Quote Originally Posted by Tyke View Post
It's not a weird fear at all. I remember as a child being terrified of our Victorian high cistern toilet. It had such a powerful noisy flush it scared the hell out of me and the bowl was so large I feared I would fall in and be sucked away! I was late giving up the potty basically becaused that thing scared me to death! Even after flushing the noise as it refilled was deafening and seemed to go on for ages in alternating loud angry screechy bursts of water pressure.

I'm well over that one now, but still prefer toilets I know. Public toilets can be so grotty and private toilets in peoples houses can be another source of embarrassment. I hate having to number 2 at peoples houses in case something goes wrong, the flush doesn't work properly or I produce something that Niagara itself couldn't get rid of! I always remember at a friends house going in after another visitor and they'd left something in there that wasn't going anywhere and I thought 'oh hell, they'll think I'm responsible for that!' I was mortified!!!!! Another friends house had water pressure so low you had to wait ages inside for it to fill if you'd followed after someone. If you judged it wrongly and flushed too soon, you'd waste the water that had built up as it just trickled through and you'd have to wait for it to fill from the start again! You could end up stuck in there for ages wondering if people thought you were really ill or something. Nightmare!!! That's before I've even started on foul smells and germs etc.
Funnily enough I was dreaming last night about the toilet in my paternal grandparents' old house in Birmingham last night.

The toilet in that house had a high level cistern as said house was built in the early 50s when toilets with high level cisterns were still the norm, and I remember that cistern used to produce a terrifying din during the refill cycle that resonated through the pipes in the kitchen underneath.

Older toilets, especially pre-70s ones, have always given me the creeps a bit, even though it became more common to have low level cisterns on toilets during the 60s and beyond.

Even worse if they have manky black plastic seats whose top surfaces are corroded and like sitting on sandpaper!

But the cistern refill noises don't really bother me anymore, especially as almost all of the toilets within my usual day-to-day routine (at home, my day centre, etc) are fairly modern and seem to be much quieter than those in most older installations.