IT’S been three years since Canadian Frank O’Brien first deemed Hyde Park’s toilets “abominable” “third world” and amongst some of the worst he’d come across in his world travels.
The usually easy-going organic farmer had been shocked to find poo on the floor, no soap and no means to dry hands in many Perth toilets. From Greece to Mexico, public dunnies around the world left ours for dead.
As he’s back in Perth, we visited a few toilet blocks to see if they’d improved.
Liquid soap dispensers and repaired tiling had “drastically improved” things but the block remained dark and dingy and had all the charm of a 1900s lunatic asylum.
“When you go in there you feel a bit scared, you want to run out,” he says.
“It’s the olde worlde feel about it, it’s kind of spooky.”
Soon to return home to harvest his Vancouver Island farm, Mr O’Brien says the best dunnies in the world are along US state highways: “There’s always somebody on the lookout, and they’re always impeccable. Even down to the landscaping.”
by DAVID BELL
Perth Voice Interactive 
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