New Yorkers lounging at Big Apple pools Monday slammed new federal warnings against swimming with diarrhea as “unnecessary” — but admitted that trips to public baths can often be a crapshoot.
“I feel like that’s common sense,” Diamante Ortiz, 23, told The Post when asked about new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warning Americans to stay far away from pools if they have the runs.
“But apparently, common sense isn’t so common nowadays,” Ortiz said, as she basked in the warm weather at McCarren Park Pool in Williamsburg.
Ahead of the July 4 weekend, the CDC posted a series of colorful graphics warning against the dangers of swimming while suffering from diarrhea, including a gif of a gleeful child going down a slide while leaving an unmistakable brown streak in her wake.
“Don’t leave your mark at the pool this summer!” the CDC quipped on Twitter.
While many New Yorkers criticized the CDC’s guidance as “dumb,” “unnecessary” and even a little “embarrassing,” a worker in charge of cleaning up such crap-tastrophes at McCarren Park Pool said the accidents are worth warning about.
“Somebody get diarrhea in here right now I got to shut this whole pool down, drain it. I’m telling you, that’s a problem,” the staffer told The Post.
“That’s everybody’s day messed up. I gotta drain half the pool, fill it with chlorine, I gotta send the robots in there to clean it out. It’s just messing up people’s fun.”
Gesturing toward children splashing in the pool, the worker said they were “probably holding [it in]” at that very moment and need all the extra reminders they can get.
“Let them know, y’all can’t be running back in the pool if y’all gotta doo doo. Go wipe that off,” the worker said.
“It’s always a worry, you know? … Nobody wants to poop they pants.”
Denise R., 44, knows the stomach-churning dangers of pool dumps all too well and keeps her guard up anytime she wades in.
Two years ago, she was at a public drink in Rockland County when everyone was forced to evacuate after an errant turd was spotted in the waters.
“That was it for me. I was done with getting in the water,” the Williamsburg resident recalled.
“You got little kids, they can’t control it … that’s why I try to stay away. I don’t let my hair get wet. I don’t like water in my face.”
Giselle Siguencia, 19, gasped when The Post showed her the CDC’s gif of the pooping child but also had a craptastic story to share.
Four or five years ago, Siguencia was soaking up the sun at Astoria Pool when suddenly, a dirty diaper floated by.
“I’m not going back,” she said to herself at the time, adding she took three showers when she got home that day.
“Disgusting. People don’t care.”
Ortiz, a regular public pool-goer, has seen her fair share of excrement at public pools and is always concerned about how quickly poop can spread.
“How fast does it go? Did it touch me?” she’s thought in the past.
“I usually give it about a week until I return back to the pool, to be honest. I wouldn’t trust it if it’s like after a day, you know, because it is the city.”