More fun with the fail pail

It’s no secret I’ve not been a fan of the Diaper Genie Elite, but my experiences this weekend have changed my mind from disliking it to straight out hating it.

The scene

It’s 4am, 5am, it’s so late you don’t know what time it is. You’re attempting to change a diaper that’s exploded six ways to Sunday, try not to wake the baby too much so she can get back to sleep, and perhaps grab another hour or two of sleep yourself.

The twist

Instead of functioning normally, the loaded diaper goes in and pulls the last of the Diaper Genie plastic bag out and drops a loaded diaper somewhere in the dark recesses of the fail pail.

Now, I’m told that the blue Diaper Genie bag has some sort of an indicator when this is about to happen. Supposedly it looks like a magic marker mark and is not visible under dim lighting. I don’t see it on mine, but I also didn’t actively inspect three feet of pee-soaked bag all that well.

I went ahead and ordered another three-pack of Diaper Genie refills for the thing, mostly because for all I hate it, it may be better at discouraging insects from hanging around the house searching for the tasty tasty smell of baby poop.

All that was required for this particular scenario to have been prevented was a very visible indicator that the bag was going to run out. When you’re paying $5 per container you’d expect something like a yellow tape indicator, something that could be seen in the dark. Meh.

I’m still seriously annoyed that this is considered the trash can to have. It’s like a prototype design for a trash can that requires the user learn how to operate it and service it regularly, and it seems silly that it got to the level it is without a fullness indicator, or an easily visible end-of-roll indicator.

There’s also the cutesey shape of the thing, which wastes space. If you’re going to waste floorspace, at least put something useful up top like a holder for wet wipes and diapers. That would be useful.

Alternately, make the fail pail work with standard garbage bags. It wouldn’t be that much of a conversion issue as you’re paying $5 for roughly five garbage bags worth of plastic. That way when the end of the bag was there you could just pull the drawstrings closed.

But, then they couldn’t sell you overpriced garbage bags…

The Diaper Genie is available from Amazon for $27.49, comes with frustration free packaging as if you had to deal with frustrating packaging and what I’ve run into you’d throw it out the window.

On a side note, the product code on Amazon starts with “Boob” B00BLVQIMG /insert Bevis laugh here/