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My 88 year old mom was born and raised on a farm in Minnesota. The family used an outhouse well into the '70s. (Brrrrr!)
As a city boy, I remember using that outhouse when we came to visit. I'll withhold my impressions, you're welcome very much.
I realize outhouses are still in use today, but I imagine in sheer numbers compared to days of old they are diminishing.
Anyway, have YOU ever used an outhouse?
Well, yes, but not as a primary toilet at my house. I've spent days and weeks in the field where an outhouse was what I had. Can't say as I cared for it much. Critters get in them in the Summer that are less than pleasant to be around, and the smell isn't baking cookies. Yea, in the Winter your butt freezes to the seat, the smell is a tad more bearable, but not by much. I brought wash wipes with me on those stays as well. When you're finished with your business toilet paper just doesn't leave one feeling clean.
When I was a kid my friend's dad had a blueberry farm and their family used to stay there for the summer. It had a cabin without electricity and a pump for water. And, of course, outside was the outhouse.
When I got married, we rented an old farmhouse with a bathroom but way out in back was an old outhouse, a two holer.
Also, husband's parents had a cottage on a lake with an outhouse.
Not to mention all the outhouses used in camping and at summer camp.
Yup, my folks have a property in Montana that started out with no flush toilets and an outhouse. It's still used with some frequency as the hunters in the area (their property is 3 sides National Forest with 4x4 access) know it's there and always unlocked and stocked with TP.
It's just an outhouse, no big deal. Better than leaning against a tree and needing to bury your own such as is necessary when camping.
Same here. A practical solution for rural situations.
My 88 year old mom was born and raised on a farm in Minnesota. The family used an outhouse well into the '70s. (Brrrrr!)
As a city boy, I remember using that outhouse when we came to visit. I'll withhold my impressions, you're welcome very much.
I realize outhouses are still in use today, but I imagine in sheer numbers compared to days of old they are diminishing.
Anyway, have YOU ever used an outhouse?
I am 54. In the 60s and 70s as a child and teen, visiting my families older relatives deep in the Appalachin mountains, YES, they ALL used the outhouses. In the very late 70's they came around and issued no interest loans, long term low payment, to put basic {I mean a toilet and sink} in the houses as they outlawed outhouses for sanitary reasons.
AS a youngster who grew up with plumbing, I kept looking for the "flush handle" on the outhouse the first time I had to use one. {for those who don't know, there is none, lol}.
I was also afraid of "falling in". And getting splinters in my butt. Nope, no toilet seats, just a rough cut hole in the seat board.
I asked what they did when it "got full" of a second cousin of mine. He replied in a slow southern drawl, "waaaaall, we picks it up and digs a new hole and moves it over yon'er to a new hole". I asked what they did with the pile of poop left where it was now? "waaaaaall, we jest pours lye on it, smashes 'er down, and covers it up".
We used big lard buckets at night, as no way was I going out to the outhouse at night with no flashlight. I didn't mind peeing in it, but if you pooped in it, you had to draw water from the well {yes, in a bucket on a long rope} and wash it out yourself...without paper towels or sanitary wipes!
My great aunt was considered "rich"...she had a two-holer! {two holes side by side in a "big" outhouse. Most were so small if you turned around twice in there, you'd run into yourself.
ALso, in the 60s and 70s, when we travelled to relatives the other way, the Ohio turnpike had what amounted to large outhouses at the service centers. You certainly didn't want to fall in those holes! It was nothing more than a large can with a toilet seat on it over a big hole of the holding tanks. We carried our own toilet paper as they often didn't have any in those big outhouses. The "restrooms" was big enough to have a couple of crude urinals, and a stall..if you want to call a piece of wood about 2 foot high between the two "toilets", and one metal bucket with toilet seat, and a funky looking oval ceramic thing no seat on it for the sit-down trips. Basically no privacy.
I've been to a wide variety of them and always dreaded it. On remote public lands, I'd rather dig a hole. But that was back when I could actually squat.
A friend had a cabin on the sandstone cliffs of UT where no one could dig anything. He had a composting toilet and those are da bomb. No smell, no mess. Perfect solution.
It's been a very long time but we had an outhouse with a cabin wehad rented in the mountains.
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