According to the New York Times, which monitors such activity, the city of Seattle spent $5 million fours year ago to install five automated public toilets around town. Now it’s, well, shitcanning the whole project and selling the commodes on eBay.

Explains the Times‘ Christopher Maag: “Automated toilets have been common fixtures on European sidewalks for decades. But they have been less popular in American cities, where concerns including their appearance, cleanliness and tendency to attract illegal activity have slowed their installation.”

It’s true: visit the online auction site, and you’ll see them–scrubbed within inches of their lives, and gleaming. Here’s a link to the Pike Place Market toilet.

“The units clean themselves after each use, disinfecting the seats and power-washing the floors,” Maag writes. (What about sound-proofing?)

Trouble is, a use lasts 20 minutes–a time-frame some found irresistible.

“I’m not going to lie: I used to smoke crack in there,” a homeless woman told the Times, indicating the toilet behind Pike Place Market. “But I won’t even go inside that thing now. It’s disgusting.”

Regardless of their home-having abilities, people left so much trash in the toilets that the power-wash feature had to be disabled. And because of its own laws, the city couldn’t sell advertising space on the outsides of the toilet kiosks–forcing it to foot the whole $5 million bill.

And so, what worked in New York, Boston and San Francisco (sort of)–and what’s apparently been contemplated in Los Angeles–is being discontinued in Seattle.

The city paid the toilet maintenance company an additional $540,000 to end its contract early, and its toilets will flush their last on Aug. 1.

“Other cities around the world seem to be able to handle toilets civilly,” Seattle Councilman Richard McIver told the Times. “But we were unable to control the street population, and without the benefit of advertising, our costs were awfully high.”

Tags: automated public toilet, Boston, California, Christopher Maag, eBay, Long Beach, Los Angeles, new york, new york times, Pike Place Market, San Francisco, seattle, Seattle Councilman Richard McIver, Southern California, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas