PRPG:
Airpnp Toilets for rent

A Weird App: Toilets-for-Rent with Airpnp

March 6, 2014

There’s an app you can use locate and rent other people’s homes for a few nights when they’re not occupied…but what if you only need a very particular part of that house, and for, oh, 10, maybe 15 minutes, at the most?

Airbnb is a popular app travels use to rent out, or rent, private homes and apartments to stay in on vacation, in lieu of a hotel. Introducing Airpnp, a web-based app that allows users to find a clean bathroom in a private residence where they can confidently do their business.

Airpnp was created by two New Orleans residents who couldn’t find a clean bathroom during a Mardi Gras celebration (and home was too far away). While anyone anywhere can post, it’s caught on in two locations: Antwerp, Belgium, and New Orleans, where the app did exceptionally well during Mardi Gras 2014. Like Yelp!, Airpnp users can also use the app to rate and recommend bathrooms they’ve used.

The downside: Once you find a proper potty, the service isn’t always free. It can get expensive. Of the two Airpnp locations currently listed in New York City, one is at a Manhattan apartment for a $5 fee, and the bathroom at a mansion in Brooklyn is $10. New Orleans’ luxurious Pontchartrain Hotel charged $10 to use its facilities with “marble floors, spotless toilets, and high quality hand towels” in late February…and $20 during Mardi Gras.

Or if you look at it another way, it’s a fairly cheap way to sight-see.