that was an excerpt from a Stephen King novel, but the reality is far scarier. That was a regular experience for a student trying to use a Parkdale bathroom.

Public restrooms are disgusting, but Parkdale restrooms take the whole trash cake. Between the garbage and graffiti, to the sentient rats scurrying along the floor, it seems that the trash cans in the bathroom are only for decoration. 

In Parkdale restrooms, it’s tradition to use the sinks as trash cans rather than the actual trash cans in the bathroom, as it seems throwing your trash away in the right bin is bad luck. If it’s not in the sink, it’s on the floor.

The creature that is heard moaning from the pipes of the first-floor bathroom refused to comment. Simply leaving wet clumps of hair in the pipes and shrieking when asked to speak. 

One theory is that it lives in the plumbing and is clogging drains to protect its home from filth. Another is that it’s the one creating the mess, the creature made a huffing-like laughing noise when presented with that theory. 

A survey asked students which supplies were missing most from the bathroom; 37.5 percent said there was no toilet paper, 25 percent said there were no paper towels, 25 percent said there was no hand soap, 12.5 percent said there were no clean toilets, and 12.5 percent said: “all of the above” was missing.

One student even commented that we probably need to replace everything in the bathrooms.  From the sinks to the lights on the ceiling because “everything is broken.”

“We don’t know how it got this bad” sentient rat of bathroom 4 zep says, “at first we liked the filth, easier to hide, but now we’re losing rats! Some rats go gathering and don’t come back and we know it isn’t the sink growler, [there would] be bones”

The school knows the bathroom situation is a problem and has already decided on a solution, take away the bathrooms entirely! Parkdale has decided to lock bathroom doors and refuse to let students use the bathroom. Parkdale isn’t the only school to use this method. 

This solution is perfect! All you have to do is ignore the fact that research done by The Atlantic proved that holding in your pee can cause acutely dysfunctional bladder and UTIs. And also the fact that students that already have bladder problems will feel more singled out. And the fact that menstruating students won’t be able to change their tampons, which could lead to toxic shock syndrome. Students are already creating ways to get over all the many problems this perfect solution makes.

Students that have been at Parkdale for more than a year find that it’s easier to create physical maps of the bathrooms. They label bathrooms depending on cleanliness, how likely the bathrooms are to be locked, how often the toiletries are restocked, which bathroom has the least broken utilities, and the amount of shrieking in the sinks. Rumor has it that if you bring 14 cents, five ring pops, and a hand drawing of a chinchilla a senior student will let you buy their map off of them before they graduate. 

When asked how to fix the bathroom situation people had many different ideas. One suggested disposable wipes so students could clean off the bathrooms before use, another suggested prayer.