Restroom cleanliness not covered under law

Cal State Long Beach freshman criminal justice major Maurice Shield is impressed by his new academic environment, the grass is green ,the trees are shady and the buildings impressive. One thing bothers him though, ... the toilets.

"It is a shame that people have to use this," he said on emerging from a bathroom in the KLON Building on Upper Campus. "I expect bathrooms to be different but this looks terrible. It smells terrible."

Holding up his hand for emphasis, he said on a scale of 10, he would award the toilet a grade of four mainly for its clean stand-up stalls.

On this day, not only does the bathroom smell, used tissue papers litter the floor. Only one of the sit-down stalls could be locked when in use, and the tissue paper holder lacks a handle.

A short while later, art major Alan Louie emerged from the second floor toilet of FA4 with a similar complaint.

He said while there were some clean facilities on campus such as the ones in the University Library, "This [toilet] stinks."

Louie said paint residues in the sinks and on the floor indicate some students wash their paint brushes there and no one cleans up after them.

They may not like the level of sanitation in the toilets but students will have to live with the situation for now. California law governing the sanitation of restrooms requires that restrooms be provided but not the frequency of cleaning.

Section 3981 of the Health and Safety Code directs that publicly and privately owned facilities where the public congregates be equipped with "sufficient temporary or permanent restrooms to meet the needs of the public at peak hours."

Section 3980 adds that public agencies maintaining such facilities "shall make every water closet for each sex maintained within such facilities available without cost or charge to the patrons, guests, or invitees."

Maryan Rozanski, director of environmental health on campus said at best the provisions for the level of cleanliness are vague.

"There are no clear requirements, no specific requirements except that the toilets should be kept clean," she said.

Facilities management, the campus agency with responsibility for cleaning majority of the toilets on campus, sets a cleaning schedule at its own discretion.

Robert Quirk, acting director of facility's management, said the toilets are cleaned every weekday, but not on weekends. Toilets are stocked with tissue papers for weekend for patrons only in the Academic Computing Center and the University Library, which stay open on weekends .

Quirk said cleaning for bathrooms ends during the day Friday and begins again Sunday night except for special occasions such as sporting events and other large gatherings.

"We understand there are some problems with this arrangement but that is what we could do with the existing resources," he said.

Willie Wallace, manager of custodial services on campus said his office operates with a cleaning crew of 50 regular staff and 26 contract employees.

The only inspections of the bathrooms done by an outside agency are done by the Bureau of Environmental Health of the Long Beach City, department of health and human services; and these inspections are confined to the restrooms within food establishments.

Section 27627.3 of the codes on sanitation states: "Clean toilet facilities, in good repair, shall be provided for patrons, guests, or invitees on property used in connection with, or in, each food establishment with more than 20,000 square feet of floor space.

Restrooms must be separated by well fitted, self-closing doors that prevent passage of flies, dust, or odors, warning that a failure to comply with these shall be deemed a misdemeanor in law.

Records kept in the office for the campus indicate routine inspections of these areas are done about once a year, or when there is any report of specific health hazard.

The last report in the record indicated a routine inspection for compliance with local building and plumbing codes carried out on March 28, 1995, in the International Food Court area.

The rest of the bathrooms on campus rely only on the work and inspection of campus maintenance crews.

Shields said he is afraid of using campus restrooms under existing conditions because he fears contracting infections.

He said with no guidelines for strict maintenance of sanitary conditions of the campus toilets, students should be made aware of this and be able to take more precautions.

Dr. Rebecca Willis, chief staff physician at Student Health Services said while there is only a remote possibility of catching a major infection from using a dirty toilet facility, "the chance is there."

According to medical journals, a person using infected public toilets could also be exposed to pubic lice infection, a form of venereal disease.

Willis advised anyone intending to use a public toilet facility to ensure it is in a clean area, "if not, don't sit on the toilet seat."

She said one must ensure that both hands are washed thoroughly after every use of any toilet, whether it's clean or dirty.

Willis said this may seem basic, but "it prevents the incidence of hand to mouth infestation."