Dozens of rubber fixtures have suddenly gone missing from building’s toilet lids and seats.

You have to be comfortable with a certain amount of uncertainty when stepping into a public restroom. Even if the cleaning staff is diligent in its duties, there’s no guarantee that someone who’s used the bathroom since the last sweep hasn’t dribbled onto the floor in front of the urinal, squirted soap onto the sink counter, or been too lazy to flush after doing their business.

However, when a custodian recently went in to clean one of the restrooms at the OKB Fureai Kaikan event hall in Gifu City, the surprise waiting for them wasn’t gross, but baffling, as the rubber fixtures had been removed from a number of toilet lids and seats.

▼ Interior of the OKB Fureai Kaikan

The discovery was made last Saturday afternoon at the building, which is administered by the Gifu prefectural government. A subsequent check of the other restrooms within the facility found that a total of 63 pieces of rubber were missing from 20 different toilets located in men’s and “multi-purpose” restrooms, the latter being a term used in Japan for non-gendered restrooms for use by elderly or handicapped people as well as parents with small children.

Considering how rarely rubber fixtures fall out of toilets, and how it’s even less common for the fixtures to then disappear of their own accord, the incident is being treated as a theft, with a police report filed and plans to increase patrols of the building’s bathrooms by its security guards. As to why someone would want to snatch up a few dozen pieces of toilet rubber, that’s something that’s got online commenters scratching their heads.

“Just what the heck is the thief planning to do with them?”
“Someone out there has a purpose for 60 some-odd pieces of toilet rubber…”
“He must know some way to convert them into cash.”
“Is he going to try to scalp them?”
“Is there a market for rubber?”
“Who’d be enough of an idiot to buy used toilet rubber?”

When infrastructure components get stolen, it’s often because thieves are after metals that can be sold off as scrap, such as manhole covers or copper wire. Rubber isn’t thought of as a material that’s quite as easy to flip for lucrative profit, but according to the building’s management, the 63 pieces of stolen rubber have a cumulative value of approximately 60,000 yen (US$400), though that brings us back to the question of whether anyone would be willing to buy used toilet parts.

The investigation is ongoing and the suspect still at large, but there is at least something that should soften the blow for the victims a little bit. In the image below, you can see the exterior of the OKB Fureai Kaikan…

…and right next door is a showroom for Toto…

…Japan’s leading toilet maker, so it should be pretty easy for the building’s management to obtain the necessary replacement parts.

Source: Melo Melo Meetele via Yahoo! Japan News via Hachima Kiko. Twitter
Top image: Pakutaso (edited by SoraNews24)
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