PSA: How To Take Apart and Clean a Toilet Seat

I hesitate to do a post like this after such a pleasant, happy post, but I think this is something PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW!  You do not have to be ashamed!  YOU ARE NOT ALONE IN YOUR SUFFERING!

Warning:  there are gr*phic, disgusting pictures below.  If you are blessed to only have girls have a sensitive gag reflex, you may want to skip this post.  PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!

I am VERY, VERY lucky that we have 2 bathrooms in our house.  The children are supposed to only use the hall bathroom;  if you don't understand why, you must not have boys soon will.

YUCK!  YUCK!  YUCK!

EVERY TIME I walk into the children's bathroom, it REEKS.  Despite the fact that each and every boy who uses that toilet is MORE than happy to t*uch his wee wee any other time has been told and TOLD and TOLD to AIM their wee wee when they pee, they don't do it, and they end up peeing all over the seat and the hinges and the floor.  I HAVE EVEN PLACED CLEANING WIPES ON THE BACK OF THE TOILET (WHERE THEY SHOULD BE LOOKING IF THEY ARE PROPERLY AIMING) so they can EASILY clean up any misses, but they don't do that either!  Usually I can avoid that bathroom, but it IS the bathroom that guests end up using, so I feel bad about that, and I DO have to be in there for a prolonged period of time when Baby is having a bath. 

Last time Baby was having a bath, I thought, "I have TRIED and TRIED to clean this toilet so that it doesn't stink, and it just is not working!  I should probably just buy a new toilet seat because this one is not coming clean no matter how much I scrub after the person who is SUPPOSED to clean the bathroom each week has "cleaned it"."  But it occurred to me that I would have to REMOVE the current seat in order to put a new one on, and that perhaps if I REMOVED the current seat and THEN tried to clean it, I might have more luck!  So, I went to http://www.ehow.com and asked "How do I remove a toilet seat".

I gathered my supplies:

I was pretty certain that the BLEACH was going to be the key here.  (It turned out that the GLOVES were also IMPERATIVE!)

Pried the hinges open....

Boys are so disgusting!  GAG!  (SO grateful for the gloves!)

....and realized that the screwdriver I had easily found was not going to be big enough.  So, it was necessary to go find the other screwdrivers....

Why, YES!  It did improve my already-cheery mood to have to excavate the tool boxes before I could continue, why do you ask?

The MUCH LARGER screwdriver

 I had gotten the adjustable pliers (?) because the instructions had said that I would need to use those to hold onto the locknuts, but the picture on that part of the instructions wasn't very clear, and I didn't see any locknuts when I opened the hinges, so I just used the screwdriver to try to loosen the screws.  That worked for a little while, but I just couldn't get them completely off, so I, GULP (and PRAISE THE LORD for rubber gloves!), stuck my hand underneath the toilet where I thought the other end of the screws might be, found the locknuts, and was finally able to remove the seat!

Well!  I do believe I've found the cause of the awful odor!

 I turned on the bathroom fan for ventilation, filled the bathtub up with a lot of bleach water and a little water bleach, and put EVERY PIECE of the removed toilet seat in to disinfect soak while I cleaned the actual toilet.

After MUCH scrubbing, and many different bathroom cleaners (I think it was the Soft Scrub that finally did it, although baking soda probably would have worked (but the Soft Scrub included BLEACH)), BEHOLD THE CLEANLINESS!!

I also scrubbed the disgusting toilet seat (which was MUCH easier to do than trying to clean it while it was attached to the toilet), and it came much cleaner than I had dared hope expected:

WOW!

*I* took the seat apart to clean it THIS TIME, just to see if it was possible.  Guess who is going to get to take it apart and clean it next time?  JUST AIM ALREADY!