Lifting the lid on Melbourne's wee problem

Is it getting harder to find a public toilet in Melbourne?

"Sorry mate, can I use your loo" used to be a pretty common get-out-of-jail free card, played across Melbourne by all manner of busting travellers who found themselves without a nearby toilet block.

But toilet experts – there are such things – say grumpy traders are increasingly rebelling against non-paying customers using their facilities. 

When you've got to go, where do you go?

News on Friday that a Fitzroy pub, the Stone Hotel on Brunswick Street, is charging a $4.50 pay-to-pee fee comes as no surprise to Australia's only bone-fide toilet whisperer, Paul Webb.

Mr Webb is the general manager of toilet-installer WC Innovations, and says councils often face pressure from local traders to build more toilets near shopping strips.

"Owners are sick and tired of shoppers using their toilets. Particularly cafe owners. If you eat and drink, then of course you can use it". But if not, then not.

Relief is at hand.

There is actually a wealth of science and statistics to getting toilet placement right, so people aren't stuck without a loo.

Toilets, you see, typically have a 500-metre catchment zone.

That's the maximum comfortable distance that a member of the public is expected to walk to go to a loo. Anything beyond that becomes rather hard to bear.

Finding one isn't always the end of the problem.

A public toilet, Mr Webb says, can generally churn through about 55 people a day, per cubicle, leaving no person to wait longer than three minutes for their turn.

That's considered the maximum comfortable waiting time a human being will endure.

Men need slightly fewer cubicles than women because, Mr Webb says, they are quicker. A man takes about 87 seconds, on average, to finish, while women average closer to 180 seconds.

Melbourne's worst spot to take a leak

Fairfax Media tried to find Melbourne's ground zero – Melbourne's toilet bowl dustbowl. The single hardest place in the CBD to find a restroom.

That place: the corner of Bourke and William streets. This is pretty much the single-most-denuded public convenience point in the city, at least according to the national public toilet map.

It is bordered by a Kwik Kopy, Herringbone Suits, Nine West Shoes, and a large piece of bronzed public art.

It is at least a block walk to the nearest convenience, almost two blocks to the next-nearest if that one was engaged. Those distances push on Paul Webb's maximum catchcment zone metric.

Standing here, on this windswept corner on an autumn day, Fairfax attempted to find a loo.

First stop: Kwik Kopy

Have you ever attempted to find a toilet in a Kwik Kopy store? No. Because you do not go into a Kwik Kopy for a loo.

It is, perhaps, the least likely place that you would find a toilet that is open to the public. To even ask pegs you as a massive weirdo.

Your scribe walked in. A lady noticed me, and started to walk toward the desk, undoubtedly thinking I had an urgent printing-related need.

I lost my courage, before I could even make the ask, and fled.

She now undoubtedly thinks that I am some kind of photocopier fiend.

140 William Street

This building is the home of law firm DLA Piper and two wary security guards. I asked them if I could use their toilets.

"Do you have business here?"

I shook my head, mute in embarrassment.

"Well then I'm sorry man but I can't let you. Maybe try the Tempo Bar over there".

Tempo Bar

Well, this was much easier. The staff were happy to direct me to the restroom. Unfortunately, it was one of those cramped, two-cubicle affairs, with the mens and the womens jammed next to each other.

And the mens was occupied.

This led to a terrible sense of angst common to anyone who's been in this situation – can I use the women's loo? As I was on the verge of making this decision, the man in the men's came out, and we were forced to squeeze past each other so I could get into the mens.

Nope. Not awkward at all.

Did I finally go to the toilet, though? You bet I did.