Of all occupations, I try my absolute hardest to go easy on the janitors of the world. These people have seen some shit (of both the literal and figurative varieties), and it's downright awful of anyone to make their lives any harder than they already must be. But before you say, "Oh, come on, it can't be that bad," the following horror stories shared via Reddit should be all the convincing you need.
The Bigger They Are...
I used to work custodial at a summer camp and it never failed that at least once every other week, the kids decided it would be hilarious for all of them to take a collective shit. They would all go to one stall and shit one after the other without flushing. Eventually, there would reach a point where the water to shit ratio would flip and there would be more shit in the toilet that they would then leave for us at night to clean. The only thing more disgusting than the smell of shit on top of shit on top of shit is having to clean it up.
Cooler Than Miles Davis
Not a janitor, but I worked as a bus boy for a summer, so I did have to do my fair share of cleaning up random disgusting stuff. One day, I was working an afternoon shift with another busser, and we had an older couple come in to eat. The man seemed pretty senile, but nothing out of the ordinary at first. About 45 minutes after they came in, they had finished their meals and were about to leave pretty soon. That's when shit got real. The guy pissed himself. Bad. He kind of just sat in it for a bit, but he eventually got up and his wife helped him clean himself off in the bathroom. But there was still the problem of the seat and the floor. And who got stuck cleaning it? The other busser because he lost rock-paper-scissors.
Everything But The Bathroom Sink
I worked in a mall in Nanaimo, British Columbia. I mainly cleaned the floors in the early morning and washrooms through the day. I've seen all the typical shit artists writing on walls, etc.
But one day, there was a full turd in the men's bathroom sink.
Someone had to have sat on the counter and pushed one out during regular mall hours. Anyone could have walked in. And there was no toilet paper in the sink or nearby. I radioed security to come check it out because I wasn't sure what to do, and when the guy showed up he lost it and was swearing and super pissed off. I just sprayed it with heavy duty cleaners and left the tap running until it went away. But really, who shits in a mall sink?!
Playing Possum
Janitor at vet hospital. A dog came in on emergency with a distended stomach. After meds were given, he threw up half a possum, in bits. I threw up for twenty minutes after helping mop up.
Twi(too)hards
Movie theatre. "Twilight" releases. Separate occasions.
"Team Jacob" written in shit in a woman's restroom stall.
Next release? "Team Edward" written in period blood in a woman's restroom stall.
Wat?
Randy Marsh IRL
When I was a kid, I did maintenance for the county park system. In a women's restroom at the home base park we started the day at, someone left a turd the length and almost width of a loaf of bread. It was bent and you could tell they tried their hardest to flush it. We called several guys over the radio to drive over and see this thing. Then, we used a piece of wood to finally chop it up and flush it down for good.
I've never seen a shit that big since, and I've always wondered how something like that could even be passed.
Not A Log; I Don't Have A Log
I'm in maintenance in a Pharma company. Our wastewater system got clogged by something BIG. We don't have those fancy cutting and mincing devices and we only use filters to remove the big garbage in the drainage.
Almost all of us maintenance guys were there. The foreman, the mechanic, the electrician and me, the maintenance head. We were in awe. It was a BIG, black and HARD turd. We don't even know what the person ate to make it not break down when water was running against it.
We forced the assistant to go get it and properly dispose it.
The troubling part is that our wastewater system is NOT connected to the comfort rooms. Someone put it there and we still do not know who.
White Trash Spider-Man
When I was janitorial at Walmart, I had to clean one of the most unholy messes I have ever seen. It was a Saturday like any other. I was messing around in the back trying to look busy, and I get a page to the front bathrooms for a mess. I thought it was something minor, maybe a spill, full trash, etc. BUT NO. I get up there and the Spanish lady that I was working with was walking out of the bathroom gagging. So I mentally prepare myself for what I was about to see. I walk in with my cart, open the stall, and I see what I can only imagine is what hell looks like. It looks as if someone had exploded diarrhea FUCKING EVERYWHERE; just climbed to the ceiling like some sort of white trash Spider-Man and let lose. It was horrifying, and of course, I was the only one who could clean it. The other folks couldn't stand the smell without puking. So I manned up and got to it. It took almost an hour (and a whole jug of bleach) to get it clean. That was about the point I realized $7.70 an hour isn't nearly enough to deal with that.
Women, Amirite?
I used to work at a community college doing janitorial cleaning overnight. One night, I walk into the girls restroom in the library and I'm hit with the worst smell I've ever had the displeasure of smelling. I open up the first stall and there is a shit in the toilet that is literally as long as my forearm and twice as thick. I can only imagine the amount of pain this woman had to endure trying to give birth to this massive turd.
In the end, I had to use the plunger and cut it up so it would eventually get sucked down the drain. What would normally have taken me 15 minutes to clean took an hour.
Also in general, the women's restroom is always dirtier than the men's. What is with women that just leave used tampons and pads on toilets??
Toilet CPR
A friend was a housekeeper in one of those cheap, for-sex motels here in the Philippines. Valentine's Day rush -- people kept coming non-stop (in and out with the 3-hour rooms), so they had to hustle in getting the rooms ready for the couples already in line waiting for their room.
There was this room which had a toilet that got clogged with shit, and it was overflowing with shitty toilet water. With no plunger around (I forgot why) and the supervisor pressuring them to get it fixed in five minutes, he proceeded to pump the toilet with his own two hands -- crisscrossing his fingers and pumping up and down, giving the shitty toilet what must have looked like CPR (he told the story with gestures), which caused an amazing amount of splashing shitty toilet water and liquid shit onto himself and everywhere else.
Anyway, it worked; toilet was able to flush normally. Washed up and got the next customers in there ASAP.
Bloody Hell
My first job (aside from having a paper route as a 12-year-old) was being a housekeeper at a hotel when I was 15. Pretty gross stuff -- condoms, spilled drinks, pubes, etc. When you open up a room, you're never quite sure what you're going to see, but if you're lucky they tidied up a bit for you, and if you're EXTRA lucky, they left an unopened beer or two. Anyway, I walk into this one room, and the bed is literally SOAKED in blood. Mostly in the middle. Just covered. I was so scared. I called my boss and he said to just toss the sheets, so I did. Then I moved on to the bathroom, and checked the shitty plastic ice bucket to make sure it didn't have water or anything in it. Bam, the whole thing is jam-packed full of massive, bloody pads. Fucking terrible. I had to clean it all up.
A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste
I used to work as a janitor in a hospital as a student job. The worst I cleaned up was in the ambulance room. It was parts of a human brain on the floor. They already had washed up part of it when I arrived!