Ever live without indoor plumbing?

Alligatorob

Alligatorob

SF VIP
Location
Northern Utah, transplanted from Florida/Louisiana
Electric service or other modern conveniences?

In my youth (20s) for 3 years I lived in a cabin in Wyoming without indoor plumbing, only an outhouse. It was really cold in winter, but the biggest hazard was from porcupines who seemed to like chewing on the wooden seat. Always wise to use a flashlight at night.

Working for the Forest Service I spent a lot of time living in cabins without electricity, but we did have propane. And appliances and lights that ran on the propane. The cabins also had running water, spring fed. A couple of times I lived in the forest in a tent, no luxuries at all.

All of that was long ago and while fun to talk about now I would not want to go back to it.

I guess one day our children will be telling their grandchildren about the hardships of being without cell phones and color TV.
 

Only when I have gone camping and they actually had those showers you put in the quarters for hot water. The bath houses were also equipped with sinks that had ice cold water to brush teeth and wash hands. The toilets were not flushing toilets just pits that I suppose a sanitation company came and took care of every so often.

Never had that pleasure in my own home. :)
 
Oh yeah, just 4 years ago, in fact. Pitcher pump out front for water. Heating water on wood or gas stoves. Pouring water into the bath tub (the drains worked). Washing laundry outside in big tubs. Sawdust toilet. No shower. Lived that way from 1999 until I left in 2018. I couldn't take it anymore. Not at this age.
 
I have lived with the only convenience being a wood cook stove and a wood heater in winter time, no electricity
or indoor plumbing.This was in the city. It was a time when most every one had already gotten indoor plumbing. Only a few houses did not have indoor plumbing.
It was a time before air conditioning and in the evenings people sat out on their front porches to cool off. When the wind was from a certain direction as it most often was in the summer, from down across the railroad tracks the wind picked up an almost unbearable stench, carrying it across these many porches and open doors filling houses with an aroma of human gas and waste. People knew who the offenders were and it was embarrassing to walk down the
street knowing you were one of the few who had an out house and knowing they also knew. Yes, I remember those times.
 
From age 3 to 8, we had an outhouse, got our water from a well, and had a wood stove.
From age 8 to 12, we still had a wood stove.
It must have been quite a challenge for our mother, cooking on those stoves.
My sisters and I had to chop wood and start a fire in the stove before taking off our winter coats and mitts.
 
Moved into our first house with running water when I was 6. Up until then, had an outdoor toilet. "Thunder bucket" we used at night or if it was storming outside. First three years of school, had outdoor toilets. Closed the country school and began bussing us to town for 4th grade... and those schools had indoor plumbing.

Never remember having toilet paper until we moved into the home with running water. Old catalogs and newspapers to wipe with. The country school had parents send catalogs and newspapers for the boys toilet. Was told the girls outdoor toilet did have real toilet paper.
 
Our first year back Stateside after the war my parents bought a house with no running water so, of course, no indoor plumbing. We did have a chemical toilet to use at night but during the day it was the outhouse.

We had well water dispensed via a pump in the kitchen sink. No central heat, either. We had an oil stove in a corner of the dining room that heated (sort of) the whole house. There were registers in the ceilings of each downstairs room so the heat could rise to the upstairs rooms.

The first summer we were back, my dad dug and dug and dug for what seemed to me to be miles to tie our house into a 4-family septic tank and also to tie us into city water. Once that was done, he installed a real bathroom. No more Saturday night baths in a galvanized tub next to the kitchen stove! We had running water but not hot running water until the next year when he installed a hot water heater. Water for baths and for laundry was heated in a copper boiler on the kitchen stove.

Funny thing...it didn't occur to us that it was a nuisance (hardship?) to go without such conveniences because in Hawaii we took baths and did laundry in a communal bath house/laundry that was shared with maybe 20 or so other families who lived in rows of quonset huts on either side of the bath house. As far as we were concerned, we lived in a house and didn't have to share any facilities!

And a phone? A 12-party line. We didn't bother to listen to anybody else's conversations, though, because the other 11 parties on the line spoke Polish, Finnish or Italian. Probably missed a lot of gossip.
 
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