Why you should always use the first toilet stall in the airport bathroom

Plus: why you should never use the middle stall.

Most people rely on chance to get a non gross airport bathroom stall. But one simple hack could help you score a clean toilet every time.

If you have a habit of using the middle stall, we've got bad news for you. You've been toileting all wrong...

You waltz through security, sink a few coffees, do a bit of light shopping, and prepare to find your gate. Suddenly, a deep, dark sensation envelops your insides. 

You need the toilet. You head to the nearest bathroom, bracing yourself for all the gross aromas, sights and sounds you are now forced to endure (from someone hacking their lungs up in the sink to someone loudly getting Bali belly before their trip has even begun). 

Most people have to navigate this scenario with just their eyes and ears. But now, thanks to a trending TikTok video, we can approach it with science. Or at least, psychology.

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"Use the first toilet always. It's cleaner and easily accessible," a recent TikTok video, which has been viewed 12.8k times, suggested.

This travel hack is backed up by boffins, with research indicating the middle stall, due to a phenomenon called "centrality preference," is typically the most used (aka, the grossest).

According to Business Insider, one toilet paper usage study from the 90s found that "Far more people used the middle stalls than random chance would predict - 60 per cent of finished rolls came from the central stalls, with only 40 per cent from the end stalls."

Another theory is that the stall closest to the bathroom door often gets overlooked because it is less private (and so it is often cleaner). 

As Dr. Mehmet Oz, writing on Sharecare, explains, "Experts theorise that people tend to skip the first stall in favor of stalls farther back to have a little more privacy."

There you have it. Next time you're in an airport bathroom, you know where to go...

Originally published as Why you should always use the first toilet stall in the airport bathroom