The toilet paper aisle at Walgreens, 2389 E. Windmill Lane in Las Vegas. (Tony Garcia/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
A notice limiting only 3 packages of toilet paper per customer is displayed on picked bare shelves after shoppers cleaned out the stock of paper and cleaning products at a local grocery store in Burbank, Calif. on Saturday, March 14, 2020. Californians wanting to escape the new reality of the coronavirus at the movies, casino or amusement park are running into the six foot rule. State health officials issued new guidance Saturday urging theaters to keep attendance under 250 people and ask strangers to sit six feet apart. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
In this March 3, 2020 file photo, empty shelves for disinfectant wipes wait for restocking, as concerns grow around COVID-19, in New York. Legions of nervous hoarders are stocking up on canned goods, frozen dinners, toilet paper, and cleaning products. Such hoarding that’s expected to last for weeks has created big challenges for discounters and grocery stores as well as food delivery services. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
In this March 2, 2020 file photo, a customer walks past mostly empty shelves that normally hold toilet paper and paper towels at a Costco store in Teterboro, N.J. Legions of nervous hoarders are stocking up on canned goods, frozen dinners, toilet paper, and cleaning products. Such hoarding that’s expected to last for weeks has created big challenges for discounters and grocery stores as well as food delivery services. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
The toilet paper aisle at Smith’s Food & Drug, 2385 E. Windmill Lane in Las Vegas. (Tony Garcia/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
Toilet paper now has its own tracker.
As several Las Vegas businesses ramp up for the beginning of Phase One on Saturday, the mystery of elusive TP persists.
After panic-buyers stripped grocery store shelves and convenience store endcaps of the precious product, TP purchases were relegated to social media exchanges and parking lot transactions.
A Las Vegas design and product studio has launched a shared database to track the inventory and availability of the commode commodity, which has largely disappeared during the coronavirus pandemic
TP Finder, by Deep Space Program, is a fully crowdsourced platform where anyone can view or report sightings of toilet paper in nearby grocery and convenience stores.
From inside the store, users can log on to TPfinder.co and then select their location and choose one of four stock options: none (no packages), limited (a few packages left), standard (a few shelves of packages), surplus (a whole aisle).
Since launching a month ago, the website has expanded to track store inventories of other in-demand items, including paper towels, hand sanitizer, sanitary wipes and sanitary sprays.
Deep Space Program says over 150,000 users have contributed the platform by sharing nearby sightings.
As the pandemic continues, TP Finder plans to keep essential item inventories publicly available using insights from local communities.
