I work as a custodian whose main job is cleaning all the bathrooms in a large building. Some bathrooms are busier than others. Some bathrooms have people who will go into a stall and come out 2 hours later after being on their phone the whole time. It doesn’t matter what I do. I can close the bathroom so no new users can come in, but I can’t kick people out. I can only make them aware that the bathroom is now closed. Of course they don’t give a shit(literally?) and take their sweet time. So I need to figure out a way to motivate them to leave.

Recently I was waiting to clean a particular stall and get the urge to do some business of my own. Being in the ideal place for this, I hopped into a freshly cleaned stall. While doing my business, I smelled a smell from another stall. It was pretty bad. It motivates me to vacate so I could get some fresh air.

It also reminded me of my sons poops. He’s newly potty trained and sometimes we need to remind him to flush. In the 30 seconds between him leaving the bathroom and us reminding him to flush and then him flushing, the smell escapes. And it is bad. Surprisingly bad. I don’t know why. My business doesn’t smell that bad. His is just… a different beast. It permeates and moves fast.

I put these thoughts together and wondered if there was something I could make to solve my problem. The answer was fast. And I didn’t even need to make it. It’s already been made. Fart spray. It’s not toxic. It just smells godawful. Since I do a decent job cleaning, none of the bathrooms ever smell that bad. Not permanently at least. My only problem is I need a way to clear the air of the spray when I’m done. Maybe. Or I could just leave and let it take care of itself.