Felicity Grant and her colleague Trish White outside the Sound Shell loos. Photo / NCC
The word council brings to mind mayors and councillors, however, there are many more faces behind the scenes of our councils doing amazing mahi. Local Democracy Reporter Linda Hall talks to some of them.
Felicity Grant said if she didn’t make her job fun, it would be pretty stinky.
The Napier Sound Shell toilets custodian takes pride in her work and isn’t afraid to laugh about it, especially when the cruise ships are in town.
“It can be quite amusing to watch,” she chuckles as she talks about watching buses pull up and the people on board rushing for the toilets she’s just cleaned.
“It must be all that rich food onboard,” she grins. “It’s not so amusing to clean up though.”
On a day when a big cruise ship berths at Napier Port, there are upwards of 700 to 800 people using Grant’s facilities in a day.
“I don’t need a gym membership, that’s for sure. Every day I get my steps in.”
The facilities have four toilets - with a shower for the disabled, plus a single shower and a parent room - and are Grant’s responsibility, but so too is helping the people who use them.
“While cleanliness is the main part of my job, it’s certainly not all of it,” Grant said.
“Public relations are also a big part of our day. We get people coming in for directions or asking where the best places are to visit in Napier. There is always something going on.
“Things have changed a lot over my almost five years here. The shower used to be popular with backpackers. Sadly, now, it’s the homeless that use it the most.
“That’s one of the saddest things for us to watch, the people living in cars with children who come in for showers.
“But at least they have somewhere to go to have a nice hot shower.”
She said while the majority of people who used the facilities were respectful, there had been some volatile occasions that have prompted police calls, trespass notices, and even the installation of an escape door at the facility recently to help keep staff safe.
The other problem council loo cleaners deal with regularly is vandalism.
“We don’t get it here because this is locked up at night, but our after-hours toilet causes us a lot of grief,” Grant said.
“It also costs a lot of money to continually get it fixed.”
She said it was disheartening to read regular comments on social media about the state of some of the council toilets.
“If only people knew how hard our team works to keep them clean. The problem is the team can go in and clean everything up, leave and then two minutes later someone goes in and makes a mess or causes damage.”
Asked who made the biggest mess, out of men or women, Grant doesn’t hesitate.
“It’s women. We moult like cats in the shower. There’s always hair everywhere.”
One of the hardest things she has had to clean up is silt.
“Lots of people were using the showers after the cyclone. People who had lost their homes and others were helping with the cleanup. The silt was so hard to remove. Obviously, we couldn’t wash it down the drain, so we had to sweep it up and put it in buckets. Hearing their stories was heartbreaking.”
There is a charge to use the showers but for the toilets, it’s a koha. Staff also keep a diary in which visitors often leave comments – here’s one example.
“We have been travelling around NZ, both the South and North Islands for six months now and these are the cleanest and best showers we have had. Facilities like these are wonderful and we will recommend them to all our tourist friends. Thank you council and the lovely staff.”
Grant said people were often quick to criticise Napier City Council.
“People need to applaud them when it’s relevant. They are great employers.”
She said some people turned up their noses when she said she was a cleaner.
“Hand on heart we work hard, and face a lot of mess which is attended to immediately. I don’t like sitting around twiddling my thumbs – and I like my job very much.
“We have a lot of fun.”
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
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