The coins and paper cash you touch every day are far filthier. Ditto credit card machine keypads. Doorhandles, subway, bus and streetcar grabbars, railings, elevator buttons. Let alone your children, pets and your lovers' bits 'n pieces, private and public. And, oh, the keyboard you're now using? Likely five times dirtier than a toilet seat.

So, my answer is "no."

Did it not come with a dispenser for hand sanitizer?
Casey

Last portable toilet I was in, had a hand sanitizer dispenser. If yours does not, maybe add a bottle.

There are far more dirty things that you touch each day. Which you probably know. So, why the reaction to the workers and not the shopping cart handles at the grocery store?

I haven't gone near it. Maybe it does have sanitizer. That makes me feel a little better (although I never saw anyone exiting, rubbing their hands together). And as I said, I know it's not logical. But no one else touches my keyboard. (What are coins and paper cash?)

edited for PC

Oh and the port o potty truck hasnt shown up this week.....but i really got to go, bad. theres no TP ? must be A monday......

soon your project will be done!!!

Hey, it was the contractor's idea to have a port-o-john, not mine. And its cost was never discussed. You seem to assume I wanted it and ordered it. I offered use of an indoor bathroom during the cold winter days and was refused.

There have been threads here complaining about workers going in the bushes and complaints about them making a mess in the bathrooms in the house, but this is the first complaint I've seen about them using the port-a-potty. They are running out of places to go.

Well I know someone who freaked out and replaced and entire toilet because contractors had been using it and apparently the toilet in what was going to be the master bath was sacrosanct and never to be touched by anyone else....

LOL, that's hilarious. Insane, but hilarious.

Makes sense to me... My master bathroom is not a public place where multiple people would use it; now my powder room bath is a different story and I would direct people there.

jellytoast, I wasn't complaining about them using it. Just an informal poll about ickiness. I don't want them using my new toilet, either, but I wouldn't replace it. Maybe just clean it ten times.

Ours used our powder room and I'm not sure if they ever washed their hands, but the hand towels I provided got a lot of use. New toilets were the last thing to go in, so I didn't have the gross feelings you have. In fact, over 2 years, many sub contractors have done work here and they all are welcome to use the powder room, even with the new toilet.

here, the county requires the potty for workers, during the course of the build, so my guess is that it wasn't your contractor's idea - but the means to abide by local guidelines? Or maybe it's an OSHA requirement?

Hand sanitizer goes a long way during the process. The words construction and clean just don't go together ... finished and clean do.

Here's hoping you get to finished soon!

There's dirt, icky dirt that may be invisible, and unnecessary dirt. I've had 'em all.

I'd suggest that you don't google to find out the stats of people that either don't wash their hands or do so poorly. If you did, you'd never leave your house or let any outsiders in.
Germs are a fact of life. Learn to live with them. Clean your house after guests (or workers) leave and don't dwell on it.

Greg, right, ick. Said I wasn't a germophobe. This was specifically about my contractors touching my intimate stuff. I'd guess men and women, in general, look at this differently. Who was it that wrote, if her husband offers to clean the bathroom, he has no idea what's dirty--just looks around, flushes a few times, and is done?

Touching your intimate stuff? I usually have to pay extra for that. ;)

My point was that it's just grossing you out because it's obvious that they aren't washing their hands if there isn't proper facilities or hand sanitizer. But in reality, lots of people are touching your stuff (or you're touching theirs) without it being sanitized or evenly relatively clean. It's purely an ignorance is bliss kind of situation. You can fool yourself into not considering it in other situations, but it's still happening.
As you stated, it's an emotional response and not a logical/scientific one.

Do what you need to do to put your mind at ease. If attaching a hand sanitizer bottle to the pot-o-potty will help you, then go ahead. But try not to look at the amount that is actually used, it will probably put you right back into the 'icky' state.

I know this is sorta off topic, but I work in a midrise building where the bathrooms for each floor are in the "core" next to the elevators. Our office opens right to the elevator lobby and close to the bathrooms and the waiting room doors are left open.

The amount of times I hear the bathroom doors open and close (they must be unlocked) vs. the much lesser amount of times I hear the very loud electric hand dryers going off is rather disturbing.

This is not my personal stuff, but I still have to touch the same door handles and elevator buttons as all those non-handwashers. The reality of it is that you are probably exposed to much more in public environments, than you are by a couple of extra people in your house.

(And don't eat the candy next to the cash register in a restaurant).

If you want to save tons of money over your lifetime just go to any restaurant and swab the bathroom door handle for analysis.

Well, we can all cite all kinds of examples. A friend of mine used to be a flight attendant. She said she and her colleagues avoided the plane bathrooms at all costs.

Let me answer like this then...I am not grossed out by it, because if I allow myself to get grossed out by this, then all the other things that I will have to acknowledge are worse will send me into fits.

Biology on the whole is "icky"; we are walking skin-bags of blood, bones, and s&^t; if this bothers you, concentrate your efforts on evolving into a non-corporeal energy ball of pure consciousness.
Or accept that we all are in the very same state. Oy. and also, vey.
Casey

My grandmother used to say, ''You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die.'' And she lived to be 90, quite healthily. Today's over emphasis on ''antibacterial'' this and that is creating people with weaker immune systems, not stronger ones. Embrace the dirt. It's making you stronger.

There are far more productive things to expend mental energy on than ''ick''. Which in of itself is an interesting and revealing choice of words. I suppose this is why brand new mothers can change diapers of their own kids but find changing a neighbor's kid's diaper gross. Or is that part of the mental makeup here? Or is it just contractor dirt that is icky?

I understand completely. Having people go to the potty and then touch your personal things in your house is different than keyboards and shopping cart handles. Anytime someone that is visiting weather it be friends or tradesmen, use the bathroom at my house, I always clean it after they leave.

I model my romantic moments on the

hygienic love scene from Naked Gun.

"Biology on the whole is "icky"; we are walking skin-bags of blood, bones, and s&^t; if this bothers you, concentrate your efforts on evolving into a non-corporeal energy ball of pure consciousness."

Lol! Totally made my day. ^_^

OK: Two jokes; and btw I was a chemist.

A soldier and a marine are in a bar. The soldier comes out of the rest room and the marine says; "I didn't hear you wash your hands. In the marines, we are taught to wash our hands after we relieve ourselves."
The soldier says, "in the army, they teach us not to pee on our hands!"

Microbiologists wash their hands afterwards; chemists wash their hands before!