Swedish cops dump toilets to save money

The Malmö police department will stop at no lengths to refrain from spending a penny, employees learned recently.

• Court fines Stockholm couple for faked sex (19 Mar 10)
• Baby seal killed in road accident (18 Mar 10)
• Nighttime skier crashes into promenading elk (18 Mar 10)

At first, staff thought they were getting a bum deal when two toilets near the surveillance unit’s offices were closed last week, the Sydsvenskan newspaper reports.

But when employees from the narcotics and criminal divisions also found themselves locked out of the bathrooms in their wings, employees began to suspect the closures were no accident.

As it turned out, officials at the department had decided to shut down several of the station’s toilets over the summer in an effort to keep from draining the public purse.

But someone forgot to tell workers at the police station, prompting the station’s workplace safety officer to lodge a complaint, at which point the toilets were once again opened for business.

“It didn't quite go right. The toilets were closed too early,” Anita Elf, head of the station’s maintenance divison , told Sydsvenskan.

But Elf emphasized that the toilets would be closed during the summer, primarily on floors expected to be virtually devoid of employees over the summer holiday season.

Fewer toilets mean less cleaning, according to Elf, although the exact savings haven't been calculated.