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Grandparents had no water & no bathroom in their house until about 1962. Out house was about 150 feet west, down wind of their house under a very large shade tree. Yard had big shade trees it was a nice walk to the out house. Hot weather you had to hold your breath 30 seconds and do a very fast dump then run fast to breath again. Never use slick magazine paper it smears the brown spot bigger. We had corn cobs after the corn harvest they work better than sticks. The worse thing was setting on a frozen 20° seat with 15 mph wind blowing snow through the wall cracks, do the worlds fastest dump then jerk your pants up.

Indoor plumbing is really the greatest thing on earth. I'm so glad I ever got to use an outhouse, I'd throw up every time I needed to use it. Not to mention if you ever needed to go outside at NIGHT to use it?? No way.
And I'd rather not get a raw rear from using catalogue or magazine pages either. If I had to go back in time and could chose only one modern convenience to take with me, I'd take indoor plumbing.

My wife's family got indoor plumbing in about 1968-9. A cistern under the kitchen where water was delivered from a water tanker with a hand pump in the kitchen sink that was the water source. The sink drained to another cistern at the back of the house. The outhouse was about 100 feet from the back door. We met in 1971 so I never saw the water system or the outhouse in action but heard lots about it over the years. We now live in that house and cisterns have been filled in and capped and where the outhouse was grows great flowers and shrubs even fifty years later.

Oh you've set me off on nostalgic childhood memories. Our outhouse was a quite big one built out of brick, attached to the rear corner of the house. Yes, the proverbial brick-built s**t house. Besides the toilet throne it housed a huge copper wash tub. I think there was a gas burner under that but I don't remember. Can't imagine my mother hauling pots of hot water from the coal stove in the kitchen but maybe she did.

Anyway; my memory of it: I would have been about 4 years old. Dad had taken us to the 'camp' cinema that night, at the RAF airfield where he was stationed. There was was a jungle film full of scary wild animals I'd never seen before - leopards, tigers, pythons; you know the style . Later that night - it WAS a wild stormy night - I had to visit the outhouse. It's hard now, to believe they let me go alone but those were different times. Maybe they were glad of a few minutes by themselves. As I sat shivering on the cold throne the wind was howling & clattering around the house and I became convinced there were wild tigers outside, waiting to get me. I started yelling for help but of course nobody could hear me. In memory I sat there calling for ages but it really must have been no time at all. Eventually I must have made a run for the kitchen door but I don't remember - all I recall, like yesterday, is how terrified I felt listening to the howling racket outside my little brick shelter.

my outhouse memories are not from as long ago as y’all. in the fall of 1997 I lived on the navajo reservation (and got college credit for it). a friend and I lived with a pair of grandparents on the top edge of a mesa, no electricity or running water. the outhouse was kind of just over the ‘lip’ of the mesa, was slightly drafty (only a problem during the colder times) and the flies that would inevitably come had led to a significant population if black widow spiders under the seat. they were feet below, so no real danger, but you never forgot they were there! it was just far enough away from the cabin I was living in that the one time I got sick from a bad load of water we got in, the waddle out there was excruciatingly long.

the view out over the canyon when you left the door open was excellent.

You have prompted some memories. I'll start with an outhouse that I didn't use. It was behind a one-room Oregon schoolhouse. My mother's youngest brothers were in the last "class." (Of course, all classes were together in that one room .) It seemed like ancient history to me because I was a kid but the schoolhouse and the two-holer out back (with a wall dividing it) must have been used about 20 years earlier, in the 1930's.

When I was younger still, we lived with my grandmother for a year. There was a bathroom in each of the 2 houses on the property but it was a fair distance between them and an outhouse in between. What I remember, other than the location, was the sunflowers that grew around it.

Now my own "little house out behind the shack" ... was built by yours truly when I lived in the sticks for 4 years. Like the shack (cabin), the little barn, and the chickenhouse/woodshed - the outhouse was built out of logs. Sturdy but it had a problem.

It was at a discreet distance from the cabin, across the driveway and facing into the woods, including quite a few dense young fir trees. That was a good thing because I probably kinda threw it together. I must have not been carrying my tape measure that day. Without some remodeling, there wasn't enough room for a door. That is, there was not enough room for a door to close when I was in there with my Big Feet ... since I couldn't see any further than about 10 feet because of the trees, I felt comfortable enough and never did put a door on it.

Steve

digitS' wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 15, 2021 7:40 pm

You have prompted some memories. I'll start with an outhouse that I didn't use. It was behind a one-room Oregon schoolhouse. My mother's youngest brothers were in the last "class." (Of course, all classes were together in that one room .) It seemed like ancient history to me because I was a kid but the schoolhouse and the two-holer out back (with a wall dividing it) must have been used about 20 years earlier, in the 1930's...

I was wondering where the photograph that I had of the school house was and finally came across it. This was with my cousin's pictures and was given to me after she passed away. I have no idea who took the picture or when but, it was a considerably long time after I visited it. When I was there, perhaps a couple of times, the building was still white. You can see the little bell tower on the roof if you look closely. (The outhouse was directly behind the building and wouldn't be seen from this angle.)
Steve

Thanks for reviving this thread with that absolutely precious photo digitS’. I missed it originally, so caught up with the discussion with interest.

When I have chance, I’ll contribute with “horror” stories from my childhood while visiting grandmother and one of the aunts....

Redback spiders.

TomatoNut wrote: “Not to mention if you ever needed to go outside at NIGHT to use it?? No way.”

We lived in a cabin on a lake in the woods for about a year. Electricity but no plumbing. There was an outhouse on the south side of the property, a short walk from the cabin. The property had lots of fir trees so walking to the outhouse at night was very scary, especially when the weather was stormy. I was afraid to walk alone to the outhouse at night so my friend would escort me. One time he said “There is nothing to be afraid of. Who in the world would want to hide in a outhouse?” He had made a very good point. Who would?

The worst outhouse was at my grandparents place. They had the darn thing in the middle of the chicken yard, so when you had to go, you had to grab a stick and fight off the roosters all the way there! Once you got there about one out of every three times someone didn't close the door all the way, so chickens would fly out in your face! Boy, I hated that one...
The coolest outhouse was in my hometown, by the old railroad depot. It had tons of intricate carvings on the inside boards. There were pictures, poems and messages all over that thing. Great pen knife skills, and a strong noses on those people... I went back there a few weeks ago and looked at it, but they had replaced all the boards, due to theft I guess. Some of that stuff was from before WWI as I remember. I'll try to get a picture next time I go there.
The funniest outhouse had to be the modifications my Father and his brother did to the one at their old home place. Apparently they learned that you could cut out the back wall boards and hinge the bottom of the wall, so that when the unsuspecting victim sat down the whole seat would roll them out the back with their pants down!
The whole thing was disguised by one of the back boards being cut and set with a nail to hold the wall until it was turned sideways.
As the boys sat there congratulating themselves when they finished, they had forgotten to set the "latch" just right, and the first person to use it was their mother...
She tumbled out the back, and immediately went over and beat their bottoms red! He was so proud of that...

BTW, didn't anyone use a chamber pot? My grandparents had a beautiful one built into a nice chair that sat in a separate room for "nighttime needs" .
I remember it was quite the disgusting discovery when I was a little kid...

Nyan wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 21, 2021 11:13 pm

BTW, didn't anyone use a chamber pot? My grandparents had a beautiful one built into a nice chair that sat in a separate room for "nighttime needs" .
I remember it was quite the disgusting discovery when I was a little kid...

My grandmother had a pot under the bed. It was an empty coffee can.

Gary350 wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 22, 2021 7:29 am

Nyan wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 21, 2021 11:13 pm

BTW, didn't anyone use a chamber pot? My grandparents had a beautiful one built into a nice chair that sat in a separate room for "nighttime needs" .
I remember it was quite the disgusting discovery when I was a little kid...

My grandmother had a pot under the bed. It was an empty coffee can.

At least it was empty for most of the night... LOL

This is our camping outhouse, it is very private after dark. It is nice to have a 3 am.