Is It Rude to Flush the Toilet Late at Night? (Answered!)

If you drink gallons of water or beverage in the evenings then you can be sure to wake up to wee later on, sometimes late in the night.

To most people, it is highly indecent to leave the toilet unflushed after use. It can be an embarrassment.

For that reason, the urge to use the toilet in the dead of the night presents a stark dilemma – to flush and disturb the block or leave it unflushed and lose all the respect other users had for you.

So, Is It Rude To Flush The Toilet Late At Night?

The plain answer is “yes” – that’s super rude for sure. Unless the toilet is in your own home and you’re home alone, the sound of flushing water can disturb the neighbors very much like loud music. If the toilet is very close to an occupied room or home, the resultant noise will certainly annoy anyone close enough to hear. To some people, the sound can ruin a good sleep. Things can be worse if you live in a block of flats – the tenant living below your floor will certainly curse the day you rented your space.

Six Ways To Quiet Your Toilet

But, you can’t suppress a burning urge to empty your bowels.

If you are troubled by bowel ailments, you like to work late into the night, or you are old age, you will certainly visit the toilet once or twice at night.

Flushing the toilet anytime can be perfectly OK at any time if you make efforts to cut the amount of noise produced by the cistern of water.

Here is how to quieten your toilet:

1. Install Quiet Fill Flush Valves

You know that prolonged and annoying drip the cistern produces after every flush.

The quieting fill flush valve is the best fix for this problem.

Quiet fill valves use a handy outlet pipe to direct water back into your toilet’s cistern just below the waterline. Once it is installed, the drip abates instantly.

These valves normally come with the toilet set but can be purchased separately.

2. Tighten Pipes

Loose pipes with loose fittings can sometimes cause the toilet to generate an overly noisy flush.

Get yourself a screwdriver, inspect the pipes on your toilet, and tighten any loose parts you can locate.

3. Adjust Water Inflow

One of the reasons why most produce a noisy flush is an intensity at which water splashes down into the tank.

If you are permitting huge amounts of water into the cistern faster than it should then you are going to produce significant noise.

Adjust the inlet valve to slow down the rate at which water flows back in the cistern.

Note that this means the cistern will take longer to fill if you make this adjustment.

4. Reduce The Water Held in the Tank

That long deafening flush could be a result of a toilet tank filled to the brim.

Most toilets come with large tanks to provide space for overflows but that doesn’t they should always fill to the brim.

Consider reducing the amount of water that ends up in the tank.

5. Block The Sound

Though soundproofing the entire bathroom can be a better solution, it is cheaper and faster to just soundproof the cistern itself.

Get yourself a decent adhesive foam tape and proceed like this:

  • Remove the lid of the cistern, clean the inside, the top, and the edges
  • Affix the tape around the top part of the toilet tank.
  • Proceed to push the lid of the tank back into place which will result in a tight fit. This means the tank is airtight, hence airborne sound won’t be able to leave the cistern
Additional Toilet Topics
Is It Rude to Flush the Toilet Late at Night?
Can You Flush a Pen Down the Toilet?
Can You Flush Cheerios Down The Toilet?
Should You Flush Alcohol Down the Toilet?
How Often Should You Flush An Unused Toilet?
What Should You Do When Toilet Water Splashes On You?
Is It Safe To Clean Your Toilet Without Gloves?
How Long Does It Take Soap to Dissolve in the Toilet?
What Happens If You Flush a Battery Down the Toilet?
How Do You Unclog a Toilet in A Mobile Home (Like A Professional Plumber)?
What Should You Do If Your Cat Falls in the Toilet?

How to Stop Yourself from Waking Up Late at Night to Use the Toilet – Three Ways

You can spare your neighbors and roommates the annoyance by preventing yourself from visiting the toilet at unwanted hours.

Here is what you can do:

1. Keep A Small Bladder Diary

You could chuckle at the idea of tracking your own bathroom visits, but you will be surprised with how useful the bladder diary can turn out to be in helping you cut your bathroom visits.

A bladder diary simply helps you

  • keep tabs on your fluid intake (amount and type)
  • the number of times you visit the bathroom during the daytime
  • how often you wake up to make night visits to the bathroom
  • and whether that accompanies any recognizable bladder leakage.

To establish a trend, you will need to keep the diary for about 4 – 7 days.

Bladder diaries are sometimes used by doctors to track urinary tract problems, meaning you can share these trends with a physician in case of an issue.

2. Minimize Urine Production

First off, avoid taking excess fluids 4 – 6 hours before bedtime.

Secondly, always remember to empty your bowel shortly before going to bed.

Even better, take any diuretic medications that can limit the rate of urine productions at a certain time. Remember to check with the doctor before taking any medications.

3. Practice Healthy Sleep

Insomnia can increase the likelihood of visiting the toilet at night.

You can fight insomnia by preparing for the night and setting up the right conditions for a good sleep.

Also, you can feel the urge to go to the bathroom at night only to end up producing a trickle that must be flushed down with a lot of water to keep the toilet smelling fresh.

Be certain to practice good sleeping patterns and hygiene to keep your body on the natural circadian rhythm (the natural clock on which your body is set).

Ensure you are not sabotaging your sleep.

The NSF (National Sleep Foundation) has a whole article on how to achieve sleep hygiene.

Summary

Together with taking a bath at night, flushing the toilet late in the night is one of the most frowned upon yet hard-to-avoid situations in places where people live in close quarters.

Flushing a toilet late in the night is akin to playing loud music – you are disturbing the neighbors.

Therefore, unless the toilet is in your own home and you’re home alone, you should do everything you can to give your neighborhoods the silence they deserve at night.

Among many things you can do is check the toilet for contributing problems.

The quiet fill flush valves, for example, are the best fix for the familiar prolonged and annoying drip the cistern usually makes after every flush.

That long deafening flush could be a result of a toilet tank filled to the brim, so you need to make changes to the system to ensure the tank doesn’t overfill.

A bladder diary can help you keep tabs on your fluid intake (amount and type), the number of times you visit the bathroom during the daytime, how often you wake up to make night visits to the bathroom, and whether that accompanies any recognizable bladder leakage.