The definitive guide to main Floor Women’s Washrooms

author: sara birrell | contributor

Toilet time. / Jeremy Davis

The TP Chronicles

A bathroom isn’t just a bathroom. Whether you’re there to perform your ablutions, hide from an oncoming acquaintance, wait out an anxiety attack in the secure comfort of an enclosed place, or do whatever else it is that people do in a bathroom, when you’re there, it’s home. That’s why I’ve rated the top ten women’s rooms on the main floor. So, when you’ve gotta go, you know where to go. 

1. Ed. Building, by the auditorium

Pros: If you’ve ever thought, “What this bathroom needs is a large table!” then the Ed. Building women’s room is for you!  

Cons: Colour palette comes from Benjamin Moore’s Institutional Collection; sign commanding ‘PLEASE FLUSH’ suggests that people haven’t been 

Hook to stall ratio: 3:6 

Laminated poster helpfully explaining how a sink works: Yes  

One star 

2. Riddell,in the hallway behind Tim Horton’s 

Pros: Spacious; usually empty, and if there is someone in there, it’s in the evening and the person is a drunk girl waiting to tell you that you’re beautiful; sometimes smells like a bakery. 

Cons: Wait, this is where they found the roaches isn’t it??? 

Hook to stall ratio: 3.5:4 

Laminated poster helpfully explaining how a sink works: No 

Accessible: Yes 

Four stars 

3. Riddell, by The Owl

Pros: Spacious; close to the bar for when you break the seal. 

Cons: Never smells like a bakery; prime location for bumping into people you have to have an excruciating and obligatory conversation with. 

Hook to stall ratio: 5:5 

Laminated poster helpfully explaining how a sink works: No. 

Accessible: Yes. 

Four and a half stars  

4. College West, by the Global Learning Centre

Pros: Usually empty, full length mirror. 

Cons: Frequently being cleaned; has three stalls, but let’s be honest, max capacity is two people unless you feel like mashing your bodies together in an awkward waltz to the door. 

Hook to stall ratio: 3:3 

Laminated poster helpfully explaining how a sink works: No 

Accessible: No 

Two and a half stars 

5. RIC,by the Aboriginal Student Centre 

Pros: Far from the madding crowd; enormous, seriously, you could probably host a wine-tasting in there; spring green countertops; toilets all have high flush/low flush option. 

Cons: Poor signage from main part of RIC, you can only find it if you know it’s there (ironic, given the University’s love affair with signs). 

Hook to stall ratio: 11:11 

Laminated poster helpfully explaining how a sink works: Yes 

Accessible: Yes 

Five stars 

6. Lab building, next to Subway

Pros: Convenient location midway between Riddell and the Library. 

Cons: Dimly lit and always packed with people like a smoky, Prohibition-era underground saloon; smells like Subway. 

Hook to stall ratio: 2:3 

Laminated poster helpfully explaining how a sink works: Yes 

Accessible: Yes 

Two and a half stars 

7. Classroom Building,next to the elevator 

Pros: Ultra concealed for privacy; usually empty; perfect for softly weeping during exam season, or any time really. 

Cons: Dim lighting and series of antechambers reminiscent of a murderer’s cellar; apparently moonlights as a locker room for custodians. 

Hook to stall ratio: 3:3 

Laminated poster helpfully explaining how a sink works:  Yes 

Accessible: No 

Three stars. 

8. Library, in the library 

Pros: They have free sanitary products in there!  

Cons: Twelve miles from the main doors while weaving around the computer banks and little tables like you’re playing Frogger: Ladies Room Edition; have to walk past everyone in the library and if you get there and it’s being cleaned, you have no choice but to turn around and go right back out and now everyone in the library knows you were thwarted in your attempt to pee. 

Hook to stall ratio: 5:5 

Laminated poster helpfully explaining how a sink works: Yes 

Accessible: Yes 

Three and a half stars 

9. Ad Hum, by the pit

Pros: It’s a bathroom 

Cons: It’s Ad Hum 

Hook to stall ratio: 3:3 

Laminated poster helpfully explaining how a sink works: No 

Accessible: In name only. 

One and a half stars 

10. Kin, by the pool entrance

Pros: Spacious; always clean; has ablution facilities; well-lit; Hooks. On. Every. Door.  

Cons: Toilets are literal geysers, spewing toilet water over the seat and onto the stall walls with every flush, and if you aren’t paying attention (and the person before you was a literal monster who didn’t wipe the seat) sometimes you sit in said water. 

Hook to stall ratio: 4:4 

Laminated poster helpfully explaining how a sink works: Yes 

Accessible: Yes 

Four stars 

The Winner: While I grappled with the ethics of revealing this little gem and potentially opening it up to throngs of visitors who will descend upon it like locusts, marring its peaceful charm, I feel it is my duty as a journalist to let the people know: if you’ve gotta go, go to RIC.