7 Tips to Minimize Your Bathroom’s Bad Feng Shui

Bathrooms and restrooms are notorious for its bad feng shui. It is not a pleasant or comfortable place to stick around, mainly because we associate it with a place where we rid ourselves of dirt, waste, and bodily fluids.

Feng shui taught us that restrooms have negative Qi that can impact our health. Today, we understand these negative Qi as odors and germs that make us sick.

Also, depending on the location of your bathroom in your house, other aspects of your life may be affected. For instance, if you’re able to smell the stench of human waste or cleaning detergents while you work in your study room, your ability to concentrate will be affected.

Despite all the bad feng shui, bathrooms are a necessary evil. But should they always have bad feng shui? Not necessarily if you’re willing to change a few habits.

Here are seven tips on how you can minimize your restroom’s bad feng shui.

1. Close the lid when flushing toilet

What if I tell you that every time you flush the toilet, you are spewing bacteria from the toilet to all over your restroom?

If you don’t believe me, here’s a clip from the Discovery Channel, featuring Mike Rowe, to show you:

Germs and bacteria are a form of negative Qi. Every time you flush the toilet, you are spreading bacteria and harmful Qi from your toilet into the air.

As the video mentioned, one of the germs that reside in our toilet is E. Coli, which is known to give us diarrhea, and, in extreme cases, severe anemia and kidney failure. This may very well be one of the reasons why feng shui tells us that the bathroom brings us negative health effects.

Today, many professors, medical doctors, and health advocates suggest that we close the lid when flushing the toilet. So if you want to minimize your bedroom’s bad feng shui, try to make this a habit, followed by washing your hands every time you close the lid.

2. Use the restroom ventilation fan

I’m sure you know how the smell of human waste bothers you, especially those created by others if you share the same restroom. Sometimes even thinking about it creates disgust.

If you don’t use ventilation fan, the smell that you (or others) have created can stay there for hours until it fully dissipates. Imagine if you needed to share that restroom in the middle of a meal, how would that affect your appetite?

You have the right to use your restroom without needing to hold your breath. So for the sake of yourself and others living with you, it is better that you turn on the ventilation or keep your restroom windows open after use. If both are asking too much, you can use an air freshener to suppress the smell. It’ll make your restroom a more pleasant place for you to take care of business.

3. Keep your bathroom dry

This applies mostly to bathrooms instead of restrooms.

Every time you bath and shower, water vapor and humidity are produced, and some corners of your bathtub or shower stall may remain wet for a long time. The humidity and the wet spots create the perfect condition for mold to grow.

Not only are mold a sight for sore eyes, it can bring many negative consequences to our health, such as nasal congestion, throat irritation, and other respiratory problems. For some people and in children, the effects can be detrimental.

The psychological effects of the sight of mold, along with its health effects, are part of the negative Qi of the restroom. The larger the mold colonies, the stronger the effects. The easy way to cure it is to keep your restroom dry by using air ventilation or by opening your restroom window.

4. Fix the leaks

Leaky faucets and shower-heads are quite common. Some say that water leaks are a symbol of leaking wealth. I’m not a big fan of symbolism, but I do know that leaky faucets will drive up your water bill.

According to Anh Speer, Ph.D, a leaky faucet that drips slowly can waste about 7-10 gallons of water a day, which sums up to around 3,600 gallons of water per year. A slow drip can cost you about $20 per year, whereas a fast drip can cost about $60 to $100 per year, depending on your area’s water costs. Considering how California is currently suffering from increased water costs due to a severe drought, the cost of the water bill could be much higher.

Water leaks create an irritating noise from the drip, drip, drip. Depending on where you can hear that noise, it can prevent you from relaxing in your living room sofa, concentrating on your work desk, or going to sleep at night. Further, the humidity level of your leaky restroom faucets or shower-heads may also become an issue, as you are likely to see mold grow around the areas of the leak.

If you have a leaky faucet, here is a step by step guide with images on how to fix them yourself.

5. Throw out the trash

If you have a trash can in your restroom, you need to clean it out frequently to prevent the negative Qi of the trash from building up.

Things you throw in the trash can may include tissue, floss, cotton, among many others. As your trash start rotting, the smell and bad Qi it produces builds up bad feng shui. Not only can it produce a foul smell, the sight of those trash can give you disgust.

Depending on what you throw into your bathroom’s trash can, the trash can could be a perfect place for insects, such as silverfish, to feed and multiply. This is never a good thing because they can be quite destructive, and they usually carry and spread different types of germs and bacteria around your house.

For those that don’t take out the trash regularly, I suggest that you use trash cans with a lid, as it can cover the sight and the smell of the trash.

Even if you decide to use trash cans with lids, I still suggest that you take out the trash regularly, because doing so can also prevent insects from growing and multiplying.

6. Wash your towels

If you rarely wash the towels that you use to dry your body and hand, it is likely that your towel contains mildew.

Even if you have a good habit of washing your hands after using the restroom, you are smothering your hand with mildew after you clean it. So wherever you touch, you are actually leaving behind bits of pieces of mildew.

Mildew is more easily identified with its odor. Similar to mold, mildew is a form of fungi that can bring health consequences that varies from person to person.

The easiest way to prevent mildew from growing on your towels is to wash them regularly with hot water. 

Just like mold, mildew grows in humid environments. The easiest way to minimize this negative Qi and its health consequences is to hang your towels on a rack and keep your restroom dry.

7. Clean your bathroom

What if I tell you that your bathtub alone has more than 100,000 bacteria per square inch?

If you don’t clean your restroom, you will be accumulating all the harmful Qi as mentioned from above. Also, the number of germs and bacteria colonies will keep multiplying if you if you use your restroom frequently without cleaning it (just like mold).

Even though only a few of those germs can make you sick, leaving your bathroom uncleaned gives you a higher chance to get infected, especially through direct contact with a cut on your skin. WebMD provided five types of germs, including bacteria, viruses, and fungi found in home bathrooms that can give you stomach ailments, diarrhea, and skin damages.

Make it a habit to clean your restroom at least once a month. Using detergents as disinfection will help, but do not overuse it because their odors and poisonous effects are also a form of negative Qi that gives you other types of discomfort.

Conclusion

Your bathroom is a necessary evil that you cannot live without. By following these tips, you can improve the feng shui of your bathrooms and make them a more comfortable place to rid yourself of bodily fluids and waste. You may even notice subtle improvements in the overall comfort level of your home.

Do you have any other tips on improving the feng shui of your bathroom? Leave a comment and let us know!

Victor Cheung

Feng Shui practitioner and blogger of Feng Shui Nexus. I’ve witnessed the efficacy of Feng Shui, astrology and divination. Here, I share my knowledge and experiences with you to get you closer to your goals and dreams. Subscribe to get email updates or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.