No One Alerted the Press: This Guy’s Apartment Has a ‘Communal Toilet’ in the Living Room
Let’s be real for a second: renting an apartment in 2025 is basically just financial self-harm with extra steps. You’re paying $1,800 a month for a “cozy studio” that’s actually a closet with a hot plate, and the landlord still has the audacity to call the rusty radiator “charm.” But every so often, the universe decides to humble you. It makes you look at your own sad, overpriced shoebox and whisper, “At least I don’t have a toilet in my living room.”
Enter the hero we didn’t ask for: a Reddit user who posted a photo of their new apartment’s “open concept” living area, which features a full, porcelain throne sitting pretty in the corner, about three feet from the couch. And no, it’s not a weird piece of modern art. It’s not a prank. It’s a fully functional, flushable toilet, chilling in the same room where you’re supposed to eat pizza and watch *Love is Blind*.
The post, which hit r/mildlyinfuriating (because of course it did), is already going viral. And the internet is doing what the internet does best: absolutely roasting the situation into a fine, gray ash.
**The Setup: A Bathroom for the Unhinged**
According to the OP, this is not a studio apartment where the bathroom door was “removed for space.” Nope. This is a one-bedroom unit, and there is a separate, fully enclosed bathroom. With a door. That works. So why, you might ask, is there a second toilet sitting in the living room like a weird roommate who doesn’t speak?
The answer, shockingly, is not “the landlord is a chaos goblin.” It’s worse. It’s a “design choice.”
The OP explained that the apartment was originally a two-bedroom that got chopped up into a two-unit building. The second bedroom was converted into a separate unit, and apparently, the only way to give that new unit a toilet was to run the plumbing through the living room of the existing apartment. So instead of, I don’t know, building a closet or a tiny half-bath, the genius contractor just... left the toilet in the open. No walls. No curtain. Just a toilet, a sink, and your complete loss of dignity.
Let’s play out the logistics here, because my brain is short-circuiting. You’re on the couch, watching the game. Your roommate says, “Hey, I gotta go.” You don’t move. You just turn up the volume. They drop trou three feet from your left elbow. You can hear the splash. You can smell the regret. You can see them scrolling TikTok while they finish. This isn’t a bathroom. This is a hostage situation with extra fiber.
**The Internet Reacts (Surprise: It’s Brutal)**
Reddit, that glorious cesspool of armchair architects and professional complainers, didn’t hold back.
“This is just a studio apartment for your actual poop,” one user wrote. “It’s not ‘open concept.’ It’s ‘I hate you, concept.’”
Another commenter pointed out the obvious social nightmare: “So you’re telling me you have to make eye contact with your guest while they’re taking a dump? That’s not a living room, that’s a dominance display.”
Someone asked the million-dollar question: “Do you have to light a candle for the living room or the bathroom? Both? Do you use Glade or Poo-Pourri? I need answers.”
And of course, the AITA crowd showed up, asking if the OP would be the asshole for simply moving out without paying the lease break fee. (Spoiler: NTA. You can’t charge a fee for emotional damage, but you can try.)
But the best comment had to be the guy who said, “This is literally the plot of a horror movie where the monster is a clogged toilet and you can’t escape the smell because there’s no door.” Honestly, I’d watch it.
**Is This Even Legal?**
Here’s where the story gets even spicier. A lot of people in the thread are asking the obvious question: Is this even up to code? Short answer: almost definitely not. Long answer: your landlord is a criminal who should be in jail.
Most municipal building codes in the U.S. require that a toilet be in a “room” that provides privacy. That usually means four walls, a door, and a lock. A toilet in the middle of a living room is not a room. It’s a war crime. It’s a statement. It’s a way to ensure no one ever visits you.
Building inspectors would have a field day with this. The plumbing is probably a DIY job held together with duct tape and prayers. The ventilation is non-existent. And the psychological damage? Priceless. But let’s be real: in this rental market, someone is going to sign the lease anyway. “Two toilets, one living room, $2,300 a month, no pets, no parties, no dignity.”
**The Bigger Picture: We’ve Lost the Plot**
This isn’t just a funny story about a poorly designed apartment. This is a symptom of a much bigger problem. Rent is so insane, and landlords are so greedy, that they’re literally building apartments that are designed like a fever dream. We’ve gone from “cozy” to “claustrophobic” to “I guess I’ll just poop in the same room I microwave my ramen.”
Think about the conversation that led to this. Some guy in a hard hat looked at a blueprint and said, “You know what this space needs? A toilet. Right there. Next to the TV stand.” And everyone else nodded. No one said, “Maybe we should build a wall.” No one said, “This is a human rights violation.” They just said, “Slap a coat of gray paint on it, call
Final Thoughts
After spending years watching the rental market shift like tectonic plates, it’s clear that the modern apartment has become less a home and more a financial instrument—a tightrope walk between amenity-laden luxury for those who can afford it and cramped, aging stock for everyone else. The real story isn’t about square footage or rooftop pools, but about how these walls now reflect our deepest societal fractures: income inequality, remote work’s reshaping of urban cores, and the quiet desperation of a generation for whom ownership remains a fading mirage. In the end, the apartment is a mirror; what we see in it says far more about the state of our cities—and our souls—than any floor plan ever could.