The toilet seat should always be closed when not in use. At least they are in our house!

Yes... most definitely, yes.

I have to confess, this is a pet peeve of mine. When I see pics of otherwise beautiful bathrooms here or on houzz, my eyes go right to the open toilet! lol

Although it's interesting, when we would show our apartment for sale, we would close it and generally come back to it with the lid open, so we started leaving it open for the showings of the apartment.

You only raise the toilet seat to go to the bathroom, or to access the water in the bowl for brushing your teeth or washing your face. Or for bathing your infant child.

Some leave it open so they can gaze at their reflection in the water spot and dream of days gone by.

Other than that, the lid stays down!

You can also leave it open for your pets when you're gone for a long weekend.

In the year I've been reading the Bath forum, I've gazed into many an open toilet. Maybe I wouldn't mind so much if they were sparkling.

It's my pet peeve too. It irks me in pictures and in real life. When I have house guests I feel weird telling them to put the lid down, so I'm constantly going in bathrooms to close the lid when I walk by and see it open. Last weekend we were away and I could tell which bathrooms the house sitter had used because the toilet lids were up when we got back. If you find the lid up or down, why wouldn't you put it back the same way?

Funny. I barely glance at the toilet in pictures, least interesting feature, don't care about it.
If I'm at someone else's home I hate it when the lid is down, because the less I have to touch it the better.

If you're taking "before" pictures, the lid is up. For "after" pictures the lid is down. It irks me when people take the most unflattering photos for the before pictures (including all the crap they've accumulated for the past decade or so), and then magically in the after photos, all is pristine and de-cluttered.

I like your "before and after" toilet rule, catbuilder! If the toilet looks really bad in the before, we might want to see it. I always hope that it's the cramped quarters and dysfunctional lay-out that is causing the clutter and all will be well in the after photos.

BTW, what does that "advanced" toilet do that requires electricity? Automatically opens and closes the lid? Cleans itself? Someone also suggested a remote control. When did the most basic things become so complicated? It took me weeks to find a shower head.

I'm sure I've seen many lids up seen from across the room (no bowl shots) and not been bothered, but with this thread on my mind, I opened a current thread that has before and after photos staring down into the bowl. The only reason I chose to look into the bowl is to use it or clean it -- neither of which is at play here, but the in your face photos don't give you a choice.

mayflowers, the electricity is to heat the water that the seat uses - they have a bidet type function. You can see them at the Toto site. The auto seat open/close is important to some folks I guess. The electric runs that too, and some have fans/auto deodorizers and whatnot. I think the remotes run off battery.

Auto deodorizers? Reminds me of those fart pants I saw on Shark Tank.

I'm with Island on this one--who wants to touch the toilet if you don't have to?

I usually put the lid down in the powder room before guests arrive, and put it down when in others' homes, because I'm aware that there are some people who have an issue with it. I never realized that there were *strong* gross-out feelings, though. Good to know.

And for photos? I can't imagine noticing or caring. I'll notice NOW, for sure. If I ever finally finish my bathroom and post pics, that lid will be C L O S E D. (-:

Funny, the different views on this subject. lol (Remember the thread a couple of months ago about whether it was more sanitary to flush with the lid open or with the lid closed? That made for some interesting reading!)

Recognizing that different families have different habits, if I am a guest that encounters an open lid, I will leave it open. If it was closed, I'll close it. (Although I will admit that I use a piece of toilet paper to handle it... that doesn't make me a paranoid germophobe, does it? lol)

As the only female in an all-boy house, I'm happy that both lids AND seats are left down in our house. ;-)

I must have missed the thread about flushing. I always close the lids, but after I read several articles about even the possibility of airborne particles from a flushing toilet I now make sure I close the lid before I flush. I'd much rather touch the lid and then wash my hands than flush the toilet with the lid up.

This thread made me LOL. I despise an open toilet, especially in photos! It's like staring directly into a sewer!

We are a toilet-lid-down household and it completely irks me when guests leave the lid up. When we host, I'm constantly walking by the powder room and ducking in to close the lid, too!

It never occurred to me that people might think there are germs on my toilet lid, mostly because we clean our bath at least once a week and definitely give it a touch-up immediately before people come over. And as soon as visitors leave, hand towels go straight to the washing machine and the Lysol comes out so I can scrub down all the door knobs, faucet handles, toilet flusher, light switch and toilet. I'm definitely a germophobe!

Ha! Our new house is in reno mode. There is one toilet because the others have been removed. All the doors in the entire house are off. We don't live there yet, but it is full of workers, all male, and guess what the position of the lid is?

Yep! UP!

I promise not to take pictures!

I always try to stop at a fast food place and use their restroom prior to checking on the house because one time, I used that toilet with my husband standing guard, and the door leaning against the place where it should be. The contractor had a question, and my guard disappeared!!

Suzi