There is no chemical that will turn pool water a different color if you pee in it

boing
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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/13/there-is-no-chemical-that-will.html

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You could always just spike all your guests’ drinks with Methylene blue so their pee turns color regardless of the pool chemistry.

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Thank you for posting this! I had been a believer all along in what was apparently just an urban legend of German public pools having this miraculous pee detecting and peeing-person-shaming technology. goes back to peeing in pools with complete impunity

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Alternate scare tactic to discourage would-be pool urinators: tell everyone that you’ve stocked the pool with those tiny Amazonian fish that swim up your urethra if you pee in the water.

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Ah, crap. That means I just have yet another reason to see a doctor…

(I hope I’m like Mr. Burns - all my ailments in perfect balance with each other!)

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The film Grownups totally lied to me.

Damn you Adam Sandler!!!

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carson

I had always heard that the (supposed) detector chemical would turn the water red. I think there is a grain of truth to this. One morning I woke up to relieve myself, and became immediately alarmed as the water in the commode was turning a reddish-color. I started freaking out, thinking that I was peeing blood. It was then I noticed a bleachy-smell, and realized that the recently-cleaned toilet still had cleanser in it. The urine was reacting with the cleanser as it hit the water.

Thus, it’s apparently possible to add whatever-that-cleanser-was to a pool, whereupon it would turn red when someone emptied their bladder. But I then there’d be the bigger issue of possibly serious chemical burns from people swimming in the necessarily large volume of this chemical.

EDIT
To put it another way:

There is no chemical that will turn pool water a different color if you pee in it

Well, there probably is, though one shouldn’t swim in it.

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sure you didnt eat beets?

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Cows sleep lying down.

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At our public pool in Memphis TN they had signs with the creature from the black lagoon pointing at you and warning you that the blue chemical was in there and they were gunna bust ya.

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beets affect #2 methinks

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I know of one chemical that will turn pool water yellow if you pee in it. . . .

Do I really need to elaborate?

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Depends on guests drinking. Is drinking at the pool a thing? I only spend four to five hours at the indoor pool with the kid and we neither drink no (usually) eat there. I think we brought soft drinks to the outdoor pool in the 70s and 80s, though memory has become hazy. Certainly didn’t buy there, much to expensive.

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So peeing in the pool is not a big deal and we shoud just stop pretending its a problem. And we should stop over-chlorinating. Sounds good to me.

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I remember when I was 7 or 8 our swimming lessons teacher told us this myth. I’m pretty sure as soon as we got in the water, every kid peed because they wanted to see how it works.

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Right.
Adult - “do not do that thing!”
Kids - “we’re doing it anyway”

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there is so much chlorine and other chemicals in most pools these days, whatever pee that is in there is the least of your worries.

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Now, if we could get all the kids to pee at once, like Storm Area 51… :thinking:

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So a random kid peeing in the pool isn’t all that harmful? Ok, I agree.

But that’s not the problem. Have you ever been to a community pool or waterpark? Try watching the bathroom traffic the next time you go. It’s probably pretty light. You know what isn’t light? The sheer volume of people peeing in the pool. It’s like a goddamn festering toilet of piss, fecal matter, sweat, and mystery fluids.

Rant concluded.

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And it’s also these that are responsible for the familiar ‘chlorine smell’- the pool doesn’t smell until someone’s urinated in it.

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