Have You Lived Without Indoor Plumbing?

Of all time greatest innovations of humankind, I think indoor plumbing ranks up there in the top 5. I can't imagine having to crawl out of bed in the middle of the night, walk outside in the cold, and open the door to a smelly latrine several meters away from your cabin. Then have to walk all the way back.

I actually lived for 2 weeks without running water, one summer in a cabin. Luckily we were close to a lake where we gathered the water to boil and filter it before use. The cabin had an indoor toilet as well (it used to have running water). And we still used it by filling up the back tank with several gallons of lake water to get it to flush properly. To shower we just used a solar heated camping shower that we put in the showering stall in the cabin's restroom.

My mother said she spent most of her early childhood in a home that only had a water pump in the kitchen sink, and that was it. Her family had to heat several pots of water to take baths, no showers. And they had an out house.

 

On 3 separate occasions for about a month while at summer camp.

We lived in tents mounted on platforms and the closest running water was ¼ mile from the center of the main camp. If you wanted a drink of water there were two 5 gallon Steel Jerry Cans



Hotwater

 

Yes, in the cabin in the Minnesota woods with my grandparents.....had to go outside in the cold and dark and hope to not run into any bears while peeing......cleaning oneself was done in the sauna on the lake........water was gotten from the well.......My grandmother had some sort of stove though, that worked with the fire underneath or something, because she made lots of pies there from berries that were picked during the day.........There was a pot belly stove inside for warmth, as the nights were cold even in the summer.....I miss those times.

oh, and farther in the woods from the cabin was an outhouse........for other things...peeing at night..I was just stepping outside, though...lol

 

I was just thinking about the water that we drank from the deep well in the northern woods of Minnesota, and I can honestly say, I have never tasted any water ever that has rivaled that in flavor...........That water was from the gods......as pure as anyone could ever drink.....damn ...I want some of that water now...all the stuff now does not even compare....and it was always so icy cold fresh right from the ground. We used to drink it out of big ladels.

 

Reminds me of When I drank water from a mountain stream in Wales once

 

I used to shit out in the open while camping all the time.

 

Did you use leaves as your toilet paper?

 

We always used Paper Birch - when available




Hotwater

 

This sounds almost exactly like the summer camp I used to go to as a kid. I went every year from age 8 to 16.

 

I've been on extended camping trips but i'm not sure that qualifies.

I dont mind pooping in the woods. I would rather do that than in an outhouse any day.

When I was still living with my mom her well came really close to running dry one summer. We could only shower every couple of days and had to stop up the bath to collect the water to fill the toilet. We also collected rainwater and used that for the toilet as well.

It wasnt that much of a hardship compared to using an outhouse and bringing in buckets of water to heat for a bath. I'm very grateful for indoor plumbing

 

several times.

 

I have never forsook my indoor plumbing but most I know that have had to get the idea approved by a doctor first

 

When I was growing up 14 & 15 years old I lived in Northern Idaho where it gets really cold in the winter. Well, this was at a boarding school called Northwest Academy aka NWA. In the early phases of the program you lived outside in a teepee and had to use a latrine for a restroom. There was no plumbing for those in Phase 1. When you wanted to use the restroom you would walk out of the teepee announce "potty" which was meant to alert the night watch staff that you were going to go to the bathroom, as opposed to someone trying to run away. I believe there were a universal pair of boots outside of the teepee that you would slip into for walking to and from the "potty". It was insane! Very cool place (figuratively and literally).

 

I had a home with an old well where the water would run brown and red, on occasion. We could technically use the water during these times, but I don't think it was wise to do so.

Another house where we were not able to use running water for a few weeks. We showered every few days at a gym or friends house.

 

Paper birch, really? I suppose that could work. But not well.

I think the leaves of a thimbleberry plant are the most ideal. The soft surface can function as good as real tp

 

Why bother wiping? You can be like my pug, Moxy, every time she leaves a dump....She then sits on her butt....back legs stretched up and out and she shimmies herself across the grass and wipes herself pretty well that way with the muscles in her hind quarters propelling her....I call this scootching.

 

In fact, she has had so much practice doing this, that she does it so well now and appears to be just gliding across the grass whenever she scootches now.....Practice makes perfect....as they say.....

 

My house growing up, where my mom still lives actually, had well water and the water always ran red when it rained. The well was shallow, like 30 feet. After the drought I mentioned above my mom had it dug deeper and put in a filter and it doesnt do it anymore.

Even when the water was clear no one but my brother was brave enough to drink it. We always used bottled water

 

My parents bought a piece of land up in the high lands way above the rest of the town when I was a little kid. They planned on building a house up there and had all the blueprints ready. They cancelled the idea and sold the land because the wells had horrible access to water, and we would've had to ration the amount of water we could use. All of the homes up there don't have a grassy lawn for that reason. It was rather saddening because the area was very beautiful and had a great view of the valley.