Bum-gun & rimless toilet, how did I ever live without them?
The bum-gun is more formally called a:
Slightly crass topic, but who cares.
Someone once gave me this proposition:
"Imagine you somehow got some shit on your cheek or arm. Would you then grab toilet paper and just rub it off and "clean" it that way?" "Just call it good?" "No, you would not, at the very least water would be involved,... agreed?" "Ok, so why would it be any different with your behind after you go nr 2.?"
He was right of course, people's nether regions are self-cleaning only in a limited capacity.
When I lived in South-East Asia for 11 months -bidet showers or at least a little water jug- were in every bathroom, from the most run-down public bathroom to the nicest hotels. Many Arabic countries, same thing.
You will simply and undoubtedly be significantly cleaner every single day if you have a bidet shower, unless you consistently shower after every bowel movement. Besides being more cleanly, there are more awesome aspects of owning a mighty bum-gun:
a. It serves as a water-efficient spray cleaner with a trigger, for all sorts of things
Mine reaches to shower tray easily. All that sand on your swimming trunks or left in shower tray, after day at the beach? Muddy shoes? Shower mat dusty or dirty? Anything at at all, even pretty big items, that need a quick clean? Put it in shower, spray it off fast, done.
The regular shower head is no substitute at all. It is unwieldy, it does not have a trigger mechanism nor a concentrated higher pressure water beam and you are likely to waste more water or get wet yourself if you use the regular shower head.
I also have a toilet lid + seat unit, that removes in three seconds, by pressing a button it has. Any time I want to clean it, remove it, bum-gun spray in shower. Spray the porcelain, making sure water runs into the bowl and perfectly clean that entire part of the toilet in no-time. Nice if you expect or had guests.
Need to do quick cold mop of floor or to clean a tile wall in bathroom? Just spray a bit of water around with bum-gun and clean or mop. No bucket etc needed. But if you do want to fill a bucket sometime, the bum-gun is handy way to do so fast and do make sure any cleaning fluid gets mixed in well.
b. Cheap and saves you money, toilet paper and even water/flushes
Did everyone forget the "Great-Covid-Toilet-Paper-shortage-of-2019-and beyond"? I did not. You do not need much water to get yourself perfectly clean. You can optionally use a very small amount of toilet paper to dry yourself after, if you like. Here in hot Spain, I do not need to. The water is rather refreshing actually.
Paradoxically you even save water with the bum-gun. Because before I had it I often had to flush twice to get rid of all the waste and toilet paper. That is no longer an issue now. In fact, you can use the bum-gun to quickly wet the toilet paper -if you do use it- before flushing, that makes sure it all flushes in one go.
c. Your toilet will be cleaner in so many ways, nobody loves using a toilet brush,.. but cleaning the bowl with bum-gun it is a dawdle
Everyone, leaves streaks sometimes. With the bum-gun those are usually rapidly cleaned. Half the time, you don't even have to get close, nor use the brush at all.
d. Cheap and simple to install
You can get a complete (stainless) set with hose and universal fittings/adapters for €8 to €35, it will quickly pay for itself in using no or very little toilet paper alone. Never mind how much time it will save you. And it is truly a 2 to 10 minute job to install for almost anyone and should last for decades.
Finally, I suspect that being cleaner down there, always, correlates positively with being less sweaty or itchy and perhaps might even help things like hemorrhoids or IBS some.
Rimless toilets
As it says on the tin: unlike all older style of toilet bowls, they do not have rims with big edges that curl over where all kinds of dirt, stains and mineral deposits find a home and are hard to remove.
Additionally the rimless style have jet(s) of water that flush and swirl and clean the bowl every time you flush. Finally, they have a more powerful flush while using less water, this means:
- Your toilet will be cleaner
- You will need to clean it less
- The cleaning process will be quicker
- You are very unlikely to ever need to flush twice and your toilet will clog less, if at all