Is Someone Stealing Toilet Seats From the Rio Olympic Village?

The Rio Olympics seem destined for disaster. There’s always a chance the media is blowing things out of proportion and everything will be ready two weeks from now, but for now, everything sounds awful. Over the weekend Australia expressed some concerns about the conditions in the Olympic village. That’s bad, but it’s not weird. This is weird.

"A crime spree at the Olympic Village has seen everything from toilet seats to lamp fixtures stolen by thieves."

That was in the middle of the article about Brazil’s sexy opening ceremonies on a short list of recent issues that could steal attention from the actual games. There are no other mentions of this on the Internet. Weird, get-your-name-on-an-FBI-watch-list-triggering Google searches for “Olympic toilet seats” return nothing else about these thefts. A CNN article tells us that there are 13,000 seats in the Athlete’s Village. Has someone really been stealing toilet seats? And why?

This sounds more like something the Brazilian Olympic committee would leak after they realized that someone forgot to order the toilet seats. Why else would they specify to CNN that there are 13,000 toilet seats instead of just saying 13,000 toilets? If I’m a visiting athlete, I’m stopping at my country’s version of Home Depot before I leave and picking up a toilet seat.