Perils of the outhouse

Warrigal

Warrigal

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Location
Sydney, Australia
In OZ we all know that an outhouse may contains certain hazards.
Redback spiders can be found in toilets that are not regularly used and a quick reccy is advisable before sitting down.
Likewise a look upwards towards the cistern is a good idea in case a snake is curled up above your head.
This, however, is a new one on me. It was seen in a toilet at Broken Hill NSW

Look for bees.JPG

Nup. Count me out. I'm going behind a tree.
 
I always thought outhouses were gone BUT they still around in the thousands. Go to any big outdoor event there are from 5 to 100 scattered all over the event area. It has to be a BIG emergency for me to use one and I have to hold my breath the whole time I'm in there.
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I know only to well the stories and the experiences of using a dunny ( toilet) right down the back yard in Broken Hill DW :eewwk::eewwk:
I will have to get some photos of old and falling down toilets from hubby which he took during our two years of traveling arround our great country ..
DW it's fine at our ages to make sure the areas clear to 'go, behind a "bush" but the hard part is getting up again once you get down :laugh:
 
Where I lived in Bankstown as a child we were unsewered and we had the classic brick outhouse situated in the backyard well away from the house.
It had no light and if necessary you went there carrying a kerosene lamp. It housed three species of spider - redbacks, daddy long legs and huntsman.

We never had to worry about snakes or bees.
 
Here's a typical outback dunny at a tourist attraction town called Silverton just out of Broken Hill , New South Wales
 

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On my first visit to Australia my BIL who has lived in Oz for about 35 years, was driving hubby and me up to Sydney. We stopped at a roadside dunny. I used it but hubby didn't like the smell so went in the woods and bushes behind it. My BIL told him that had been a bad idea because of snakes.
 
The worst part of using the outhouse, was those below freezing trips and having to shovel a pathway to get there. When we purchase the homestead from my great grandfather, it did not have indoor plumbing. It also served as a sanctuary to me when the mean Billy goat got loose and I was cut off from the house. I would yell my head off until my grandpa came out and put Buttons back in his pen.
 
Remember the old outhouse in the Bankstown area from a great many years ago.

Braved it one night with the kero lamp in hand.

Had just sat down to do what came naturally and heard a gravelly voice say "hello sweetheart"!

I beat Usain Bolt back up the path into the house.

My Mum investigated and found that the Major Mitchell cockatoo had finally found his voice!

I also remember visiting Silverton, outside Broken Hill, also a great many years ago, way before it became a visitor spot.

We camped near a graveyard, because it was the only place that had any water - no toilets available, so we needed to dig a hole.
 
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:lofl:

My great aunts had an old sulphur crested that they used to give a bath to on a regular basis.
The old devil was always escaping from his cage but on bath days he would refuse to come out.

One morning before sunup the great aunts heard a woman shriek in front of their house.
It was Anzac Day and the poor woman was on her way to the dawn service
when a creepy voice from behind the hedge was heard to say "Have you had your bath yet?"
 
My grandparents had a very old galah ..his cage was between the house and the laundry .. Anyway the Catholic priest would visit unannounced, Old cockey would hear the front gate which was an old wood and iron gate He seemed to recognise the footsteps of the priest walking down the side of the house ( you would never go to the front door of anyone's home in BH)
Anyway the galah would shriek out "P" Off not you again .......Think grandparents would say that as gran had a drinking/ poker machine problem wasting money out of their fort nightly social security as it was called back then ( Centrelink now) In place of buying food, and the old father used visit her about the problem .. Poor ole cocky as we called him always used his water tin which was an old camp pie tin :yuk::yuk: as a hat when at night putting the empty tin on his head ....He passed away shortly after both G/P passed within 9 months of each other .
 
It's not only outdoor johns that may contain hazards.

It was on the news a couple years back that a woman sat on the pot in her house to do her business and she felt something nudge her butt, she stood up and looked down and there was a boas head in the bowl.

She called the police who in turn called a plumbing company, with a pipe camera, and after a considerable amount of time and money they were able to locate and remove the snake from the plumbing.......they figured it was an escaped pet that had entered her plumbing from her back yard through a clean out that was left uncovered.

No joke.......to this day I ALWAYS, ALWAYS look before I sit.
 
When we were traveling in 2004-2006 with our caravan we had the watch for snakes and frogs in tropical areas of Aust.
We seen this sign in a caravan park amenities block .....

Switch Off light after use......BECAUSE

Lights attract bugs....
Bugs attract frogs...
Frogs attract Snakes ..

SO IF YOU DONT WANT Them in here Turn off the "B....y" Light
 
I love galahs. They are not only pretty but they are also clowns of the bird world. They make me laugh whenever I see a flock of them down on a lawn.
 
Kadee46 said:
When we were traveling in 2004-2006 with our caravan we had the watch for snakes and frogs in tropical areas of Aust.
We seen this sign in a caravan park amenities block .....

Switch Off light after use......BECAUSE

Lights attract bugs....
Bugs attract frogs...
Frogs attract Snakes ..

SO IF YOU DONT WANT Them in here Turn off the "B....y" Light
Click to expand...

Yes, I remember well the large green frogs that were found in the toilet bowls in the Northern Territory. They could be seen wedged under the lip where the water flushes. It seemed terribly impolite to pee in their home pond.

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Snakes do come for the frogs. Not all are as small as this one.

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We moved into our first home with running water in 1951. Up until then, we had only an outdoor toilet and a "thunder bucket". The "thunder bucket" was used at night or during storms when we chose not to walk from the house to the outdoor toilet. My first three years of elementary school we had outdoor toilets. The girls was at one end of the playground and the boys at the other. Of course, at the country school, we had a water bucket just inside the door and a dipper that hung on the wall. Everyone drank from the same dipper. Today, the local health department would go nuts if they found a school operating this way.
 
Outhouses are a luxury compared to pit toilets. You just have to squat, no seat. But most don't smell as the holes are very very deep. Only smells if someone misses. :playful:
 
Country toilets where water is scarce used to be pit toilets but they always had four walls and a throne above the pit to sit on.
One of my aunts had one and everything was fine until the rooster fell in.
 
In Uganda pit toilets have no seats. My biggest worry when going there to live was that our house would have a pit toilet. But to my huge relief it had a pit toilet outside but a flushing toilet inside.
 
Warrigal said:
Country toilets where water is scarce used to be pit toilets but they always had four walls and a throne above the pit to sit on.
One of my aunts had one and everything was fine until the rooster fell in.
Click to expand...

:lofl: DW ..about the rooster , I showed your post to hubby ..
 
As a westerner I've always thought it amusing but I know it's a cultural thing as many other Muslim and non Muslim countries have them, for some reason Indonesia comes to mind because I've worked and seen them there.

Anyway, Gaddafi spent several million to build a new airport in Tripoli in 77, 78 and 79 while I was in country and it was a showplace with marble pillars and floors throughout......absolutely beautiful.

Working there as a civilian I was stationed a long way from Tripoli, closer to the Egyptian and later the Chad border, while the airport was being built and never got to see it till I left country and what impressed me in a negative way were the new bathrooms.

There were stalls with western style sit down toilets, with toilet paper, but there were also squat over toilet stalls (we referred to them as bombardiers) which were two foot pads next to a hole in the floor with no toilet paper but they had a rubber hose with a shower head on them and a bucket of water.....those stalls were filthy, gross and just plain nasty while the western stalls were clean.
 
Ma was in the kitchen fiddling around when she hollers out.... "Pa! You need to go out and fix the outhouse!"
​
Pa replies, "There ain't nuthin wrong with the outhouse." ​
Ma yells back, "Yes there is, now git out there and fix it." ​
So......Pa mosies out to the outhouse, looks around and yells back, "Ma! There ain't nuthin wrong with the outhouse!"​
Ma replies, "Stick yur head in the hole!" ​
Pa yells back, "I ain't stickin my head in that hole!" ​

Ma says, "Ya have to stick yur head in the hole to see what to fix." ​
So with that, Pa sticks his head in the hole, looks around and yells back, "Ma! There ain't nuthin wrong with this outhouse!" ​
Ma hollers back, "Now take your head out of the hole!" ​
Pa proceeds to pull his head out of the hole, then starts yelling, "Ma! Help! My beard is stuck in the cracks in the toilet seat!" ​
To which Ma replies, "Hurt's, don't it ?!"​
 
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