A Sign of the Shitty Times We Live In!

(This blog comes with a bad language/bad taste/terrible smell advisory)

This is no reflection on the state of the motel industry but there’s some SSMC (shitty social media communication) going on between the 2 isles of Godzone!  Here’s what its all about!

Some may find some parts of this blog disgusting, downright rude, smelly and in bad taste.  If you are one of those to react in such a way, click on the little white cross in the red box in the top right hand corner of the screen now.  In reality, we in Christchurch have become very used to talking to each other about our pooze and weeze and how we deal with these everyday, so for once you can hear about it as well.

Why is that? It’s because the eastern side of the city no longer has a working sewer system.  Some people can still flush their loos but they are being asked not to.  In place there are 27,500 chemical toilets, 400 chemical disposal tanks and more than 2,000 portaloos. 

 (Many thanks to Bebe Thompson for sharing the family's toilet secrets)

When you feel the urge, you either go to the Portaloo on the street corner or, when your chemical toilet is full, you carry your tank of pooze and weeze to the disposal tank (if you’re lucky, its on your street) and empty it in full view of the entire neighbourhood.  Little old ladies and short people have to make the trip twice as many times as others because of the difficulty of carrying & lifting a full tank up to empty it. Splashback is a constant worry for all.  The council has been encouraging neighbours to make the chore communal – “let me help you empty your chemical toilet tank!”  Citizens also have to hope their toilet room is big enough to fit an extra loo in it!  Yes, the logistics of taking a crap are somewhat more intense than before.

Now, back to the story.  Just as we felt that Christchurch was ready to take another step forward, we woke up to a newspaper headline screaming the horrific fact that there was a 50/50 chance our sewerage system would collapse and the whole city would be enveloped in a poo infused odour.

Just to gross you out totally, currently 40 million litres of sewage (1/4 of the daily total) is leaking out of broken pipes.  Just because we can flush our loos doesn’t mean it goes to the proper place!  You may ask, where is it going? The answer is no-one knows because the damage is so widespread. Ooooh yuckie!

Apparently the only way to solve the problem is to conserve water – have shorter showers, don’t have baths etc.  Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about the intestinal flow which results in either No. 1 or No.2 so we encourage the theory of only flush when it’s brown!

Which brings us to today’s topic.  Despite the possible impending disaster, there is little visible panic and outside of the article in today’s paper there does not appear to be an overwhelming push to get the word out – not everyone reads the paper after all and there is not any great radio blitz to stop us pooing & peeing.  But we decided it was time to put our best foot forward.  While us stoic Christchurch people are totally at ease talking about ablutions, we realise that others from outside the city may not be so ready.  We decided to take the extraordinary step of placing a laminated notice in each guest room asking guests to flush as little as possible.  This alleviates the need to ask guests not to flush their toilets after asking whether they want green or blue milk.

In reality, we do believe that most people in this world do actually know how to live and that the last thing they want to do is spend their holidays reading signs about how they should be spending their holidays.

But, because I prefer smelling fresh air instead of what my bathroom can smell like, we took the plunge, stuck the laminated notice on with Bluetac and tweeted the result.  We directed the tweet towards @Motella – the ultimate lover of motel room signage!

I sat waiting for a jovial 140 character limit reply but was disappointed.  Oh well, I thought, maybe Gisborne motels are really busy with all the people not coming to Christchurch now.  It was not till later that we noticed a facebook posting mentioning a blog entitled – Motel Sign Of The Times.

We are proud to have once again been judged worthy of a mention in the world famous Motella Blog, just as we are happy to be able to share the pain Christchurch is feeling with those who can comfortably sit on their own throne and dispose of their business with the simple push of a button. Shit you guys are lucky!

We hope you all think of this blog next time you are doing what ½ of Christchurch’s population now finds to be a most challenging task.  And we hope that as a result of a bit of banter between two motel social media participants – this story reaches a lot further than the stench will if our sewerage system does totally fail…..

Postscript: CentrePoint on Colombo Motel's toilets are flushable.