It’s New York’s dirtiest writing gig.
New Yorkers with writing experience now have a chance to share with their world their reviews of the city’s public restrooms on new upstart ToiletFinder.com.
A sort of Yelp-for-toilets, ToiletFinder aims to solve what its founder calls a “universal human right”: being able to use a clean public toilet.
“Really the site, despite its humorous nature, it points out some serious underlying societal issues,” said Michael Li, 27, of Williamsburg, who created ToiletFinder. “There’s no honest, down-to-earth reviews ? so I’m providing a platform for people to anonymously and honestly rate the lavatories of their favorite venues.”
This might sound familiar: George Costanza hatched a very similar iPhone app called iToilet in a plot on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” (Li had no idea, he said.)
Li has been working on ToiletFinder since summer and launched it last week, and the interest from both media and potential writers has been “overwhelming,” he said. So far he’s received “lots” of applications from the CraigsList ad he posted last week advertising the writing job, and in the end he will select one person and pay him or her $100 a day to review toilets all over the city.
Still, with thousands of user-submitted reviews already live, 70,000 total “venues” (or toilets) listed, and mobile apps in the pipeline, Li said the potential for ToiletFinder is “limitless.”
“There’s nothing out there that really gives you the inside scoop on what it’s really like to use a bathroom in the city,” he said. “The user community has really rallied around this whole idea.”
