Reddit: Disgusting Elizabeth St, Melbourne public toilet shocks tourist | Photos

WARNING: Graphic

A tourist visiting Melbourne has stunned the internet after sharing horrifyingly disgusting photos of a public toilet in the city’s CBD.

“WTF Melbourne,” the user wrote in a Reddit post on Wednesday. “First time visiting Melbourne from NZ. Is this normal?”

They shared a series of photos of the inside the toilet, located at the intersection of Elizabeth and Franklin streets just across from the 7-Eleven.

The photos show a large pile of faeces in one corner, with more faeces and soiled toilet paper strewn around the floor and even splattered on the wall. Faeces are also deposited around the rim of the toilet bowl, which is overflowing with brown water.

On one side of the toilet there is what appears to be the packaging from a disposable syringe.

“Not sure why I clicked on this and swiped, but here I am,” one person commented.

“This should be on all adverts to encourage people to visit Melbourne. Send it to the tourism board,” another said.

“World’s most liveable city, baby,” a third joked.

One said while it wasn’t normal for Melbourne it was “quite normal for Elizabeth Street”, with another agreeing that the area “has gotten the most junkies”.

“I used to clean these,” one person commented.

“Yes, this is normal for the vast majority of Exeloo toilets around Melbourne. People are filthy. If there is anything I learned in that job, is that people are pretty good at hiding needles in ways that are deliberately positioned to injure people. Under toilet seats, in the paper dispensers, in the hand dryer vents and so many other places. People are filthy, and evil.”

Another person wrote, “Currently spending three weeks in Japan. Every public toilet I’ve been to (including Disneyland) has been clean as a whistle. Australia is horrifically filthy in comparison, in more ways than one I would argue.”

Earlier this week, Melbourne restaurateur Lino Scidone slammed claims city activity had returned to pre-pandemic levels, describing the CBD a “ghost town” that is “derelict” after walking along its empty streets.

Mr Scidone, who owns some of Southgate’s most acclaimed diners and bars, says he is “sick and tired” of talks the “city is back”, when all he sees are lease boards and minimal foot traffic.

“I walk this city just about every day and feel its soul being sucked out of it,” he said in a Facebook post.

Mr Scidone strolled down what used to be some of the city’s busiest streets, including Elizabeth Street which, according to the City of Melbourne’s website, is one of the most “significant” streets in the CBD.

“It is an entrance to Melbourne’s central retail area and a primary city transport route,” the council website states, noting it’s currently undergoing works to improve and “extend the quality of Melbourne’s retail heart”.

However, Mr Scidone found nothing “significant” about it, other than capturing photos of about 20 lease boards and a decent amount of foot traffic compared to the other streets he visited.

“There were people today vacating, which I thought was rude to take a photo of because I know how that feels,” he said.

It comes amid outrage over a leaked proposal this week to establish a second safe injecting site in the CBD, inside the Salvation Army building on Bourke Street.

Celebrity chef Guy Grossi, whose restaurant Florentino is directly opposite the location, says it could undo hard work trying to rebuild the CBD after lockdowns.

“This is a theatre precinct, a restaurant precinct, we have families coming along here, we have young children coming along here,” he told Nine’s Today on Thursday.

“There’s people trying to rebuild this city really hard because it was locked down for the longest amount of time. This is going to be completely counter-productive to all that effort that’s gone into the rebuild of this city.”

Mr Grossi said he was most concerned about safety. “The violence and the crime rate in the city is already a problem,” he said. “Visitation is already low. So the last thing we need to do is detract from people coming and using the City of Melbourne.”

Community group Keep Our City Alive, which has been advocating for an injecting room in the CBD, said one person died every month from an overdose.

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“We call on the Andrews government to urgently identify a site for a second supervised injecting room in the City of Melbourne, and prevent any further lives lost to overdose in our city,” a spokesperson told the Herald Sun last month.

The Andrews government’s first safe injecting room, opened in Richmond in 2018 as part of a five-year trial, has been credited with saving dozens of lives but has also been deeply controversial.

Many locals say the now-permanent medically supervised injecting room (MSIR), which neighbours Richmond West Primary School, has brought more crime and overdoses to the well heeled area.