Think the bathroom you have in your house is safe for your elderly parent? It may not be as safe as you think. The elderly are highly at risk of debilitating falls in the bathroom, and it’s no wonder—bathrooms are full of hazards, including slick floors, high obstacles to step over, cluttered items to trip on, and low seats to maneuver. Here are a few tips to make your bathroom safer and more accessible to the elderly.
Think your house is clean? Think again. There may be thousands-even millions-of bugs hiding in your walls, in your carpets, and even in your sheets and clothes. Here are eight creepy-crawlies that are more common than you’d think, even in the cleanest houses.Apparently, people nowadays are less concerned than they have ever been with bathroom privacy. Increasingly, cutting-edge bathrooms are designed behind thin glass screens instead of opaque walls, and they’re plopped right in the middle of living rooms and bedrooms instead of tucked discretely in a corner. In these new bathrooms, you can see naked silhouettes and hear what’s going on in the bathroom from public living areas.
Forget about doing your business, cleaning up and getting out. Today’s bathrooms are becoming peaceful, upscale retreats—sort of like an in-home spa for busy couples…
In some households, the bathroom is the only room in the house where, once you’re in, nobody will try to come in to bother you. Sometimes it’s the only room with a lock. It’s possible that busy parents have been using the bathroom as a refuge for years—and increasing trends toward luxury fixtures are only making the bathroom’s retreat status more solid.
The bidet is a staple in European and British homes, but it hasn’t caught on in America. Japanese bidet manufacturer Toto is bravely making inroads into American markets with the Toto Washlet, a bidet toilet seat that attaches to traditional seats. The Washlet offers jets set to specific temperatures and an air-dry feature.
The New York Times reported that when he was locked out of his private bathroom, world chess championship contender Vladimir Kramnik of Russia refused to play his fifth match—bringing the entire competition to a halt.
According to reports, the Bulgarian team noticed Kramnik was taking frequent bathroom breaks and suspected him of cheating…
They reported him to the World Chess Federation, which responded by locking the private bathrooms for both teams. Players could still use the bathrooms, but competing teams would have to share facilities.
According to the New York Times this month, a Hell’s Kitchen woman went to the women’s bathroom in a New York restaurant with unfortunate results. Moments after the woman entered the bathroom, a bouncer burst into the room and insisted she leave because he believed she was really a man.
A woman in Wichita, Kansas, was found by paramedics in a mobile home bathroom after her live-in boyfriend noticed she was disoriented. She had been sitting on the bathroom toilet so long that her legs seem to have atrophied and she had so many sores that she was literally stuck to the toilet seat. According to her boyfriend, she had not left the bathroom in two years due to serious agoraphobia.
So how could this continue for two years?
A restaurant in Florida has been penalized for storing food on the bathroom floor. The offending Checker’s restaurant employees were stacking hamburger buns from floor to ceiling in the men’s bathroom, just inches from the toilets.
According to reports, they also stored cups there. All kinds of nasty things could have been happening to the bread and such during its storage in the bathrooms—which is why the restaurant got stuck with numerous health code violations.