Someone ripped a door off in the ladies room

[Frank Cox]

Someone ripped one of the cubicle doors off in the ladies room tonight.

Sheesh.

Funny thing, though. This is the second time I've had someone rip the door off in the ladies room (last time was several years ago) and nobody has ever done that in the mens room.

Someone did rip the sink off of the wall in the mens room once, though, a few years back.

I really don't understand why people figure they have some kind of license to destroy stuff.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Maybe someone had a nasty tumble into the door and you just saw the aftermath?

[Frank Cox]

Nah. There were a couple of bored kids running back and forth throughout the movie. I'm pretty sure one of them was swinging on it.

Falling against the door doesn't pull it out from the wall and crack the bracket in half.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

This is a police and insurance issue now... If you know there are kids running around then stop them. Install cameras, even fake cammeras are a good deterrent.

[Lyle Romer]

This is a police and insurance issue now... If you know there are kids running around then stop them. Install cameras, even fake cammeras are a good deterrent.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) you can't have cameras in the restroom. I guess having them at the entrance to the restroom and noticeable might deter somebody from vandalizing inside.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) you can't have cameras in the restroom. I guess having them at the entrance to the restroom and noticeable might deter somebody from vandalizing inside.

Of course, but you can put one or two up in the hallway outside them. A notice can also be posted near the ticket box that say video cameras used to monitoring the premises.

[Leo Enticknap]

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) you can't have cameras in the restroom.

I know someone who did!

Several years ago, shortly after I started at MiT, I was sent to do an emergency repair at a small, single screen mom-and-pop independent in a farming community north of Sacramento. I completed the job (lamp igniter had burned out and needed replacing), and asked the wife if I could use the restroom before starting the ten hour drive back again. "Well ... if you like ... but I have to warn ya - it's seriously disgusting in there. We haven't gotten around to cleaning it yet." I replied that my car would likely become seriously disgusting if I didn't get to use a restroom before hitting the road, and so would brave it.

She explained that their bulk of their audience consisted of seasonal immigrant farm workers who, with not much to do in the evenings and a long way from their families, crowded into the theater. "The thing is," she explained, "they don't know how to use a toilet. Every morning after they've been in, we find this ..the only way I can put it is liquid shit ... all over the bowl, the cubicle ... everywhere! There's some fancy name for it ... it's French, I think ... but liquid shit is what we're talking about. Turns out they aren't even sitting on the seat - they squat on it! I had to have my husband put a camera up in one of the stalls, just so we could figure out what in blazes was going on in there!"

She seemed totally oblivious to the fact that installing a hidden camera in a toilet cubicle would likely get both of them sent to San Quentin for years if the authorities ever found out about it. As I haven't seen any story in the Daily Mail reporting that some "influencer" or "content creator" discovered it and is suing the theater for tens of millions, I presume that it's still there.

[Frank Cox]

As a practical matter it's really not possible to control this kind of thing.

I did tell those kids to sit down and be quiet about halfway through the movie and it worked for about twenty minutes but otherwise they were just going back and forth, talking and playing in the bathroom.

And I didn't know they had torn the door off until the show was over, everyone was gone, and I was collecting the trash.

So there isn't much you can do about this, really. These were just kids, as in kids, not teenagers.

Big enough to rip the door off, though.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Do your door swings hit a limit imposed by the hinges? I would expect over rotating such a door (kids slamming them around in play) could easily cause such destruction.

If that is the design maybe some kind of additional door stops are needed beyond just the hinge design.

[Frank Cox]

They are similar to this. Stall walls and doors made of aluminum.

Toilet-cubicle-white-doors.jpg

[Frank Cox]

After doing a bit of carpentry and metal work today and some painting tonight after the show, I can now say that the ladies room stall doors are now back to what they were.

I still have to second coat the paint tomorrow but outside of that, it's fixed.