Environment: General information about restrooms
- Descriptive information and ADA requirements about accessibility
and restrooms can be found on pages 24-25 in Accessible
Faith
 .
- Room deodorizers make restrooms toxic environments for
many people with multiple chemical sensitivities. Hygenaire
Corp.
has a simple, inexpensive battery-operated room deodorizer that
is used in many health-care facilities.
- There are many brands of unscented soaps available. Some are liquid soaps that can be put in your soap
dispenser.
- Guidelines for accessible restrooms can be found in many
internet sites, many books, and from your local
independent living center .
- Accessibility is a journey – and a ramp without
an accessible restroom is not close to the end of the journey.
How would you feel if you were invited to a place where there
was no restroom for you to use? Remember the days of the "Whites
Only" restrooms? How welcoming are we when we don't provide
accessible restrooms for people who come to our house of worship?
- Please put yourself in the wheelchair, and think of how
welcome you would feel under these circumstances. There are many
unpleasant restroom stories from people who use wheelchairs. Here
is a quoted comment from a UU who uses a wheelchair, when asked
about restrooms. It pretty much sums up the comments:
- “It's important for any building or group to express
the limits of its accessibility. For example, many places that
advertise as Wheelchair Accessible may have an entrance flush
to the ground, wide aisles, whatever, BUT they have been known
to overlook impossibly narrow restroom entrances or those with
short right-angle turns and/or heavy doors; many keep their
wastebaskets right at the door (they need to be moved for a
wheelchair to maneuver). And there is always the question of
the size of the stall – even if it's "designated," many of them will not accommodate a chair, allow for transfer,
have the toilet seat too low, etc., have old-fashioned hard-to-reach,
hard-to-push flush handles. Sinks, soap, towels, etc are often
hard or impossible to reach independently... I could go
on and on."
- Please take these comments to heart. Please think of
yourself in a wheelchair, think of yourself extremely sensitive
to fragrances – and think of how welcome you would feel under
these circumstances.
›› Take the Accessbility Audit for: Restrooms
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