NYTimes - SEATTLE — After spending $5 million on its five automated public toilets, Seattle is calling it quits.

In the end, the restrooms, installed in early 2004, had become so filthy, so overrun with drug abusers and prostitutes, that although use was free of charge, even some of the city’s most destitute people refused to step inside them.

[…]

“I’m not going to lie: I used to smoke crack in there,” said one homeless woman, Veronyka Cordner, nodding toward the toilet behind Pike Place Market. “But I won’t even go inside that thing now. It’s disgusting.”

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rob: $1MM a pop is quite a sum for a porta-potty that’s too nasty to smoke crack in. And now they’re selling the things for just under 9¢ on the dollar. Nice work, Seattle City Council!