Hacker News Reader

You can't pay janitors enough to deal with degenerates who routinely deliberately destroy public bathrooms in western countries. It's a job for police and the courts, but those are dysfunctional in a way which "more money" doesn't fix.

Result is all the clean and useful bathrooms are private, because only thus can shit-smearing vandals be reasonably excluded (and only then, somewhat.)

View on HN

So you can't pay a janitor enough to deal with vandals, but somehow the minimum wage bartender that already has to tend to a bar and cash register is able to keep their toilets clean no problem?

It's not that hard to make toilets that are nearly indestructible and can be very efficiently cleaned by a guy in a "hazmat" suit with a pressure washer. It probably wouldn't be that hard to largely automate this. But the market for this is small and mostly governments, so prices are high and innovation is low.

Paris has a few automated self-cleaning toilets.

https://parisjetaime.com/eng/article/public-toilets-a696

Do you realize how much money police arrests, courts, and jail cost? A janitor and occassional repairs are way cheaper any way I can look at it. There arent gangs of people walking around with grinders or hacksaws fucking up as much stuff as possible despite what you may want to believe.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com