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This morning, I was reminded of an article I read in Reader’s Digest when I was young (no wisecracks about how long ago that probably was, k? ). I was at the washroom, and as I walked out of the cubicle, the cleaner happened to be outside, and she told me not to close the toilet seat cover. You see, I have a habit of closing the toilet seat cover before I flush the WC after use. This stemmed from that RD article which said that the flush causes small particles of toilet water to spray out, and if like most homes, your WC is near to the sink and that’s where you keep your toothbrush, the water particles can land as far as onto your toothbrush (assuming that you have a normal sized toilet, not one where you can throw a foam party in… ). That little nugget of information stayed in my head, and from then on, I will always close the toilet seat cover. I mean, who wants to walk around with toilet water particles clinging to your clothes the whole day, right? Gives a new meaning to eau de toilette (bad pun, forgive me, I slept at 1am last night!)…

Anyways, I Googled about this, and found a website with the same info as what I read in RD previously:

Spray from flushing the toilet

If you donâ??t close the lid before you flush the toilet, the spray from the toilet flush can land up to several feet away from the toilet. The spray is hard to see with the naked eye. When you flush the toilet, the spray from the toilet bowl can contain a range of viruses and bacteria, some of which may cause serious illnesses. Some of the viruses and bacteria can survive for hours or days. It is therefore important to shut the lid before you flush the toilet.

How to see this for yourself â?? a fun experiment

Teachers may like to do this experiment with small groups. Parents may also like to do it at home. Children should not do this experiment without adult supervision.

1. Before you start, make sure that the toilet has been flushed properly.
2. Put about 15ml (1 tablespoon) of food colouring into the toilet bowl.
3. Put the seat up and stretch cling film across the top of the bowl, so that it covers all of it and sticks to the outside of the toilet.
4. Flush the toilet and watch as droplets fly up to the underside of the cling film. If the cling film wasnâ??t there, those drops could fly out and land on the floor.
5. Let each pupil or child look at the cling film through a magnifying glass, to see how many smaller droplets there are. The drops could all be carrying germs that can make us ill.
6. Don’t forget to remove the cling film! It should be put in an outside bin.
7. Everyone who took part should wash their hands after this experiment.

So how many of you have been brushing your teeth with toilet water all this while?