Online ads claimed to have a handy bathroom trick.

Since at least July 2021, we’ve seen online ads showing a picture of cardboard from an empty toilet paper roll or paper cup propped up under a toilet seat. The ads seemed to be offering a handy bathroom trick. For instance, this ad was shown alongside an article on the New York Post website.

A similar ad said: “[Pics] Here’s Why You Should Put A Toilet Paper Roll Under A Public Toilet Seat.” They were sponsored by the Maternity Week and Definition.org websites. Another version of the ad said: “40 Brilliant Life Hacks You Might Not Have Heard Of.”

We also saw one that used a red cup instead of an empty toilet paper roll. “It’s a good idea to always place a red cup under the toilet seat at your hotel. Here’s why.”

When you clicked on one of the ads, you were taken to a 41-page slideshow article with a headline: “These 40 clever tricks will make even the trickiest items to clean sparkle.” The story on the first page read as follows:

On that first page, the story gave us another sneak peek at a big trick with a cardboard toilet paper roll involving a toilet seat and nighttime. The URL even mentioned the toilet paper trick for what is known as UTM tracking. This meant the website’s creator tracked whether the ad was getting clicks and bringing in readers. After all, someone was paying to run the ads on the Outbrain advertising network, so figuring out if they’re worth the investment is essential.

The article included a few unusual household tips. One suggestion was to put hairbrushes in the dishwasher. Another one said you can pour different liquids down the drain, which we’ve looked at in two previous fact-checks about dish soap and salt. We also encountered a questionable oven cleaning tip, and we’ve already covered some bread uses.

On page 41, the last page, they finally revealed the toilet paper roll trick. However, that wasn’t the solution. The advice was to attach a cardboard roll to a vacuum cleaner hose to reach into crevices.

The 41-page article never mentioned why you should always put a toilet paper roll under a toilet seat at night. It was just clickbait. We clicked “next page” 40 times, so you don’t have to.

We checked out home improvement websites like BobVila.com to see if there was a good reason for putting a toilet paper roll or a red cup under the seat. However, we found no tips, tricks, or “life hacks.”

After we published the story, someone sent us a tip saying that an empty toilet paper roll propped up against the seat could be a helpful warning to the next person to enter the stall that there’s no toilet paper.

We’ve clicked through thousands of pages in these strange slideshow articles from scammy ads. The subjects have included Tom Selleck, Disneyland, Costco, Alex Trebek’s net worth, and around 100 other topics. Could you take a look at our entire collection? Each of our stories is presented on a single page.