There's a smell to it
Many in Thailand must have let out a big sigh followed by the words: "Shit no paper." No matter how you looked around you, the familiar role was missing. What was there was a barrel filled with water containing a small floating plastic container.
If you had already accomplished the great message, there was little left but to resort in horror to that last expedient. Take comfort in the thought that in India it is the most normal thing in the world to clean the rear with water and - mind you - the left hand. After all, with the 'clean' right hand you reach out to others and eat. If you have luck on your side, you will often find a tap with a hose and a small sprayer next to the toilet to remove all blemishes in a very refreshing way.
Fortunately for us Westerners, you will find the well-known toilet roll in many places nowadays, accompanied by a compelling request to deposit the used toilet paper in the waste bin. The sewage system is then too narrow and the toilet roll phenomenon was not taken into account during construction.
toilet day
To be honest, I had never heard of it, but November 19 is annually known as World Toilet Day. It seems so very normal to us, but according to figures from the United Nations, 2 ½ billion people on our planet have no hygienic sanitary facilities. There is also a lack of clean drinking water and the possibility to wash hands. Each year, 800 children die from the consequences of diarrhoea.
Holy Shit
To stay in style; 'fresh off the press' this month (May 2018) Prometheus published a booklet by journalist Jaffe Vink entitled Holy Shit. The author describes everything you can think of about the subject that literally smells. Our distant ancestors did not know toilet paper and let your imagination run wild to imagine how they solved that at the time. Squat in the woods with leaves or by a stream with a handful of water. The 'little room' only came into the picture many decades later. Initially it consisted of no more than a wooden board with a round hole and a lid. Sewage system? Never heard of it. Everything disappeared into the so-called cesspool that was emptied with a certain regularity. The name pit creator will not sound unfamiliar to many.
The newspaper, pamphlets and magazines brought relief and were neatly cut and put together with a piece of string to help the small room.
The American Joseph Gayetty did not like all that printing and introduced printing ink-free loose sheets of paper in 1857. Under the brand name Gayetty's Medicated Paper, he praised the paper, which contained juice from the leaf of the aloe vera, as medicinal for the prevention of hemorrhoids. Yet it was not a sales success and the Americans refused to spend 50 cents for 500 sheets of paper; after all, the old newspapers were free.
We arrive in the year 1891 as Seth Wheeler of the Albany Perforated Wrapping Paper Co. filed a patent application for its perforated roll where you could tear off sheet after sheet. Soon the company Scott from New York also entered the market and emphasized hygiene in an advertising campaign. Many middle-aged people suffer from rectal disease as a result of raw toilet paper containing wood splinters, he said. Yet it takes until 1935 when shatterproof toilet paper appears on the market. Finally, in 1942, St. Andrew's Paper Mill of London comes on the market with the first double-ply toilet paper that prevents the use of fingers, if you know what they mean by that.
So you see that the present time in which we have a wide choice of 2, 3 or 4-layer, soft or extra soft, white or cream or with or without a colorful motif, has preceded a whole history. In Thailand you can even double enjoy a cool jet from the 'spray gun' and dry with soft paper without wood splinters.
If, as the writer of this story once did, you want to install such a refreshing 'spray gun' at home in the Netherlands or Belgium, bear in mind that unlike Thailand, the water in our countries is much colder and at certain times of the year even ice cold.
And then all of a sudden you're terrified.
In the past, the 'shit house' behind the farms simply stood above the ditch.
Everything disappeared into the water.
When we went on long skating trips in the winter, you would see the frozen heaps lying on the ice.
This image suddenly comes back to me because of the nice article by Joseph Jongen.
The spray guns we brought with us from Thailand turned out not to be able to withstand the higher pressures on our water supply network in Belgium. After a fairly short time, the shut-off mechanisms in the spray head fail, with all the consequences that entails….
Dear Eddie,
Just a tip, I also installed one for my wife, but just to be sure I put a normal tap in between and that works fine.
Yes. It also makes technical sense.
That way, you can reduce the pressure a bit, and it's been OK for years.
If you have dirty hands you don't clean them with dry paper... right??
Indeed, an ordinary tap in between with which you can simultaneously reduce the pressure and so you have no problem with the closing mechanism. Cheap and effective.
Hi Eddy, I solved this very cleverly with the Fibaro system.
As soon as the motion sensor detects someone, the valve of the spray gun opens.
So there is no pressure build up. If the hose breaks, you have a water ballet in your case and you can hope that you are home….
I also had them installed in the Netherlands. Your problem is very easy to solve: place a shut-off valve in front of it. Less than 5 euros in the hardware store and you're done! Works great.
Do not assume that the water pressure in Belgium differs much from that in the Netherlands. The picture shown with “between valve” is my solution that has been working fine for many years. Very simple.
Of course it depends on what you want to spend. Excellent spray guns are also for sale in Thailand, made of stainless steel and bronze, but they cost about 800 to 1000 baht. But then you have something. At my home in the Netherlands, it has been functioning properly for many years!!
We also had these toilet shower connections installed in our Dutch house on the toilet downstairs and in the bathroom from the construction site. Good (heavy) metal syringes brought from Thailand (HomePro) and connected with Grohe hoses from NL. Has been functioning without problems for 8 years now without defects.
Toilet showers can be found in many sizes and colors in every hardware store. Shorten the water pipe to the cistern a bit, a T-piece with compression fittings and a 3/4 or 1/2 inch straight connection and a matching 3/4 or 1/2 inch ball valve in between with screw thread outside and inside thread.
You can connect directly and you have a built-in safety right away. Just complete the set in the hardware store. A luxurious Grohe toilet shower costs 19.99. A simple one at the P….s 9.99.
I have had such a 'spray gun' installed in my Dutch house, I can no longer live without it. Dirty habit with those papers. I went to a company and asked if they had a 'butt syringe'. They hadn't. Now some back and forth talking, sign language and explanation he said 'Oh, you mean a hand shower!' Good resistance to high water pressure.
Tino, that's because of the Dutch culture, they think an ass is unclean and that's why they opt for 'hand shower', because you don't clean your ass by hand anymore. You as a guest in this beautiful Netherlands must understand that, don't you?*
Such a bum-gun , สายฉีดชำระ (/boring _tjiet tjamrá, “wash pipe spraying”) is indeed much more pleasant. Only in winter you sit with your buttocks squeezed together. I don't have one myself, too much hassle in my rented house. But actually I'm crazy about my toilet paper.
*should I add a wink here? 😉
In the past, I'm talking about 60 years ago, I spent almost all my holidays with my uncle and aunt in Lemmer, Friesland. There was a path behind the houses and next to it the "Bleek" where the laundry was hung on long clothes lines that would soon touch the ground. But no, one or two huge sticks were placed under the clothesline and thus the whole trade was lifted up. At the end of the path were 2 huts, a cubicle with a barrel under a shelf, where you could relieve yourself. Because my uncle felt that he and his family did not all have to go to the communal huts, where you sometimes had to wait your turn, a private hut was purchased with a lock. These barrels were emptied twice a week by a special collection service. When I think back about it, brrr with all those spiders, anyway the huuskes no longer exist there, only the memory remains!
I bought the necessary material last week and plan to connect the squeeze shower tomorrow.
I had already read that the Thai showers are not suitable because the water pressure is much higher here.
So I bought one at the hardware store in the Netherlands
But here too it is recommended to put a stop tap in between.
So I will do that too.
Open the tap, go to the toilet, rinse and close the tap again. That will be it.
I wonder how it will be in winter.
You can also regulate the pressure by not opening the stopcock completely, but only a quarter turn or as far as you want. I also do that in Thailand if the pressure through the water pump that is between me is still too high and bad for hemorrhoids, for example
Ideal such a butt syringe, also in the Netherlands. Tap in between. Cold water is also no problem, because strangely enough you don't feel that in that spot. In fact, it is very nice if the water is a little fresher, especially after very
heavy prick meals. We have had the syringe for many years and are surprised that it is almost non-standard in the sanitary shop. Never again without. Happy spraying.
Who doesn't know him? The Bidet, Ideal. You use it just like your kitchen faucet. No hassle with hard soft or hot cold. Just soap and water and scrub.
Sorry, Willem, but the average Dutch toilet has no room for a bidet. As well as even if most bathrooms will not have that space. Incidentally, the cold water does not feel unpleasant when rinsing, even in the Dutch winter. The anus is apparently less sensitive to temperature.