Have you ever pee-peed or pooped in an outhouse?

This was very often the case whenever I went to cabins as a child. I haven't been to a cabin in a long time actually, but the few most recent times they had septic tanks and interior plumbing.

Countless times. In many campgrounds in the western USA this is not just normal, but it is unavoidable. Just last month (August) I probably met the requirements of this poll twenty times over.

Yeah, my gramps had/has a cabin w/o plumbing and w/ an outhouse. Novel during the day; less than novel after dark.

There's nothing like the pooping while sitting a wooden board with a hole carved in it as insects fly around you, and you hear the songs of birds, in a vertically oriented coffin.

When I was very little, I was afraid sharks would come up through the hole and bite my butt.

When I was very little, I was afraid sharks snakes & spiders would come up through the hole and bite my butt.

When I was very little, I was afraid that fear itself would come up through the hole and bite my butt.

this is the normalest

Cabin, no plumbing. Still can smell it if I close my eyes.

srsly what kind of poll is this

flippant?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfJY8oKoRbw

Yeah, my gramps had/has a cabin w/o plumbing and w/ an outhouse. Novel during the day; less than novel after dark.

― clijster flockhart (Stevie D(eux)), Wednesday, September 5, 2012 12:19 AM (44 minutes ago)

what's less than novel? novella? short stories? Reader's Digest? you've got some weird bathroom reading habits, dude.

maybe you could read novel after dark if you had flashlight?

not that kind of novel

thread of missing neanderthal

thread of missing http://i.imgur.com/fSDpu.png

I only use destroilets

Friends of my parents' lived in a really really old house when we were kids, more like a shack than anything, and when I was really little it didn't have an indoor toilet, just a scary outhouse (they got an indoor toilet later on, but not for a good while). I must have been about 5 when I was using that thing, holding myself up with both hands over the creepy hole in the plank, terrified of falling in. It was creepy enough during the day with spiders and flies all over the shop, but ugh at night, FUCK no. I still think about it whenever I use a portaloo.

i definitely did on various camping trips as a kid. my dad only had an outhouse during his early years. not sure when they got a septic tank.

South Shields in the sixties.

I remember a relative having an outhouse at least until the late 70's. That thing had no privacy, it didn't have a door so much as a garden gate. And the door faced towards the house, so you could wave to people in the kitchen.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42612000/jpg/_42612171_lesdawson_two203.jpg

A hole in the woods is a cleaner and more natural bet. Then you cover it with leaves. I have dogs and they enjoy walks in the woods, they wouldn't crap in 80 percent of those things!

At a concert? Bring your own tp and cover the seat with it. Or bring a large sheet of paper or newspaper to put over the whole thing to avoid - uh - splashback.

I spent great chunks of last year living in a camp in a field where the toilet was a shit bucket in a wooden shelter and you peed in a plastic jug. I think that counts.

Plus the toilet in my dad's village in Kenya was at least as primitive.

I am assuming that an outhouse is different than I porta potty, right? If so then no, I have not.

Remember the squatting toilet during the storm last year. I think I have a photo of the toilet roll spiralling off into the sky. The normal cubicle had been rolled over so it didn't fall over with anybody inside, & I needed a crap so had to use the rickety platform in the sky.
119kpm wind hit Mayo like a hurricane or something.

have done this while out visiting the rural countryside in china, it was pretty awful - much prefer a spade and some leaves and a quiet spot in the woods

it wasn't really an outhouse it was a giant pit in the ground where everybody also threw all their trash

My new band: Outhouse Madeleines.

My dad's place until 1991 had no indoor plumbing. Proper well with a bucket and chain. Not only did we shit in the outhouse, I twice participated in emptying that shit out. There were mushrooms that grew around the outhouse that didn't grow anywhere else in the area, weird puffballs and red caps.

When I was a kid we lived in an old farmhouse (in a suburb oddly enough) that had its city sewer fail one summer and we went back to using the outhouse until the city stopped trying to force us to abandon the well water the house used and finally fixed the stupid thing. after reconnecting, our barn got invaded by absolutely fucking terrifying huge sewer rats. so i say yay outhouse, at least in that situation.

the best outhouses i've used have been either ones way out in the woods/mountains that are maintained by national parks service, or composting toilets maintained by whoever owns the property (or the users themselves, who, fingers crossed, are not disgusting savages)

i am all for just going in the woods, but that isn't always an option in more populated outdoorsy places

We camped at Sly Park recently, and man the outhouses there are about as good as you could ask for. They're those vault toilets? Concrete floor, fibreglass walls, hosed out and sanitized almost daily -- if you're a smart enough camper to read the sign posted outside asking you to put the lid down, you'll never smell even a whiff of poo while your'e there. (Curse the rookies who kept leaving the lid up)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

i am all about outhouses, my favorite is the one at Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture. old copies of Railfan and MRR, a view of the woods on one side and the mountain on the other, and some nice cedar-beershit stench wafting.

http://brian.exodusdesign.com/outhouseA2.jpg

Luna, the ancient crescent shaped figure, was a universal symbol for womankind. A moon, sawed into a privy door, served as the 'Ladies Room' sign of early innkeeping days. Sol, a sunburst pattern, was cut into the men's room side of the outhouse. These symbols were necessary because in Colonial times only a fraction of our population could read or write.

As time passed by and frontiers were pushed further westward, the gentlemen's restrooms fell into disrepair and eventually were abandoned altogether. Accommodations for ladies were better maintained and this is why the moon symbol remains on many outhouse doors today. Its original meaning, however, was lost to the general population sometime in the mid 1800's.

have done this, of course, would be surprised if many of my fellow USians have not.

however, i have never wiped with a corncob.

I also peed in the compost outhouse at Dial House before having realised that you don't do that on a straw toilet. OOps. Well I 3as really hung over, if not still really drunk after having spent New Year's at a friend's place in London.

― Peepoop Patel (harbl), Wednesday, October 28, 2009 11:16 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

oh wow!

Wait so I never figured out if a porta potty (like at a fair or festival) counts.

no, a porta potty / jiffy john is different.

Oh, ok. In that case, no. I have never used an outhouse.

What amazes me is the number of votes. Some polls get about a twentieth the votes as this one did.

When I was a a kid, about 8, I discovered an outhouse in the woods behind an abandoned old house. I found neat old coins in the outhouse, but never used it.

Childhood cottage has dual seat outhouse, National Geographics stacked six feet high inside. I *think* we just wiped with toilet paper, though. Such a strange experience, hearing your pee fall six feet down then hit the ground..

Dual seat used to freak me out. Still does, kinda. I assume they put it in so the kids didn't have to go alone, but who knows.. we were not born when the cottage was built.

IMO, you have not truly faced the darkness inherent in mankind's soul until you have pooped in an outhouse

unless of course you have pooped in a German toilet

despite the subject, this thread is flush with new poll ideas: outhouse v. german toilet

can't quite remember where it was, probably new Hampshire, but I have used a truly sublime outhouse, kinda like tabes described. nice view, breezy, virtually no smells

a vicious rotten old outhouse is a v bad thing, but properly maintained ones (esp composting type) are no different than shitting anywhere else

tempted to start a "places I have taken a shit" tumblr

I expect it will be very short with the last posts being "bus seat" and "jail toilet"

classroom seat

RIP Garu G

IMO, you have not truly faced the darkness inherent in mankind's soul until you have pooped in an outhouse

unless of course you have pooped in a German toilet

― DARING PRINCESS (DJP), Monday, September 10, 2012 9:14 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Seriously. Self toilets are so damn weird. It's just like sitting there staring at you. SO WRONG.

Boston has that neat public toilet from germany taht cleans itself - fire a hose of sudsy water at it!

I had a mini panic attack in one of those in Berlin where I couldn't get the door open and thought I was going to be trapped and sprayed with antiseptic or something. It was not fun.

Are you now traumatized forever? Eine traum tut's mir lied

tempted to start a "places I have taken a shit" tumblr

I expect it will be very short with the last posts being "bus seat" and "jail toilet"

This reminds me of the time I had the brilliant idea of starting a "bathrooms of people I've fucked" tumblr

today's pisser:

http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/rr222/Chass3ur/IMG_0074.jpg

it was revolting, but you're basically pissing/shitting off a cliff for real.

not shown: 8 y/o inside

stevolende, you're right. I always take nature / hike / camp vacations but a lot of places are very modern now and have a porta potty type thing where there might have once been an outhouse and I'm not sure what the difference is now. Either that or just do your business in the woods until you get back to the "visitor's center".

I haven't seen a real outhouse in ages!

This wasn't a modern potty thing it was a pot that had originally contained either pulses or some other food stuff, size of a small bucket.
This was under an incontinence chair that had been designed for either a geriatric home or a care home of another kind.
The pee jug was a normal plastic measuring jug that you pee in and then dispose of either on a hay bail or spread around the surrounding area with a flick of the wrist. Last time i tried that though the plastic handle came off in my hand, then I couldn't find more of the same type of measuring jug when i went shopping later the same day.

Was hoping that there might be a photo of the facilities here
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org/?cat=17
but doesn't look like they have any photo's up despite my having given them loads of the camp on previous visits.

There's also a thing called a rocket toilet that is a bit more comfortable and has pee + poo separated by a funnel you need to aim at.

Last year there were a set of squat toilets that were possibly more outhouse-y though maybe more crossed with german toilets in the squatting aspect. With these you shat through a hole in the floor which wound up in a bag underneath that needed to be emptied regularly