An in-depth review of UVic’s washroom amenities by an upper-level student
The University of Victoria is home to an array of buildings that vary drastically in age. Thus, it is home to bathrooms that vary drastically in quality. It’s about time somebody made a definitive list of the best and worst that our campus has to offer.
With the considerable quantity of caffeine and Biblio samosas many students will be consuming this year, I am strongly of the opinion that every undergraduate should be privy to this information.
The Good
SUB B0014/B0016
This is a package deal. B0014 offers up a choice of six — count ‘em, six — johnnys. B0016 touts four glistening urinals. But best of all — no one ever goes down here. I can confidently say this is the best place to pop a squat in the SUB.
The private washroom A116 is acceptable, but everyone from Bean There to the massage parlour can see you go inside, and your loaf-pinching will definitely be disturbed by constant door rattles. A118 is out of the question for reasons that will be elaborated upon later. Vertigo A134e can see some traffic during lunch hour, and in Fel’s A31a, I once saw puke on the floor. So, the basement washrooms win by default, going hand-in-hand to provide an optimal washroom experience.
7.2/10
Turpin B217/B317
The geography students don’t know how good they have it. These bathrooms boast excessively large loos, each with a window looking out onto pines and oaks awash with afternoon sunlight. You can even crack the windows to let in that fresh West Coast breeze.
8.101A/10
Turpin B135-139
We all like a little privacy when we go. This quadruple score of private porcelain thrones gives us just that. For the more sensitive excreters, these little gems nestled in a cranny of Turpin’s basement are among the best — if not the very best — washroom experience on campus.
9/10
The Bad
CARSA Changerooms
Do you know what happens after chugging two scoops of C4 after a lunch of poorly-seasoned chicken breast, plain rice, and steamed broccoli? Visit this bathroom at around 2-6 p.m. to find out.
On paper, this powder room may seem desirable, what with the spacious stalls, sprawling mirrors, and ample supply of showers. Unfortunately, no number of amenities is worth enduring the protein-and-pre-workout-induced calamities from the grunting gym bros sitting on the cans beside you.
5.4/10
SUB B123 (Cinecenta/Munchie Bar)
This is where the bus drivers go to unload the absolute bombs they’ve been clenching since Dockyard.
5/10
SUB A118
It gets points for tackling social issues, but not for architectural design. Because it’s gender-neutral, they’ve installed a privacy barrier not between the urinals, as one might expect, but around the urinals. This leads to a terrible situation in which you’re basically in a small stall with four other people, with the rightmost micturaters blocking the left urinals with their backpacks, practically guaranteeing unwelcomed and intimate graze-bys.
4/10
The Ugly
Elliot 069
I was captivated by the faux-mahogany walls. Only go here if you already have a turtle head poking out. Inside, you’ll be greeted by the soft trickling of the urinal tanks, like a brook of bladder base, further adding to the tropical atmosphere. Unfortunately, when I’m looking for somewhere to drop the kids off at the pool, the Amazon River basin isn’t the first place that comes to mind.
2.69/10
Library Basement
A deathtrap. I tip my hat to the adventurous few who dare drop their pants in this house of horrors.
First off, the tiles always seem to be slicked with some suspicious substance, which makes putting your bag down on the ground highly undesirable; but in a washroom with sporadic and unreliable hooks, this seems the only option. The red-painted stalls remind me of some underfunded public preschool, where they’ve tried to compensate for the aging infrastructure with “fun colours.” Some of these stalls don’t even have toilets in them, just awkwardly placed pipes. But worst of all, the acoustics in this dungeon are weirdly resonant, so every last grunt — every last splash — gets amplified to the extreme.
Go upstairs to 304. Go to Biblio. Even go to 204. If there’s one takeaway I learned from my five years at UVic, it’s that you should never poop in the library basement.
-34 thousand/10 (minus one point for every dollar of my tuition that didn’t go into renovating this washroom)
