General Chat

My parents bought their house, an ordinary Victorian red brick terrace, before they married in 1928. There was a sink in the kitchen with running water, the hot water being heated by a boiler behind the fire in the front room.

There was no indoor bathroom ............... the toilet was at the end of the backyard, had a high seat and a long drop down. It was a tippler toilet that was "flushed" by running water in the kitchen sink which ran into the toilet, and then made it overflow into the underground sewer that ran out of the back yard and joined up with a main sewer running down the back lane.

We lived in that house until 1951.

My mum's parents lived across the street in a larger house. Grandfather built and repaired houses, and he installed a proper bathroom upstairs, with a bath, toilet and sink ......... but they never used the toilet. You still had to walk to the end of their backyard to the tippler.

They used cut up pieces of newspaper as "toilet paper"

Mum and Dad bought another house in 1951, a much older stone built one. Someone had built a red brick 2 storey extension on to the back. The kitchen was on the ground floor, and a large bathroom on the top floor. Luxury!!!

Except the pipes from the sink and bath ran down the outside of the wall, and froze regularly in the winter. Dad would boil a kettle of water, then lean out the window to pour boiling water into the down pipe.

The toilet seemed to work normally.

The back yard still had 2 stone built sheds. One was the coal storage, and the other was the old toilet ............. which was still in there. I never went in that one!!

That house had both a boiler behind the front room fire and an immersion heater which was turned on before anyone had a bath.

We lived in caravans for a number of years. The 'Bessie Car' had an indoor bath, but no plumbing. A board and foam mattress was put on this - and it was my bed :-( Opposite were bunk beds - this was the 'area' between the kitchen bit and my parent's bedroom.
The loo was a bucket in a shed. One year, hornets decided to nest in there. Dad said 'Don't move too fast, and they won't hurt you' - he was right :-D I think a lorry came round to empty the bucket.
Then we got a huge caravan with 3 bedrooms - all with doors :-D
Not only that - we had a proper kitchen, a living room, French windows and a verandah - and a bathroom, with running water and a flushing toilet :-D :-D :-D

When we lived in a various croft houses in Shetland, there was no bathroom, therefore no bath or shower. The loo was, yet again, a bucket in a shed. In one of the paces, the loo had a 'chimney' in it, which meant, when it was windy a howling gale blew down. It was also right next to the landlady's chickens. Many a conversation went on between the occupant of the loo and Mrs Christie :-0

This bucket was emptied into the sea, which was about 4ft lower than the land. I was there mostly on my own, so I did it, waiting until the tide was going out and the wind was in the 'right' direction.
When they were home, the lodger and my ex took turns. Both of them managed to get covered :-D The lodger even managed to jettison himself over the edge with the contents :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Licks hankie
and rubs the San Izal off Sharron's face :-0

What about the San Izal on my poor little face?

I am fighting the urge so far I am winning :-D :-D

If this house is lucky I may do it tomorrow ;-) ;-)

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

I've been watching "Hoarders" on Reality channel and I too had a fit of cleaning yesterday

I watched a few TV programmes this morning including one about Housing Enforcement Officers and Homes Under The Hammer (which included a house with an old outside loo)

Why is it that every time I watch a programme like this, I get the uncontrollable urge to clean my own home from top to bottom.

Me and my house both smell of bleach now :-D :-D

Not a hundred miles from where I live in an otherwise pleasant area, there can be found there a public '(in)convenience' that can only be described as the dirtiest, filthiest, smelliest & a God-dam awful establishment - aka a public loo.

Crossness Sewage works near Erith in Kent used to have open days.

Our guide proudly pointed out the area where they dumped some of the slurry. He said that there was always a magnificent crop of tomatoes, but his wife didn't like him taking them home :-S :-D

we had a toilet like that when I was growing up - every so often Dad would dig a big hole in the garden to empty it - in the summer when we had been eating tomatoes the seeds would germinate and we had lots of tomato plants - now that's what I call recycling :-D

My auntie had a outside loo when I was little
I thought it was brill until


I noticed a great big spider had made its home in the corner :-( :-(

We lived in a farm cottage a way outside the village and had a bucket lavatory which was emptied into a pit and rotted down for the garden.

Uncle Jack and Aunty Doreen lived in a council house along the main road and had a flush toilet. It was still outside.

My cousin, their daughter, and I decided we would play clowns with the paint box (this was not recent) and presented ourselves to our parents fully decorated.

Aunty Doreen frightened my quite badly when she mentioned that she was sure it would come off with toilet soap.

I was not ever so keen to have my face washed with that stuff she used to clean her toilet which might be the same stuff as the San Izal Dad used in our lavatory.