Being the parent of an autistic child comes with its fair share of problems, and some of them are things that nobody ever warns you about. I'll warn you right up front that this post involves bodily fluids, and although it is not particularly graphic it does involve one of those problems that is a little bit gross. The happy news is that I am about to provide a practical, step-by-step guide on how I eliminated this issue, so if you aren't squicked out by photos of a (clean) toilet, then read on.
Benjamin was not potty trained for a very long time. He was in pull-up diapers all the way until after his twelfth birthday, when the fine educators at Princeton House Charter School finally helped us to get him to successfully use the toilet consistently. At the time he was barely sixty pounds, and he learned to toilet by always sitting down. Seven years later he is a fully grown adult, and sitting down to urinate has become a bit of a problem. I would frequently walk into his bathroom to find a puddle of urine on the floor at the base of the toilet. At first I thought he was just "missing the target", but I eventually realized that what was happening was a bit different.
You ladies out there probably don't know about this, but when an adult male is seated on the commode he doesn't have to be particularly well-endowed to have his private parts come into contact with the inside front edge of the toilet bowl, in fact it is almost impossible to avoid. This generally does not present a problem as long as things are properly pointed downward, but in Benjamin's case what was happening was the combination of contact, flow, and capillary action that caused a portion of his urine to overflow the front edge of the bowl and then run down onto the floor. He is not self-aware enough to realize that this is happening, and frankly I just have no desire hover over my adult sun while he is in the bathroom and handle his junk. Call me crazy, it's just not on my to-do list.
I looked around the web for solutions, and every device I found was both expensive and seemed awkward. Also, this is a bathroom that is frequently used by visitors so I needed a solution that was unobtrusive and could remain in place without inconveniencing other users. I rolled around a few notions in my head and wandered the aisles of my local home improvement store, when I finally hit upon the perfect answer: weatherstripping!
Before leaving for the home improvement store I had measured the gap between the toilet bowl and the underside of the seat and found that it was about 1/4", so I knew that I needed something that was just a little bit wider and that would compress to create a tight seal. This is precisely what weather stripping is designed to do, and I found a roll of adhesive-backed stripping that was 3/8" thick.
Some before photos of the toilet, showing the gap and the underside of the seat:
As you can see, the underside of a toilet seat has a couple of feet that rest on the upper rim of the toilet bowl. I assume this has to do with cleanliness, minimizing direct contact between the seat and the bowl. In any case, that was the gap I needed to close. I made sure the underside of the seat was clean and dry so that the adhesive backing on the weatherstripping would stick properly, and then I measured and cut three pieces and put them in place.
Before actually attaching the strips I double-checked their positioning to ensure that they would make maximum contact with the rim of the bowl. When the seat was lowered, I could see that there was good contact all around and that the seat was very slightly raised from where it would normally sit. The weight of a seated person is enough to compress the weatherstripping and create a tight seal.
After several days of this solution in place, I am able to declare absolute victory. The floor at the base of the toilet has remained perfectly dry, and so I have been spared from breaking out the cleaning supplies multiple times per day and cleaning up that icky puddle. I
do have to periodically lift the seat and wipe down the rim of the bowl to clean up some residual standing fluids, but that is as simple as a quick wipe with toilet paper and then a washing of my hands. Honestly, though, that is such a vast improvement in the bathroom situation that I am overjoyed. We can now have house guests without my constantly needing to be paranoid of them stumbling into a gross-out situation, and I no longer have to mop up puddles on the floor.
Weatherstripping: your best friend when sanity has deserted you.