Put down your morning cup of lukewarm tea and listen up: It's no surprise that Pioneer Square has a piss problem. But,depending on who you talk to, it's getting worse. "It's like a yellow tide that washes over the neighborhood during game days at the stadiums," describes resident Richard Todd, "or leaves its high water mark under the viaduct on rainy days. It's definitely migratory, definitely smelly, and definitely a growing problem."

(The horror!)

One that's not easily solved, residents say, thanks to a lack of obvious public restrooms and an ever-changing influx of tailgating sports fans, tourists, weekend club goers, bar patrons, pregnant women, unruly babies, and homeless people accessing the area's soup kitchens and other social services.

"There’s been a perception that the problem is only with low-income people but the larger issue is with people who don't live here," explains Anne Fennessy, a public affairs consultant who's lived in Pioneer Square on and off for the last 15 years. "I’ve seen men in business suits, people of all socio-economic circumstances, doing bad things in the square. The bottom line is, people don’t know where to go and they think [public urination] is tolerated. So we, as a neighborhood, have to say that’s not okay."

And while pissing and shitting in public is already a ticketable offense, police resources are already spread thin in the area and cops are reluctant to crack down on people when restrooms are spread few and far between.

For the last year and a half, Fennessy has been involved with a small group of property and business owners intent on changing Pioneer Square's smelly image.

And so far, their solutions have been simple but effective: Last summer, the group released an updated tourist map identifying the few public restrooms in the neighborhood's train, ferry, and light rail terminals. Other residents have reclaimed alleys like Nord Alley to use as public art and social spaces, which keeps them from becoming impromptu restrooms. And last fall, the group contacted the Seattle Seahawks to ask the team to provide 15 port-a-potties outside the stadium on game days, for tailgaters.

"Once they brought those port-a-potties in, it reduced human waste in the square by a third," Fennessy says. But the problem persists.

Workers for the Metropolitan Improvement District, which tracks human waste (among other factors) in Pioneer Square, Downtown, and Belltown, reported seeing 36 instances of public urination and cleaning up 1,211 piles of human waste during the months of December and January. (Obviously, Downtown and Belltown have "high tides" of their own.)

What the neighborhood really needs are more public restrooms. "One every five feet or so would do the trick," Todd says. "With neon arrows pointing the way—real flashy, Vegas shit."

And thanks to their diligent groundwork, "the city is listening," says Fennessy. Her group is currently exploring a number of options with city officials, including opening up another set of public restrooms in nearby Fire Station 10, following Portland's lead and installing a few of their patented loos, or even building a concierge facility in the square "with botchi balls and public restrooms—the works," she says.

In addition, the city is also reportedly looking into whether it make sense to allow cops to ticket public pissers with a more socially equitable, fine-free consequence, like community service. "The city is in the very early stages of a restorative justice pilot that would work with neighborhood stakeholders on supporting pioneer Square," says Aaron Pickus, a spokesman for Mayor Mike McGinn.

"Living downtown, you have to love people but you don’t have to lower your standards on what’s acceptable," Fennessy says. "We always ask police and fire department people, 'Would you accept this in Wallingford?' and they say, 'no!' Then why is it acceptable here?"