10 Reasons Outhouses are a Good Idea Part 1

*WARNING- Andrea (and anyone else who has thought I posted something gross before) DO NOT READ THIS POST*

When Peter first entered residency, we bought a little half of a duplex. It was a wonderful home, but did have some flaws. Like the fact that it had only one small bathroom. And the toilet was broken. For almost 2 years. Anyone who visited during this time will gladly attest.

It could only be flushed if a particular amount of water was poured into the bowl at a particular time in the flush cycle, while uttering particular phrases about the fact that my husband hadn’t fixed the toilet yet.

In all fairness he was working 300 hours a week averaging, with residency pay, about 50 cents an hour (causing a lack of both time and money).

This is why I have no guilt about buying our next house with four full bathrooms. And no guilt about leasing this house with 5 bathrooms (4 full, one half and one room with just a tub). That means we are currently in possession of 9 bathrooms. I’m still not sure if that makes up for the 2 years of half a toilet, but it is a start.

But I digress. The point of this post is to tell you why I am done with toilets, not why I seem to collect them. The bathrooms in this house are as follows:

1-Half bath in basement
2-Guest bathroom
3-Jack and Jill Bathroom between boys’ rooms
4-Bathroom connected to girls’ room
5-Room with nothing in it but a huge bathtub
6-Master bathroom

Over the few months we have lived here I have noticed use of certain bathrooms to be dwindling:

1-Half bath in basement

This bathroom is a little creepy; I don’t think any of us have used it.


2-Guest bathroom

Someone flushed an unknown object down the toilet and it no longer flushes without several minutes with a plunger- it only took two weeks of threatening to convince the kids they ought not use this toilet.


3-Jack and Jill Bathroom between boys’ rooms

I think that, like my dishwasher and clothes washer, bathrooms predominately used by males should have a sanitary cycle. I should be able to shut the door and let super hot water wash and sanitize everything. This is the alternative one woman found to the not yet designed sanitary boys’ bathroom cycle.


4-Bathroom connecting to girls’ room

Without getting into details, this bathroom is grosser than the boys’ room. Not the least enhanced by the fact that you have to go through the girls’ less than spotless room to enter their bathroom. Since I think the mess has surpassed the abilities of all but the most seasoned veteran, I am hoping to attack this issue myself next week (if you don’t hear from me you’ll know I was killed by either noxious fumes or rebelling piles of junk, clothes, & garbage).


5-Room with nothing in it but a huge bathtub

This bathroom has no toilet. I think this may not have stopped my 4 year old, though.


6-Master bathroom

The only room left. Due to the fact that I clean the other bathrooms and know what gets done to them, I always exclusively use this bathroom. I have been known to disappear for extended periods. If it weren’t for the fact that I need to have feeling in my legs, it would be longer periods. If you don’t understand you must not have 500 people asking you to do 500 things 500 times a day. It was a sad day when I discovered everyone else was also using this bathroom.

This leads me to my point. Since there are no immediate plans to de-creep the basement, call a plumber, design a sanitary cycle bathroom, or get killed by noxious fumes, I have decided we need to reinstitute the use of outhouses. Once I realized the necessity of this move, I started thinking of all the side benefits.

(This post was originally the first half a post entitled Ten Reasons Outhouses are a Good Idea.  I split it into two for easier linking purposes.  Turns out I have lots of need to link to my ideas about outhouses.  You can read the 2nd half here)