‘Eww’: Sign on toilet reveals divisive real estate trend

When it comes to Sydney real estate, you should always expect the unexpected, but a sign on a toilet inside an apartment for sale sums it up.

When it comes to Sydney real estate, you should always expect the unexpected, but a sign on a toilet inside an apartment currently for sale pretty much sums it up.

My partner and I are currently looking for a place to buy in the inner city and we’ve become hardened to Sydney real estate. Of course, a place without an internal laundry has 50 people fighting over it.

Between bizarrely low ceilings and places going for over $1 million without a living room, we’ve learnt to keep our expectations low, similar to how Gen Zers like wearing their jeans these days.

The median house price in Sydney is now over $1.6 million, and the median apartment price has swelled to over $800,000, so affordable housing is impossible to find and trying to buy is depressing and mind-numbing.

You’re not looking for your dream place; you’re looking for a place that isn’t completely horrifying.

This weekend, though, as we were traipsing through one of many inspections in the heat, we stumbled across something borderline frightening.

A sign in a bathroom that left us both amused, semi disgusted and dare I say curious?

A toilet in a two-bedroom apartment with an asking price of over $1 million had a sign taped to it that said, “Please do not use toilet. Thank you.”

Excuse me?

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This toilet photo really sums it up. Picture: News.com.au

The sign on the toilet left me a little grossed out, okay, a lot. Picture: News.com.au

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This prompted me, as a very hard-hitting journalist who pulls no punches, to ask the very important question, “Are people actually using the toilets at open inspections?”

The answer is yes.

Real estate Amir Jahan told news.com.au that the sign doesn’t surprise him because he has seen people do it “heaps of times” and he is always grossed out by it.

“People come to inspections and use the toilet. I find it gross; a lot of the time, people that come to use the toilet aren’t even there to inspect the property,” he said.

Mr Jahan, 25, said he’ll have people wander through open inspections, fake interest, just so they can ask to use the rest room.

The real estate agent said the problem is that people “don’t flush” or leave bathrooms in “filthy conditions,” which upsets owners who have paid a lot of money to have the property professionally cleaned.

“The thing is, it is difficult for us as agents to say no because people will say we are being disrespectful or say, ‘Who are you to tell me not to use the toilet,’” he said.

Mr Jahan was not surprised by the toilet sign. Picture: Instagram/AmirJahan

Mr Jahan said it has become a trend. Picture: Instagram/AmirJahan

Mr Jahan said he once had a client who left a note on the toilet reading, ‘Do not disturb toilet is recharging’ as a jokey way to warn people off using the bathroom. The agent ended up having a man get quite angry over the sign.

“This guy came and goes, ‘Can I use the toilet?’ and I said the vendor didn’t want people using the toilet, and he took it the wrong way,” he said.

“He said, ‘I can buy this unit and you’re telling me I can’t use the toilet.”

Mr Jahan found the response ridiculous and compared using a toilet at an inspection to walking into an open house and “using the microwave to heat up food,” which he said would be out of line.

Mr Jahan said people aren’t very respectful anymore. Picture: Instagram/AmirJahan

He said 3 out of 10 people are rude now. Picture: Instagram/AmirJahan

Mr Jahan said the issue of people asking to use the bathroom during inspections is “happening more” and he believes it is because Aussies have lost respect for real estate agents.

“Five years ago people used to respect each other, especially when they’d see an agent, they’d say, ‘thank you’ and they cared about the owner and property,” he explained.

“Now these days, if you ask people to even take off their shoes, they act like you’re trying to start a fight,” he said.

Mr Jahan said 3 out of 10 people are rude or come in with “attitude” which is really unpleasant to deal with.

When I posted the toilet photo in a popular rental group, the response was similar.

Plenty of people commented, asking, “Why would someone use the toilet during an inspection?” But there were also people sharing they’d seen it happen.

“I was once at a house inspection, and when I tried to look at the bathroom situation, someone guy was just pissing. He had the absolute to look angry when that I had walked in,” one woman wrote.

Someone responded with “eww”, and another said that when she inspected the place they live in now, “three people used the toilet during the inspection. Weird.”

Others shared they’d also seen people using the bathrooms during inspections and someone argued that the last thing anyone wants to deal with after an open home is “skid marks” and truer words could not have been spoken.