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Three Minutes Between Flushes

Photographed
Location
Office, Trafalgar Square, London
A laminated white sign on a wood door asking users to allow three minutes between flushes and to use a sufficient amount of toilet paper.
A laminated instruction sheet introducing a cooling-off period between flushes.

Transcription

Please allow 3 minutes between flushes. To avoid blockages, please use the sufficient amount of toilet paper. Thank you

Commentary

“Please use the sufficient amount of toilet paper” sounds like they are asking you to make sure you use enough to get yourself clean. As if they don’t want that incident with Bob to happen again.

The 3 minutes between flushes is really awkward. If you’ve done a double flusher, you have to sit there for 3 minutes waiting to be able to flush again. If the toilets are busy, then everyone has to be in the toilet for at least 3 minutes to leave a gap between the previous person’s flush, which then makes the queues even bigger.

I wonder what is happening in those 3 minutes?