The company Showers to You sought to uncover the European cities with the cleanest and dirtiest public toilets. They analysed more than 8,000 Google reviews and compared the number of negative public toilet reviews in each city alongside how many times words synonymous with 'dirty' were used. A points-based ranking was assigned to uncover the destinations with gleaming public hygiene credentials and those requiring industrial-strength bleaching and brushing.
It should be stressed that the data was gathered remotely and is by nature subjective. It would certainly have been much more impressive and persuasive had they, so to speak, field-tested thousands of public conveniences themselves, putting bums on seats rather than relying upon others to spend a penny by proxy.
Nevertheless, the findings leave the Latvan capital far from flush with success. Rīga is named the number one of the continent, with the worst public toilets, dropping a cleanliness score of 3.44, with one in five reviews containing words synonymous with ‘dirty’.
A wee bit better are Madrid, Valletta, Stockholm and Warsaw rounding out the top five – or should that be 'bottom five'? – in the latrine list of shame.
On the other hand, Bucharest in Romania is the pride of porcelain, with the cleanest public restrooms on the continent and the sort of spotless reputation you could eat your dinner off.
The European cities with the worst public toilets
|
Rank |
Location |
% of reviews quoting "dirty" |
Normalised "dirty" reviews |
Average toilet rating score /5 |
Cleanliness score /10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1. |
Riga, Latvia |
18.75% |
9.85 |
3.36 |
3.44 |
|
2. |
Madrid, Spain |
12.00% |
7.73 |
3.09 |
4.23 |
|
3. |
Valletta, Malta |
11.32% |
7.38 |
3.16 |
4.47 |
|
4. |
Stockholm, Sweden |
11.21% |
7.20 |
3.27 |
4.67 |
|
5. |
Warsaw, Poland |
9.94% |
6.23 |
3.08 |
4.97 |
|
6. |
Vienna, Austria |
10.19% |
6.45 |
3.71 |
5.49 |
|
7. |
Lisbon, Portugal |
9.82% |
5.89 |
3.44 |
5.50 |
|
8. |
Prague, Czech Republic |
8.78% |
5.28 |
3.24 |
5.60 |
|
9. |
Bratislava, Slovakia |
10.53% |
6.70 |
4.06 |
5.71 |
|
10. |
Rome, Italy |
8.93% |
5.48 |
3.51 |
5.77 |
|
11. |
London, United Kingdom |
8.76% |
5.12 |
3.35 |
5.79 |
"Rīga is the European city with the worst public toilets, with a cleanliness score of 3.44 out of 10. Almost one in five of Rīga’s public toilet reviews include words synonymous with ‘dirty’ (18.75%), which is 7.43 percentage points more than Stockholm, Sweden, where one in 9 reviews contained ‘dirty’ words. The public toilets in Riga have an average rating of 3.36 out of 5, almost the same rating as in London (3.35), despite the UK city having a far higher population size," said Showers to You, providing a comparison with the bustling public conveniences of old London town.
Madrid, Spain’s public toilets rank second, with a cleanliness score of 4.23. "Spain is known for high standards of hygiene, with bidets prevalent in Spanish households and can even be found in some public restrooms, which renders Madrid's low rating in the cleanliness index surprising," commented the survey authors.
It is apparently World Toilet Day on November 19th. Quite how one is supposed to celebrate it is not a matter for polite conversation.
