Urapeein Porta Pots in Billings, Montana, expects to lose a few toilets every Independence Day.
Over the last week, at least 13 of the small company’s portable toilets were destroyed.
Even by their standards, that’s a massacre.
“We typically lose four to five toilets every year during the Fourth of July due to fireworks,” co-owner Kris Vogele said. “Some years, we’ve lost eight or nine. There have been at least 13 this year, and that’s worse than normal.”
Vogele estimates that damages are well over $12,000 and could easily get higher. All those costs will come out of the company’s porta-pot profits.
“People don't think about who this impacts,” he said. “They want to blow up a toilet for the laughs, but it’s definitely hurting people, and it hurts our community.”
Blowin’ Up Toilets
Vogele started getting calls about destroyed toilets last week. They lost their first one on Wednesday.
“It mostly has happened in residential construction projects in northwest Billings,” he said. “Subdivisions where not a lot of people are living yet, but a lot of new homes are being built.”
Vogele’s phone was ringing off the hook Monday, as contractors returning to work after the holiday weekend reported unusable toilets and their contents scattered across their job sites.
The only explanation for the extent and nature of the damage is fireworks. Big fireworks.
After several years in the portable toilet business with his son, Connor, Vogele knows to anticipate some lost toilets during the week of Independence Day. It’s the only time of year it seems to happen.
“It's pretty much whenever anybody has access to fireworks,” he said. “We’ve lost a couple around New Year’s, and we might lose a few more this weekend. If people have fireworks they didn’t set off last weekend, they might blow up a toilet this weekend.”
Most of the destroyed toilets were blown apart, but some were melted by the intense heat of whatever was inside.
“They light a fountain off on the floor of the toilet, and that usually melts or burns most of it,” Vogele said. “We've had one toilet that actually burned all the way to the ground. When we showed up for it, it was just a block of plastic on the ground.”
At this point, there are no culprits because there were no security cameras catching the toilet destroyers in the act. Vogele will have to swallow those costs.
Out-Of-State Ordnance?
By this point, Vogele understands what kind of fireworks are needed to blow up a toilet. That’s why he believes they couldn’t have come from Billings or the surrounding area.
“These are not the type of fireworks you can buy at a fireworks stand in Montana,” he said. “If you saw one of our toilets that was really blown apart, it had to have been a large explosive.”
Vogele said he believes the fireworks came from Wyoming or the Crow Indian Reservation near Billings.
Both allow fireworks purchases year-round, whereas Montana only allows for sales between June 24 and July 5.
If Montanans want bigger fireworks, they’ll find them at the year-round places. For Vogele, it’s the only way to explain the extent of the destruction.
"I know a lot of people go to Wyoming to buy bigger fireworks than we can get here," he said.
There are many ways to blow up a portable toilet. And the cocktail of chemicals and human waste in the tank won’t be enough to stop an explosion.
“They're either putting it in the tank and blowing a big hole in the tank, or setting it on the floor,” Vogele said. “If the porta potty has been used, it's not all liquid in the tank. It might land on toilet paper floating right at the top and blow up.”
Either way, the aftermath isn’t pleasant. It’s another problem Vogele must deal with.
“If the explosive goes in the tank, whatever’s inside it goes everywhere,” he said. “It’s quite the cleanup.”
No Assurance From Insurance
A single portable toilet costs around $900, plus an additional $250 for shipping. Does insurance cover these exploded toilets?
Yes, but with the way the company’s insurance works, Vogele said it’s not worth the effort or payout.
“Our insurance company sees each exploded toilet as an individual occurrence, so each one has its own deductible,” he said. “Our deductible for equipment is $1,000, so the most we could get is $100 to $150.”
If Vogele filed a claim for each destroyed toilet, each would be treated each as a loss. That would drive up Urapeein’s annual rates when the company renews each year.
That’s why Vogele said “it’s not worth reporting” any of the exploded toilets.
“I don’t need my insurance to go up that much,” he said.
Don’t Be Crappy
The costs for repairing or replacing $12,000 of destroyed property, so far, will be covered by Urapeein. For Vogele, that’s adding insult to injury.
“We donate a lot to the community and sponsor a lot of events and organizations,” he said. “At the end of the day, that's $12,000 we won’t have to give to our community.”
More than 400 Urapeein toilets are placed throughout southern Montana, Vogele said, so the 13 blown-up toilets don’t represent a huge loss of inventory. Still, he can’t help but empathize with his son, who started the business.
“He started with 40 toilets in 2018,” he said. “If this had happened back then, it would have been a really big hardship for us. It would have been a killer for him.”
People have recommended that Urapeein purchase and place trail cams around his toilets to catch people in the act, hopefully leading to identification and restitution.
While he appreciates the thought, Vogele knows that’s an expensive solution for a once-a-year problem.
“Putting a $150 trail cam at 400 toilets is a $60,000 expense for one weekend,” he said. “It’s not something we’re going to do.”
The moral of this story, for Vogele, is don’t be a crappy person.
Blowing up a portable toilet could be fun, even hilarious. Anyone who is determined should acquire their own, rather than add an unnecessary financial burden to a small family-owned company.
“This is a big expense for us,” Vogele said. “It hurts us, and it hurts our community, because it limits what we can give to the community. We have less to give if we have to keep replacing blown-up toilets.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
