What are toilet brushes actually for?

[Default to the negative]

So, you've skidded the toilet bowl. How are you going to clean that up? Not with your toilet brush, I'll wager. Because if you use it to scrub off the skids, you're then left with a dirty toilet brush on your hands. You haven't cleaned anything, you've just transferred the dirt from one place to another. What are you going to do with the brush? Put it back in the holder, when it's covered in shit? You can't do that. People will come in and see it. It's actually worse than having skidmarks in the toilet, because jobbies are kept wet and fresh in there. This means they can easily be cleaned up at your leisure. On a toilet brush, they'll dry out, and nothing is filthier than that. You picture your brush covered in weeks-old cack, the wires yellowy-brown and brittle. It's just not something you can do.

"Aha! But I can clean the brush right after I've used it!" I hear you say. Well, take a step back and think again, chum. Where are you going clean it? In the bathroom sink, where you brush your teeth? In the kitchen sink, where you wash your crockery? In the bathtub, where you immerse yourself in hot water and become part of a soup with whatever's floating around in there? No. All of these options are disgusting and unacceptable.

The only way to clean a manky toilet is to get the gloves on and use toilet paper or a scouring pad. These things are easily disposed of and easily replaced. Flush them away or throw them in the bin. Use them once and get rid. But a toilet brush is a permanent fixture of the bathroom and it has to go back in its place— a place where everyone can see it and make a judgement about you. So it never gets used at all. No one uses them in their own bathroom, because it's dirty and impractical, and no one has the nerve to use a toilet brush at a friend's house either. People will be righteously pissed-off with you if you do that. You can well imagine what their girlfriend would say if she found her brush all shitted up, by you. Women insist on having a toilet brush in the bathroom, but you're not supposed to use it because the open secret is that it's really an just an ornament. And they're not harmless fun like other ornaments, because they ostensibly serve a purpose and they tempt folk into making a massive faux pas. God help anyone who actually brushes a toilet with a toilet brush.

We're not allowed to use them and we don't want to use them, but we put them there anyway, as if it's required by law. We're making fools of ourselves with this ridiculous charade. It's about time for us, as a society, to accept that toilet brushes are useless and do away with them. If you don't agree then I want to know why. I doubt a single one of you actually uses their toilet brush the way it's supposed to be used, but it would be interesting to hear from someone who does.

[Birdie]

I use my toilet brush to scrub under the rim once I have applied toilet cleaner.

That's the way to use it.

Boring answer but a toilet brush is a boring utensil isn't it?

[solidified gruel merchant]

Never had one. Or those little furry mats that go round the base (!)

[clayhill halls of residen]

Piss any offending marks off the bowl you dirty bastards, if you use the brush clean it of with the toilet flush, christ is shitting in a civilized manor too much for some of you?

[NoSleep]

Get a Toilet Duck Fresh Brush. You don't need to buy refills for it for day to day deskidding; just clip in some folded toilet paper, wipe the bowl clean then, plop, unclip the toilet paper into the bowl and flush.

[Buelligan]

Never had one. Or those little furry mats that go round the base (!)

You're fully shaved then?

[solidified gruel merchant]

You're fully shaved then?

Ooh la la!

[BlodwynPig]

I have a great aversion to 'bits', but as remarked, you clean with the flush and then the remaining filth - as long as not visible to the naked eye (you don't want anything bigger than a pin head in the bristles) - will perish eventually. There is not enough biomass to generate odour and the discolouration is not too foul, you can see the same kind of discolouration in any nightclub or back alley wall.

[Fry]

I use mine to scratch my back as I'm doing a poo. That's what they are really for, right?

[TIAL]

Get a long piece of loo roll and spin it until it curls up into a rope-like shape. Dip half of it in the toilet water and rub it up and down on the offending mark, it will stick to the side whilst your hands hold the dry half. Then drop the whole thing in and flush. Job done.

[solidified gruel merchant]

I have a great aversion to 'bits', but as remarked, you clean with the flush and then the remaining filth - as long as not visible to the naked eye (you don't want anything bigger than a pin head in the bristles) - will perish eventually. There is not enough biomass to generate odour and the discolouration is not too foul, you can see the same kind of discolouration in any nightclub or back alley wall.

Get rid and get some bleach. Coat the caked on cack, wait a few mins then flush. Hygienic and simple- you won't look back.

[BlodwynPig]

or. change your diet. oily fish might do the trick.

[solidified gruel merchant]

Or shit at work/your mates/mothers/a ditch

[Hank_Kingsley]

You're all wrong, they're actually for wiping your arse with.

Toilet paper is for mopping piss off the seat.

[fit bird]

i just line my hand with toilet paper and catch my shit, lowering it gently down to avoid perilous splashback or skid trauma.

[solidified gruel merchant]

i just line my and with toilet paper and catch my shit, lowering it gently down to avoid perilous splashback or skid trauma.

An excellent development of the old firemans blanket.

[Fry]

I trap a length of toilet paper between the seat and rim of the toilet, like a little hammock hanging across. When the poo lands on the paper, I then stick a little sparkler in it as a surprise for the next person to enter.

[biggytitbo]

I use my toilet brush to scrub under the rim once I have applied toilet cleaner.

That's the way to use it.

Boring answer but a toilet brush is a boring utensil isn't it?

Not if you use it properly it isnt!!

[Vodka Margarine]

'Lily the water' with a couple of squares of good kitchen roll. Defecate. Your stools, no matter how smudgy, will automatically find themselves encased in a protective papery parcel. Flush. Why, it's as if nothing's happened!

[Fry]

'Lily the water' with a couple of squares of good kitchen roll.

If you want to clog yer shitter with that absorbent bullshit then yeah. Go right ahead.

Just don't come crying to me when the water rises up as you're sitting and a little bit of floating poo touches your bum cheek.

Don't come crying to me.

[The Region Legion]

Scrape turd marks from bowl with brush and flush.

Dip brush head into water and shake loose whatever was stuck to the brush.

Put now clean (relatively) brush into holder. It's still teeming with bacteria but it doesn't have physical shit residue on it. Replace brush/brush head every 3-6 months.

For added peace of mind, use a brush with a disinfectant resevoir at the bottom eg. Dip-San.


Honestly, I don't know how some of you make it out of the house in the morning.

[Default to the negative]

I have to laugh at all these toilet brush advocates who tell us we should just flush the brush. When you scrub a difficult skidmark off the pan, it gets deep into the brush and it stays there. Unless you have a super-cistern that blasts out water with the force of a fire hose, your brush is going to be tainted. People will be able to see the discolouration and the little black clumps that have congealed down at the base.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I clean it in the sink. I don't then leave the shit in the sink and put it on my toothbrush (who uses the sink for their toothbrush anyway? That's what the tap is for), I wash it away and clean it with cleaning products.

[Don_Preston]

Just don't come crying to me when the water rises up as you're sitting and a little bit of floating poo touches your bum cheek.

Don't come crying to me.

Who flushes the toilet whilst still sat on it? If you do such a stupid thing, it's your own fault if you receive a devil's kiss.

[clayhill halls of residen]

When you scrub a difficult skidmark off the pan, it gets deep into the brush and it stays there.

Learn to shit properly then

[Kane Jones]

Learn to shit properly then

This.  Why is your toilet bowl smothered in thick, sludgy shit in the first place, Default?  Surely you flush the majority on the first flush.  If you do leave a little skid, brush it away with the toilet brush then flush again, rinsing the brush under the flushing water - Voila! Perfectly white, clean toilet brush (teaming with bacteria, but who cares).  You make it sound like you fudge the bowl up every time you shit, in which case it's your diet, not the toilet brush that's the problem here. (unless you have a very small toilet bowl.  Or you're sitting too far back on the toilet and the turd is dragging down the back of the bowl every time. In which case, what clayhill said.)

[El Unicornio, mang]

Who flushes the toilet whilst still sat on it? If you do such a stupid thing, it's your own fault if you receive a devil's kiss.

Uh oh, I think we're going to start that wipe sitting down/standing up debate again...

[Kane Jones]

Uh oh, I think we're going to start that wipe sitting down/standing up debate again...

But.. Why would anyone flush the toilet when they're sat down?  It defies comprehension.  And.. HOW?!  You'd put your back out turning round to do it, surely?

[El Unicornio, mang]

I dunno, some people are just mental

[Kane Jones]

I dunno, some people are just mental

Poor man's bidet, mate.