Spiders to clean up gents' loos

Wigan-based pubco Yesteryear is using spiders to slash toilet cleaning costs at its 25 bars in the north of England.

The company has bought 105 fake spiders to glue to the urinals in the gents toilets.

The idea is that men will aim at the spiders, meaning less spillage and a saving of £6,000 a year on cleaning costs.

The spiders are already used to great effect at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, where Yesteryear managing director Tony Callaghan recently returned from a fact-finding mission.

They have also just been installed at JFK Airport in New York.

"What we found on our visit to Schiphol was that there is a far higher standard of accuracy and far lower level of splashage if a gentleman ­ including Frenchmen ­ has something to aim at in the urinal," said Callaghan.

"We estimate that we can save up to £6,000 a year in cleaning costs and cleaning materials and still maintain high standards of cleanliness and hygiene if we can improve accuracy by just 50%.

"Staff will spend less time addressing lavatorial spillage during a busy evening, and male customers will run less risk of generating unsightly splash marks on either themselves or their neighbours."

He said the major challenge now is finding a glue which is "up to the rigours of the job".

"But we also need to establish the best type of insect to use,"he added.

"The Dutch and Americans use flies, but we associate flies with uncleanliness ­ so have chosen spiders.