Anyone here old enough to remember having an outside outhouse?

My grandfather had one out by the barn, but it was not in common use any longer, except for emergencies. When I was a kid, I REALLY had to go and my grandmother had been in the ONE bathroom for a LONG time...so my mother told me to use the outhouse.

I said, but how will I wipe myself? She said...use a corn cob. The ONLY corn cobs were on the dirt driveway, dried to sandpaper consistency. I picked one up and had to brush off the ants.

I got out to the outhouse, sat down, looked up, and there was an albino scorpion up in the corner above my head.


It was small...but it did lead me to wonder what was crawling around under the seat where my bare rear end was parked. I got out of there as fast as I could...and yes, I DID try to use the corn cob, which hurt me horribly.

My mother refused to believe me about the scorpion.

There was another outhouse up at a camp in Maine, where I stayed one summer with the family of the 2nd ex. The camp was quite primitive. Grammy used to wash herself in the pond, but did not use soap in the lake water so as not to pollute.

The outhouse was perched up on the hill just above the camp, and now that I have more experience with such things, I realize that the leaching fiend led right down to the pond. Grammy had a huge can filled with lake water on her wood burning stove, and she boiled it and used it to wash the dishes.

Yes, but only at the house my mother grew up in. It was an old house when I spent time there in the 60's. A 'nice' house, with a barn and chicken coop and, and some cows. I think there was a horse...early on. A garden growing vegetables, and one with flowers. I remember chickens pecking around underneath the outhouse, and old catalogs were the toilet paper.

There were chamber pots, for when nature called in the middle of the night or wee hours of the morning.

Yes. My grand father had one, in addition to the inside bath rooms. The inside toilets used cistern water which occasionally ran dry. So he conserved cistern water by using the outhouse.

He passed away in the 50s and I inherited the candlestick holder from his late night trip to the outhouse.

My grandmother’s house had no running water and an outhouse. She heated and cooked/baked on a wood burning kitchen stove. Her baking was incredible. She did have a well with a hand pump but it was a ways away from the house.

My brother-in-law's uncle lived on a farm with one (this was in the 1960s). He also had a wooden, wall-mounted phone that rang a specific number of times for everyone on its party line. 2 ringy dingys for one home, 3 for another, etc.

No but when my grandfather was building his house he put the toilet room outside because he didn't feel it would be right to have it inside the house despite that it was a modern toilet. 😆 He simply felt it didn't belong there. So then they had to always leave the house in order to go to the toilet until they built another bathroom indoors.

My Gramma had one in her backyard in tea garden that's before she moved to ramen terras

I am old enough, but my childhood was spent in New York City and it's suburbs, so I never experienced it.

On the farm in Texas in the 50's.
We had chamber pots so rarely had to go outside at night and no one like a collector that I remember.

Grew up with one. In fact, my first porn was the bra section of the Sears catalog.

I was about 6 or 7 and when it was winter and cold always waited until the last second possible to go out. Early in the morning I had to go and came down the stairs and slipped my bare feet in my 4 buckle boots and headed out to the outhouse. I tripped myself up in those boots and ended up in a snowbank in my underwear and .....didn't have to go to the outhouse anymore, but I did need to change my underwear.

My grandmother did, but I am lucky enough just to have called what we did camping.

The old farmhouse that doubles as the hunting camp I go to in Michigan's Upper Peninsula still has a "Two-Holer" that we use.

Not having one, but using one in a rustic cabin a family member had.

I worked between 2006 and 2018 on sites with nothing but porta potties! Not a whole lot of difference.

Every week someone would come around to clean it out.

My grandma had one at her house when we went to visit in the late 60's

Having one is one thing; using one is at another level. Having to use one at night, by the light of just a flashlight or candle is a whole new adventure.

I saw one at an old farmhouse several years ago.

Getting up and going outside in the
middle of the night...? 🤔

Didn't they have chamber pots in Tasmania? 🥺

There was one on my grandfather's farm.

We never did, but a couple of the older relatives I remember still did. They were still usable, too—when the bathrooms inside were occupied.

Oh man i didn't know they did that

Of course.

Only in boy scout camp. They were called Willie's back then

🌜 Was there really a moon shaped window on the door...did the window serve a purpose or just for decoration?

Sold one 25 years ago

Nope, way before my time.

Still got one.. winter sux

Gees😂