The way Leo Hill figures it, every roll of toilet paper he’s used since mid-2006 has shorted him at least one sitting.

That’s a lot of tissue.

Acting on an idea from his wife, Doris, the 81-year-old former maintenance worker set out to settle a problem.

“She complained that a roll in the 12-pack would last just three days and the same size in the four-roll pack lasted four,” Hill explained. “I wanted to find out.”

Hill figured he had the time, since there wasn’t much else to do but read or stare at the shower curtain. So he counted every sheet of toilet paper as he used it.

It wasn’t for any other reason, he said, than to know if the number of sheets noted on the package matched what was on the roll.

Jotting his totals on a flattened inner tube from an expended roll, Hill said he kept meticulous track. Each day he’d count the number of sheets he needed — he limited the experiment to his Lakewood home’s basement bathroom because his wife won’t go there — then added it to his previous day’s tally.

By his count, the first roll was short by 15 sheets.

“You couldn’t prove anything from one roll,” Hill admits, “so I counted them all.”

At the end of the month, Hill said his nine-roll average was 156.75 sheets for the rolls of Angel Soft that promised 198 on the package.

Hill didn’t want to make a stink about it, but thought someone should know.

“I called them up,” Hill said about Georgia-Pacific Corp., the tissue’s makers. He dialed the toll-free number printed on the package and, as you’d expect, the company sent Hill a coupon for free toilet paper.

So he counted those, too, each day and at every sitting. All 12 rolls.

Again, Hill’s average tally was less than the package’s promise. He admits he might have been off “by a sheet or two, but not that many.”

Scratching an inquisitive itch

Concerned that other consumers might be having the same problem, Hill took his case to the Denver Better Business Bureau, which forwarded his written complaint to their affiliate in Atlanta, where Georgia-Pacific is located.

“That’s the last I heard,” Hill said.

And that’s the last anyone heard from Hill on the issue. He’s been quietly counting to himself ever since.

To test his theory, The Denver Post counted, too — nine rolls from five different makers — but none had fewer sheets than advertised. One brand — Quilted Northern, also by Georgia-Pacific — actually had 10 percent more on two rolls.

Hill was happy to hear of The Post’s results.

“Maybe they started getting the counters right,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m sure glad you got a good roll.”

Undaunted, the Gates Rubber Co. retiree took up his count with other brands of TP. Northern; Charmin; Cottonelle; even Walgreen’s Big Roll got tallied.

By Hill’s count, they were all short.

He tried counting toothpicks

Hill figures he’s counted more than 60 rolls of toilet tissue from five different makers since writing the bureau in December 2006.

That comes out to 15,248 sheets. Assuming 8.6 sheets per trip — America’s average use, according to ToiletPaperWorld.com — that’s 1,773 trips to the toitie, more or less.

And Hill’s still counting.

The folks at Georgia-Pacific say complaints like Hill’s are pretty rare.

“It’s just not a common complaint,” spokesman James Malone said.

What’s more, the world’s largest tissue-paper manufacturer calibrates its machines carefully, pretty much ensuring consumers don’t come up short when it counts.

And there’s a lot of product, Malone said. The rolls Georgia-Pacific makes in a day would stretch 1,300 miles — from Hill’s home nearly to Atlanta.

Hill says he tried counting toothpicks once — there were fewer than 200 in the box of 250 he had — but gave up after just one box “because it would just take too long.”

The World War II veteran is amused by his efforts, agrees that it’s a bit silly, and doesn’t expect much to come from it all.

“It’s really only important when you run out,” he mused.

David Migoya: 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com



5 things you probably didn’t know about toilet paper

1) The first roll appeared in 1890, made by the Scott Paper Co. in Philadelphia. The two-ply roll appeared in 1942.

2) That’s almost 400 years after Sir John Harrington invented the flushing toilet in 1596.

3) An average of 666 rolls of toilet paper are used at the Pentagon each day.

4) The average consumer uses 8.6 sheets per trip, 57 sheets a day, one standard roll every five days and 20,800 sheets a year.

5) Before toilet tissue, wealthy Romans used wool and rosewater or sponges soaked in salt water at the end of a stick.

Source: ToiletPaperWorld.com