Stall Door Crack Space

What’s the sitch with the excessively large crack in the hinge-space of standard bathroom stall-doors?

I know we have the technology to reduce the size of that crack. I’ve seen doors without any crack in the hinge-space with my own two eyes. When a door is closed one should not be able to see beyond it! 

Bathroom stalls are about privacy. That is their primary function, along with providing some nice, flat graffiti-space. That privacy is compromised when a stall-door is a full half-inch removed from the stall-wall it is attached to. If someone wants to see me ‘taking a massive dump’ (as it’s known in some circles) they should really have to try… it shouldn’t be as easy as looking up from washing their hands to accidentally meet the straining, worried reflection of my eyes in their mirror, peeking out from the ‘safety’ of my ‘private’ stall.

Now, this wouldn’t be a big deal if one dive bar per city had exceedingly large stall-door cracks. But that is not the case… this is a frightening, nationwide trend. In an eye-opening exposé by the award-winning quarterly publication Lavatories, Latrines, and All Things In-Between, they presented data showing a 70% increase in average stall-door crack-space since the early 1990’s. And this unprecedented rise in average crack-space isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.

So why is this happening? Who is behind this collapse in our standards of privacy? It is hard to point the finger at one group in particular… but if we had to… we would point our finger at The Bathroom Workers of America Labor Society (BWALS) and their lead lobbyist to Washington, Bradley McDougal. BWALS has spent countless millions lobbying against tighter crack-space regulations, despite recent alarming trends and increasingly negative public opinion. In a recent interview with Mr. McDougal, he was quoted as saying: 

“BWALS is here to fight to improve the working conditions of every American laboring in bathrooms across this great land. We are here to defend their rights and to protect them from unnecessarily stringent red tape, like the kind that this administration has put on the table time and time again. Rather than tighter governmental regulations we need to incentivize proper stall installation by turning over federally run bathroom programs to private organizations who can better compete in an increasingly complex and specialized marketplace.” 

For the last decade, BWALS has vocally supported the privatization of public restrooms everywhere. They claim it will save taxpayers millions and will improve the quality of often disgusting public restroom situations that develop in areas short on union laborers. What they fail to mention is that it will actually be much more expensive for the American public on a day-to-day basis, as they would be forced to spend, by some estimates, up to a dollar per bathroom visit. 

This privatization would also be subtly discriminatory against women, as some private restroom companies would charge by the second, and as we all know… women sit down to pee.  

This still doesn’t explain the widening crack-space… this trend is due in large part to BWALS drastically shifting their organization’s goals. Their platform in a 1975 fundraising campaign was, “High-quality work and craftsmanship, effectively serving the American bathroom-going public since you were in diapers! BWALS: making America cleaner, one restroom at a time.” We found a very different attitude more recently, as the topic of a presentation given at their annual meeting: “How to get the most in exchange for our invaluable labor: cutting corners, literally and figuratively, in America’s restrooms.” This presentation focused on effective ways for foremen to reduce the number of workers needed at a job site, where to obtain cheaper raw materials, and how to cut out middle men where possible.

One sickeningly honest PowerPoint slide explained how the organization has been saving millions of dollars annually by slightly reducing the size of stall doors. When multiplied by the millions of stalls they replace every year, shaving off fractions of an inch can save them the cash necessary for the huge bonuses their higher-ups handout every year. They also discussed reducing the amount of training required to join their ranks, assuring less precise hinge-work for years to come. 

The long and short of it is, we aren’t imagining things. Stall-door crack-space has been increasing, and we know the likely culprit. 

The pseudo-union/profit-mongering monopoly known as BWALS has had a stranglehold on American bathroom labor for decades, and recently they have decided to take advantage of their position to make money off of a public who is at their mercy (no one can hold it in forever). They are gradually taking away our privacy and our dignity. The government needs to set up stricter guidelines on bathroom maintenance and encourage higher quality custodial organizations to bid for federal contracts, in order to eliminate BWALS’ competitive advantage and, most importantly, to keep our ‘personal time’ personal.