These are one of the little "death by a thousand cuts" annoyances that have cropped up in recent years, by the "nanny state" that seeks to protect us from ourselves.
I have here in mind those devilish little flow restrictors that are mandated to be put in shower heads, both on-wall and handheld, for water conservation. I'm as much for saving money, and reducing water demand, as anyone else, but darn it, the flow of water is almost always so scanty, that you end up having to spend twice as much time in the shower, because the soap won't come off any other way. Those who are more hirsute, have even greater problems with this. It's especially annoying in hotels --- more than once, I have simply said to myself "it's not worth it, I don't have all day to get in there and let that insipid little stream of water trickle over me, I'll simply run a basin of water and give myself a cat-bath (there is a stronger term for that)". That's not what I'm paying $100+ a night to stay in a Holiday Inn Express for. I have even taken along my own "old-fashioned" shower head, or once even used duct tape to retrofit the hotel's shower head and increase flow (dilapidated old Super 8 that was our vacation home for a week in the mountains, I can't afford deluxe lodging), when I was going to be staying somewhere longer than overnight.
Anyway, I have removed all the flow restictors from the shower heads in both of our houses, and have done likewise with the handheld units, and this restores flow to an acceptable level. I had to get a new Peerless handheld yesterday for the master bath, and I found that unlike with Waterpik, I could not simply slip out the flow restrictor --- I had to take needle-nose pliers and destroy it. (So much for staying within warranty!) There was also an aerator washer, and I had to ream out the unexpectedly thick mesh screen embedded into the washer. Results were not perfect, but were acceptable for a $24 shower head from Walmart.
I suppose if I ever sell either of these houses, I'll have to find some way to replace these, lest it come up in the property inspection. (And, no, I'm not in California.)
Has anybody else had similar experiences? Better ways than this to increase water flow?
And I shouldn't even get started on low-flow toilets. Same thing, that little amount of water doesn't get the job done, you just end up flushing more, depending upon circuмstances. I don't know what they were using for brains, when they came up with that idea.