Not just hotels but houses too. There would be a slot inside the medicine cabinet for disposing razors into the wall. Dude who came up with the idea was probably like, "we'll all be dead from nuclear bombs before any of these fill up or needs to be renovated".
They predate nukes, bro.
Replace "nuclear bombs" with whatever relevant worldwide threat you'd like and the joke should still land for you 👍🏼
The future was repealed in the 1920's I think.
Someone is more likely to get cut from handling those open blades in the trash than a trained construction worker demolishing the wall.
A small blade safe can hold hundreds of blades and it's like 4"x3"x3". Makes sense they thought the inside of drywall 5'x3'x1' would be fine. It can probably hold tens of thousands. Even with a new blade daily that's decades. And when you tear down the wall you're dealing with Sheetrock, nails and screws already. All that time would have dulled the incredibly thin blades.
This is all to say: it seems wild but was a decent idea.
Safety razors with disposable blades were introduced about 120 years ago, at one blade a day that's a bit less than 45000 blades
Double edged blades dimensions are: 0.1mm x 42.7mm x 22mm for 98.21mm³
45 000 blades would take a volume of 4 419 450mm³ or about 270in³
A regular indoor wall is made of 2x4 and each stud is 14.5 inches apart (16 inches on center). A 2x4 is in truth 1.5" x 3.5" so each inch of height inside the wall is 3.5 x 14.5 x 1 which is 50.75in³
45 000 blades stacked perfectly would therefore use 270 / 50.75 = 5.32 inches of the wall's height... So even if they didn't stack perfectly, it's pretty safe to assume that there's enough space inside the wall for hundreds of years at one blade a day (especially since old houses usually used true 2x4 and had their studs at 24" on center)
One blade a day?!! Are you a billionaire or something? The acceptable signal to replace the razor is when the pain from the dull blade pulling your hairs makes your eye watery, and then you try to man up for a couple more shaves before accepting defeat and put in a fresh blade.
It's an exaggeration to show how long it would take to fill a wall
This was behind the medicine cabinet in my house.
Idk why but this bothers me
Because they owned the house for who knows how many decades and only used 9 razor blades?
If it was a vinyl, it would still count as a mint condition.
A hole in a steamy bathrooms wall where you dispose wet things full of human skin cells sounds like a mold-hotel.
And if there are kids around, they put everything small enough inside.
Wall full of tetanus.
Wall of Tetanus is a pretty sick 5th level spell.
It's also a pretty good name for a metal band
here are some metal fonts to choose from
Wåll 𣠆ê†åñµ§
₩₳ⱠⱠ Ø₣ ₮Ɇ₮₳₦Ʉ₴
𝖂𝖆𝖑𝖑 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖊𝖙𝖆𝖓𝖚𝖘
山卂ㄥㄥ ㄖ千 ㄒ乇ㄒ卂几ㄩ丂
𝔚𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔢𝔱𝔞𝔫𝔲𝔰
Wﾑﾚﾚ のｷ ｲ乇ｲﾑ刀ひ丂
Ẁ̷͓̯͍͉͆̈́̓̿̋͘̕a̸̢̛̭̱͇̓̀̀̃̾̿̕ͅl̴̨̗͍̼̬̽̍̆̋̿l̶̛̰͙̣͔̠͈̈́͑͋̀̔͝ ̵̡̱̘͙̘̖̙̼̺̘͌o̷̳̼͍̼͛̈́̇͘͝f̵̙̥̹̹͓̼͇̃̎̿́́̈̚̕͜͝ͅ ̶̛̦͍̮̫̇̏̐̽̈́̉̉̓t̸̢̪͖̜̲͈͕̬̙̳̾e̴̱̲̯̣̞̰͛̽͊́̊͐̌͋̓̿ẗ̸͓́̑̂͊͋̍̀͘͠a̵̢̨͍̖̙̼̪͚̼̮͆̓̚n̸̡̳͈̬̺̱͔̳̎̾̀̅̅̈́͑̈́ũ̴͙̀̊̄͌͘̚š̵̲̮̘̰̀̂̈̈͝
Remodeling contractors hate this one trick..
How bad could it be? They’d all be piled up at the bottom of one stud cavity and you know they’re there. If you’re demoing the wall you’re gonna have gloves and a shop vac and a bigass broom and shovel anyway.
Still I got a little blade bank (about the size of those mini soda cans) on Amazon for $7 for my double-edge blades. Last year. And it still has plenty of room in it. Supposedly it holds 300 blades. That’s two blades a week for nearly 3 years. An absurd frequency…I replace my blade every week and I shave my head and they could totally go longer, they’re just so damn cheap.
Multiple homes I've lived in have had these slots in the medicine cabinets lol.
Did they anticipate people not living long enough to care? Or that some biome would form to use the blades as food?
Interesting decisions all around.
They are very slim. You would really need to shave a lot to see it being full.
I use these blades to shave almost daily. I use approximately 40 each year. I would never be able to fill up a wall with these, not even during 10 lifetimes
We used to have a Victorian era house with one of these. We had to replace that wall in the bathroom and there was this huge pile of rusty razor blades in the wall. Had to use tongs to pick them up for disposal.
Yeah we had a 1920s house with a metal medicine cabinet above the sink. It had the razor blade slot and yeah they literally fell into the wall between the studs.
I had an old house with one of those. I renovated the bathroom so I can confirm they all go into the wall. God what a mess. 2ft of rusty used razor blades wedged in there.
Older medicine cabinets have a slot in them for this very purpose. A lot of people living in old homes probably have a razor blade slot or two and don't even realize it.
I use those blades in present day.
When I put in a new blade, I keep the wax paper wrapper, then rewrap the discarded blade in said wax paper before discarding it.
Give or take twelve years into this endeavor, I've had zero issues with this system.
Safety razors are great! They're way cheaper than "conventional" (3, 4, 5 blade) razor blades. They shave a lot closer, and you can get a variety of different grades of blades to fit your comfort level.
The only reason the expensive multi-blade disposable razor cartridge became popular was because Gillette enshitified their razors to maximize profit.
The little plastic magazine my DE blades come in have a little slot in the back for used blades, just slide them in and then when the magazine is empty chuck the whole thing. Wrankles me a little bit that the steel is ending up in a landfill, but most things you put in the recycle bin does too because society doesn't work, so.
Get yourself a blade bank and put your used blades in it. They are a cheap and safe way to dispose of your razor blades.
Been 'wet shaving' since I started shaving a very long time ago and never stopped. When the blade slots went away in the back of the medicine cabinets in every bathroom, I made a blade bank from a steel can with a lid that I cut a slot in. I takes me years to fill it.
***For those too young to have seen it. The medicine cabinet in every bathroom used to have a slot in the back of it to drop used razor blades into when they got dull. The would simply fall in between the studs in the wall and pretty much just rust away since the blade back then were made of plain high carbon steel. I remember helping to do several bathroom remodels and when pulling the cabinet and the plaster and lath wall, we would find a small pile of rusted to nearly dust razor blades.
I've come across one or two walls full of blades doing basement renos.
Once saw a video of someone who forged a knife from old razor blades he found in a wall. There were hundreds. They shaved more often in the old days I presume...
They probably shaved about the same but mostly used double-edged (100% steel) blades that could easily fit in a slot, rather than the plastic-clad, quadruple-blade nonsense sold for $8/cartridge.
You can still buy double edged razors for about 10-15 cents apiece, by the way.
R/definitelyputyourdickinthat
I still use safety razors. I get all excited when I'm at a bathroom that I can slip one in the wall.
so it's the graveyard of razorblades?
razorgraves?
Tomb razor.
Wet shaving is still very much a thing; in fact in the last decade or so, it's had a renaissance of sorts (tho it was probably re-gaining popularity already in the early 00's). I've been a wet shaver for 2.5 years but decided to buy me an electric shaver because these days I have less time for wet shaving. It can done be quickly but what's the point if you've got to rush it. Links for those who got curious:
https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/
It can done be quickly but what’s the point if you’ve got to rush it
Yep a good shave needs time and most of all four passes: first with the grain, that's for the colleagues, second two at right angles to the grain, that's for your lover, and the fourth one against the grain, for personal satisfaction.
OTOH if you know what you're doing a quick and dirty shave is just as good as an electric one and you don't have to deal with batteries. If a short buzz cut is all you want do that.
The whole setup is a bit of a bother if you're new but basic guidelines:
My dad's workplace had something similar in the 1960s-70s. It was a plane hangar that was used by the baggage handlers.
The walls were cinder block so hollow from top to bottom, they would open up the boxes of the mini alcohol bottles that would go on the planes and take handfuls of them out, once the bottles were empty they would dump them down the same hole until they actually filled one up then started on a new one.
That would have been a surprise when that hangar got demolished and that wall opened up.