please empty your brain below

You are not the only one DG, I have done exactly the same thing twice, also many years ago in a public toilet I tugged a little to hard on the chain and this resulted in the complete cistern coming away from the wall and the whole lot crashed to the ground and I ended up soaking wet and bruised, I ran away, of course in these modern times I would have called one of those companies who would have lodged a compensation claim with the Local Council.

Aaah - I feel your shame - my similar error was to mistake the alarm cord for the light pull switch. I too miss the chain - and why don't these low level cisterns have a standardised operating lever - I can spend ages peering at sleek cabinets trying to work out where some clever designer has managed to make the lever or button blend seamlessly with the cabinet..... it was hard to disguise a chain !

Makes you wonder what would happen if some ever really did need help!
I've always wondered, too, whether high level cisterns don't use water more efficiently, and if so, are due for a come back.

Schadenfreude - the perfect way to start my Saturday, thanks for being brave enough to share DG.

i too miss the high level toilet flush with a chain pull operation. With there greater head of water they flush more effectively than the low level flush systems, do not take up space behind the toilet bowl and are easy to operate.
I often wonder why the low level flush was introduced. Maybe for easier access when repairs are needed.

the disabled toilets on trains are the best. when the alarm sounds , look at the other passengers and see the look of fear. no one seams to know what the alarm is for

There was a disabled toilet next to the student bar when I was at Uni whose alarm would get activated roughly once a night. After a while people learned there was no point trying to slink discreetly back in to the bar after mistaking the alarm for a light switch - might as well make a bit of an entrance, usually to ironic cheers.
I really pity anyone who actually needed help

ditto, have done this at least twice in my life. once though, in an elderly/disabled persons home where three carers DID come running to see if i was ok! much to my chagrin...

I also have done this once in the Holiday Inn by the Excel center, this was in 2004. Because this was a hotel the alarm was silent, it only rang by the front desk. I was very surprised to find two people knocking on my door.

Good work DG, that'll teach them. Hope you left a big old floater in there as well.

Oh my gosh this has just made my Saturday!! A classic DG post. Brilliant. Sorry for your embarrassment, but one heck of a belly laugh for me!

This reminds me of a brilliant episode of the IT Crowd from a few years ago. It being a sitcom, however, the character then pretended to actually be disabled, to reliable comedic results.

I had a slightly similar experience. I think these things are designed by people who don't actually try them out. It all looks OK on the drawing board, and the people involved get paid, but no-one worries about the reality.

This made me laugh as well. I haven't pulled an alarm but I did get trapped in a public tiolet in Saltzburg last year and had to wait for the Austrian police to release me. Stupid tourist.

I did something very similar once when I had a paper round many years ago. As part of my round I had to deliver some papers to some self contained flats in a sheltered housing block for the elderly. These flats had a common room with toilets attached which one day I sought the use of. I made the mistake of pulling the alarm cord instead of the light switch. I didn't get an ear splitting siren, what I did get was a disconnected voice through an intercom asking if I was ok. I then had to explain that I was the paperboy and had pulled the wrong bit of string.

On a similar note in one of the buildings I used to work in there was a disabled toilet just down the corridor from our office that people would use if the others were closed for cleaning. The pulling of the wrong cord happened quite a bit but we found that there was a reset switch just above the door frame inside the toilet. So if it happens to you again look up and you might be able to reset it.

Toilet flush operation is even more complicated in Japanese toilets.
sometimes it's automatic, sometimes you press a button labelled in japanese.












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