In the fall of 2004, I chronicled the bathroom vandalism problems suffered by the Wheeler Basin Regional Library in Decatur, Alabama. Someone had been
clogging the toilets with paper and smearing the stall walls with poop. The library's solution: to keep the toilet paper at the front desk, requiring anyone who needed to poop to get their bum fodder from the librarian.
On a sales call yesterday, I returned to Wheeler Basin and discovered the worst: the problem had not abated. A sign on the men's room door still directed patrons to the front desk to check out their Charmin.
A reference assistant named Tina explained to me that vandalism continues to occur from time to time because some male patrons do not return the toilet paper when they check it out -- leaving it in the stall, giving the perpetrator(s) the opportunity to further befoul the facilities.
While it does seem to me that a determined turd terrorist doesn't need toilet paper to perpetrate his destruction, clearly the toilet paper denial isn't working. Other than asking the front desk clerks to stand outside the bathroom door to see if the roll of toilet paper is in the patron's hand -- which, of course, is not going to happen -- there doesn't seem to be a solution to this gnarly problem.
When this story was first posted on the site, some people suggested that surveillance cameras might be the answer to catch the offender(s). At the time I thought that measure was too drastic; but in light of the continuing problems that this particular library is having, I think they might indeed be needed to catch someone brown-handed.
Such cameras are not inexpensive, however; and I can assure you that public libraries are notoriously underfunded. And as far as I know, librarians are not taught to include in their budget requests a line item for turd terrorism surveillance.