S/O have you ever lived with no indoor plumbing?

[Scarlett]

Thanks everyone for sharing your very interesting experiences. 

[QueenCat]

I've always had indoor plumbing. I do remember using outhouses at summer camp. 

[DawnM]

Where I grew up we only had about 6 hours of electricity per day IF the generator worked.   By the time I graduated from high school, there was a hydro-electric plant and we were spoiled with 24 hour electricity! 🤣   We did have running water, but the water had to be boiled for 20 min. to make it potable and it was usually dark brown coming out of the faucet.   We had rainwater barrels for drinking and washing clothing, etc.....

This was NOT in the US.

My mother grew up in South Carolina and didn't have electricity or running water until she was well into her teens.   She said she hated having to go out and use the outhouse in the middle of the night.   It scared her, and her family and those around her would tell horrible ghost stories about the woods at night that terrified her as well.

[Hen]

I haven't, but my father grew up without indoor plumbing and had an outhouse. This was in Orange County, Ca.  His house was actually condemned while they lived in it.  He went a street over to his aunts house once a week to take a bath. 

[katilac]

17 hours ago, athena1277 said:

I have seen several of these on TV.  Having always lived in the SE US, it blows my mind.  I get that an outhouse is doable in the summer, but with the extremely cold winters, how do you manage?  When it’s well below zero and you have to bare your bottom for a few minutes, how do you not freeze?  Is there something I’m missing about how people manage it?

Some people will use chamberpots, and then empty the chamberpot with booty safely covered. 

[Grace Hopper]

I have, but only for short times like when camping or when the plumbing is down for repairs. 
 

I wouldn’t voluntarily go without, especially in a colder climate. But if it were a no-choice situation, I could adapt. 

[Farrar]

My dad mismanaged our finances and we ended up with an unfinished home and effectively homeless for almost a year when I was a kid. We spent several months of that in a camper next to the unfinished home before winter set in and my mother found us a summer home to basically camp out in with the permission of the owners. The time in the camper involved not really having running water, not properly. We used to go down to the lake to bathe.

It was pretty bad. The whole experience (the finances, the building a home that was never finished, the homelessness) ended my parents' marriage. The lack of running water wasn't great. I don't remember that aspect super well, but I know my mother found it really hard. But she also found the space constraints and the whole situation very hard.

[Loowit]

I was thinking more about this question last night and remembered that when I was a kid we did have to live without running water for a while in our home.  After Mt St Helens erupted the water source for our town was completely destroyed by the mudflows and it took a while for new lines to be run from another source.  I can't remember how long it took because I was really young at the time, just finishing first grade.  For a time we were evacuated and lived in a trailer in my grandparents driveway and used their house with running water during the day, but when we moved home we still had no running water in our house.

The sewer system must have still be usable because we could still use the toilets, we just had to fill the tank with water before we flushed them.  I know we used containers to get well water from my other grandparents house who lived near us for drinking.  I can't remember what we did for bath water or washing dishes/clothes, but my mom and dad were pretty resourceful.

[J-rap]

I'm maybe weirdly not horrified by the thought that ‘college graduates’ would have to deal with no indoor plumbing for a time.  I'd be surprised, but not horrified.  Things happen.   I have less faith in outside/worldly events than I do in human spirit and determination. 

[Lady Florida.]

5 hours ago, Grace Hopper said:

I have, but only for short times like when camping or when the plumbing is down for repairs. 

I have in those situations too. Dh and I used to do primitive camping when we were younger and I've dealt with the house plumbing needing repairs. Actually lived without indoor plumbing under normal circumstances? No, never. 

 

[Grace Hopper]

On 10/15/2022 at 7:10 PM, Scarlett said:

This topic has bugged the heck out of me all day. All of you who are horrified by the thought that ‘college graduates’ would have to deal with no indoor plumbing……have you any idea of what that actually means?

Generally, in the best of circumstances it means you have an  outhouse a good distance from the home. That is not that big of a deal.  You would be surprised how easy it is to get used to that.  The worst part is middle of the night…..in my old age (57) where I have to go at least once in the night…yes it would be unpleasant. But hardly the end of the world.   
 

Hauling water from a well for cooking,,cleaning,  and bathing is much more difficult. But you get a system and you deal with it.  
 

My mom was 30 or 31 when the rent house we lived in started having the sewer back up into the house and the landlord refused to fix it.  Trust me that was much grosser than going to an outhouse.  That landlord later sold that property to a bank so I feel sure that whole thing was a set up and I wish like heck he could be held accountable for how he treated a young single mom…..but I digress.  Her only option was a little house in the middle of big cow pasture with a chain link fence around the house.  It was 4 rooms. Kitchen, living, 2 bedrooms. I remember she bought paint and we painted all the rooms.it was very clean. There was a well where we drew water for all our needs.  There was an outhouse. It was very nice compared to the crap hole we had left with ‘indoor plumbing’.  We lived there from June to December. Mom had taken a course of some kind that landed her an office job in the next town over and we moved to better accommodations. 
 

I have never forgotten that place.  We refer to it as the ‘little house on the prairie’.

If a place is set up for no indoor plumbing it is not horrible.  A home in a city or town where there is no well or outhouse….yes that is a big problem.

But seriously…..any of you ever live in a home with no plumbing?

You’ve reminded me of a few things from my childhood. Once we were invited to our neighbor friends’ country cabin. It had an outhouse. It was… rustic  😂 

My mother grew up on a farm and she and her siblings often talked about the outhouse. I remember one of the houses my maternal grandparents lived in, you had to go out on the screened back porch to get to the bathroom. It was a plumbed indoor bathroom, but defies later addition to the house.
 

My paternal grandmother was a city girl moved to the country, and while her country house had an indoor bathroom, she had grown up with a chamber pot kept in her bedroom - that’s what people used to avoid going to the outhouse at night. 
 

By the way, in my previous response, I mentioned I could adapt if I had to. That was said as a parent of grown children. With little kids, no plumbing would probably push me over the brink. 

[Farrar]

By the time I saw the other thread, it had moved way beyond, but count me both as someone who lived in circumstances as close to that as you could get as a child who is also in the "this is not okay" camp. I don't know if horrified in the right word, but I'm certainly dismayed and appalled that this is the choice people are stuck with. Obviously some people choose that lifestyle for a variety of reasons and if you're actively making the choice to trade one amenity for another then that's one thing - comfort for adventure or wilderness or whatever is an active choice some people make. But a forced choice - plumbing for rent affordability or plumbing for a realistic commute - is two choosing between bad options. That's a forced choice, not an active, I want to go live in the wilderness choice. So yeah, I think it's terrible and not a good lifestyle. And, honestly, I'm also a bit offended that college played any role in the discussion. Who cares what your education level is.

[Bambam]

I've always lived with indoor plumbing. I have used outhouse type facilities at state parks and portapotties at events. When we were very young and stayed at my grand parent's house, there was only one bathroom, so when the kids slept upstairs, no bathroom, they put a portable toilet thing (box with a nice toilet seat with a bucket under it - maybe this is a chamber pot?) upstairs so the kids didn't have to go downstairs in the middle of the night if they needed to use the restroom. 

I did have one relative who had a sign in the bathroom to not flush toilet paper but to throw it in the trash can. They were having issues with their septic system (rural). That was ... traumatic. We tried not to use their restroom. 

I would prefer never to live anywhere without an indoor bathroom. I don't even like camping where you have to use the campground bathroom. 

[73349]

Nope, even my parents and ILs (all born in the 1950s) always had indoor plumbing. Not all of my grandparents grew up with it, though--one sometimes lived in structures that were not built as housing at all.

[fraidycat]

I have always had indoor plumbing. However, my grandparents whom we lived in the same farmyard with, did not have an indoor bathroom until 1980. They did have a kitchen sink with running water, though I can't recall if there was a water heater or if water was heated manually. Their "toilet" was a 5 gallon slop pail set under a wooden bench that had to be carried out and emptied daily. I remember using that as a young kid.

There was a water well, but it had gone dry so we hauled water from another farm a couple miles away or from town, so we did have to ration water carefully. Only flushing every few uses or after a bowel movement, making sure you had a big load of laundry and not doing just a couple items, etc. Sometime in the later 80's or early 90's a new dugout was dug and we had access to "unlimited" water, but it was pretty nasty smelling and various shades of yellow - brown throughout the seasons, even with a treatment system that had to be manually administered (chlorine tablets, etc). We still hauled drinking water.

It was only within the past 12-15 years that my parents were able to afford to hook into the municipal treated water supply lines. It is such a treat to be able to wash whites and light colored clothes and have them be the color they are supposed to be instead of yellow/brown and shower or bathe without the whole house smelling like... whatever.

I appreciate clean running water and flushable toilets.

Both of my parents grew up poor, with outhouses and using newspaper to wipe. My mom is only 65.

Edited October 17, 2022 by fraidycat

[Spryte]

I’ve always lived with indoor plumbing, too. I’ve made choices to go without, for recreation and work, but always as a choice, and with plumbing waiting at the end of any trip.

As a kid, we camped with access to indoor plumbing, in campgrounds. That was no big deal. And it’s a choice. There was running water close by.

My uncles and aunts later became thru hikers, and they made choices to go without indoor plumbing on the whole for months at a time. That was not out of need, but part of fulfilling a lifelong dream. I’d call it privilege, rather than a hardship.

As an adult, I made the choice to backpack and primitive camp. I collected mountain ranges like some people collect souvenirs. I spent years of my life that way, off grid for weeks/months or at least weekly, and even went into a field that required backcountry camping. There’s a huge difference between a campground with access to showers and toilets, and no access to pluming at all. I also spent a lot of time sleeping in hogans, with access to an outhouse but no running water at all, and that was semi-luxury, at the time. However, there was always a house or apartment as a home base, and I knew that there was laundry and a hot shower waiting. 

I also have a cousin who lived in a trailer while building her mountain home. She did have water, though, but again, she chose it — living off grid was her choice, and kind of a privilege not really a hardship.

There are so many degrees of living without plumbing, but I think access to indoor plumbing is pretty important, in general. Hygiene, health, I could go on and on. Anyone who’s had giardia might agree, ha! No fun.
 

 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Spryte

[Faith-manor]

My mom and dad both spent a significant portion of their childhood's without indoor plumbing. I did not. Mark and I have done dispersed, rustic camping by choice in National Forests, but again, by choice for a specific reason. That reason is to get away from any WiFi source, off grid, so that his work colleagues cannot bother him because it is the only way for him to have a true vacation. His work colleagues have exactly ZERO sense of boundaries, and are the type who would meet him in the recovery room after surgery to shake him awake to solve their problems for them. That is only a small exaggeration. When he had hand surgery and had to be under full general, his own manager wanted to know what the earliest he would be awake and able to take phone calls. So it is the only real mental break from work. I love being in nature, and enjoy camping. BUT, I would not choose to spend a week or ten days where I have no access to a bathroom and shower facility if I could possibly help it. The dispersed camping is no picnic for me, and is in fact, a bit stressful though for his sake, I do not let on. When we state park camp or go anywhere with a hotel, if he has signal, he is required to answer the phone and if there is a problem he can solve, log into work. His boss does not believe in work/life balance.

I do not want to aim for a world in which people work themselves do death all for the hard life of living in a camper for years, hauling and heating water, perpetually freezing in the winter, and fighting heat stroke in the summer. This is NOT something that should be considered okay in 2022. In that respect, I could easily get rid of this concept of countries and sovereignty and economies and political nonsense in favor of Star Trek's United Federation of Planets with civil rights and health care, housing, and water and food for all.

[SKL]

An in-law of mine was raised (along with many siblings) in a "shack" (the family's term) with no running water nor electricity.  Her mom lived there that way until she was quite elderly.  It was out in the boonies.

I never asked for details about how they showered / groomed themselves sufficiently to attend school, but I know they did, because i went to school with some of them.

Personally I've only had very short stints without running water, such as when pipes froze or when we were primitive camping or traveling.  Not what the OP is talking about.  I don't love the idea of relying on a well and an outhouse, but it wouldn't kill me.

[skimomma]

I have never lived without indoor plumbing.  But we have very close friends that own a "camp" with no indoor plumbing.  We spend a couple of weeks at a time there, year round.  The owners *did* live in it for a year before they had kids and more recently lived in it for 1-2 months at a time due to home renovations.  You get used to the outhouse but they do have an indoor chamber pot that they will use (for #1 only) in the worst weather and when their elderly parents are staying there.  In an effort to be a good guest one winter visit, I had to shovel the snow on the way to the outhouse in the middle of the night.  That was quite a vision....me in my PJs and winter coat, with a head lamp on, shoveling a path though three feet of snow!

Bathing is not a problem.  Jump in the lake in the summer or take a bucket bath in the wood-fired sauna in the winter.  We always keep a metal bucket of water on top of the woodstove in winter for hand washing.  Cold water is fine in winter.  The biggest pain is that there is no potable water available on site.  We do use lake water for dishes and bathing, but must drive to the community center to fill up jugs for cooking and drinking.  It all takes more work, but our friends report that they got used to it when living there.  

We all lived like that before modern plumbing was common.  I personally will always choose to live in a place with indoor plumbing but if push came to shove, I would manage just fine.  

[vonfirmath]

I have not but my sister did with an infant and a toddler. They purchased a mobile home that "needed work" And found a place to park it. But they could not hook it up to water until they did some major renovations.  So they lived in it, blocking off rooms, for about 9 months while her husband worked on it after work.

[Corraleno]

I think my comment about two adults "with college degrees" having to live without an indoor toilet to save money was misinterpreted. I certainly wasn't implying that people without college degrees don't deserve indoor plumbing — quite the opposite. I was commenting on the fact that in decades past, blue collar and even minimum wage workers could afford a basic starter home, but now we tell workers who complain about low wages that if they want a better standard of living they should go back to school to get the skills they need for a better job. And yet we're now at the point where young adults who did everything they were told — and who often went into significant debt to get the college degree they were promised was the key to unlocking the standard of living that their parents and grandparents enjoyed without a degree — have discovered they can barely afford rent, let alone save up enough to buy a simple starter home. Gen Z got conned — no one told them that the fine print on the go-to-college-&-get-a-good-job deal was "get a degree that you will likely spend several decades of your life paying off so that you can camp out without basic amenities for two years in order to save enough money to reach the bottom rung of a property ladder that many of your parents and grandparents easily ascended with less education and little to no debt." 

All three of my Boomer siblings were able to buy homes in their 20s on a single blue-collar income. My auto mechanic brother bought a cheap fixer-upper for cash. My sister was able to buy a small house as a single woman with a basic office job, then she married a construction worker and they fixed up the house, sold it, and bought a 5 BR home in a cheaper area with a large down payment and a small mortgage, which has long since been paid off. My other brother, who was a garbage collector for a while and then worked on a commercial fishing boat, bought a small 2 BR house at the age 21 and lived in that until he got married, then they bought a nice 4 BR house and kept the smaller one as a rental. He's 62, with two paid off houses and around $2200/mo in rental income.  A small 2 BR starter home in his neighborhood, like the one he bought at 21 for less than $30K while working on a garbage truck, is now around $300K.

My kids will likely never be able to afford a home in the area where I live now. The cheapest house I can find with no HOA is an 840 sq' 2 BR 1 BA house on a busy street in a town further out with a longer commute — exactly what most people think of as a basic entry-level starter home. It's $390K!  That's a $40K downpayment (assuming they could get a loan with only 10% down) plus $2600/mo — that's basically the entire take-home pay of someone earning around $20/hr. Based on the 30%-of-gross-income-on-housing rule of thumb, it would require two working adults with a combined salary of over 100K/yr to own that tiny 840 sq' house. And how do you even save $40K for a downpayment when a 350 sq' studio apartment with a mini fridge and a hotplate is $1000/month??? Then add in college loan payments. These kids are totally screwed and they have every right to be angry and disillusioned.

[Indigo Blue]

I have never lived without indoor plumbing or running water. My husband’s family grew up without air conditioning in the South, but they had running water and electricity. I can’t imagine how hard that must be. I do try to have awareness, and I do try not to take things for granted. 

[Murphy101]

My grandma didn’t have indoor plumbing until I was in middle school.

My parents grew up literally dirt floors poor.

I don’t know what this is spinning off of and haven’t read the thread(s).  But my level of horror about living in squalor has nothing to do with whether they have degrees or not.  Living in squalid poverty to the point you don’t have plumbing is a far cry from having the luxury of CHOOSING to live that way. 

[Faith-manor]

1 hour ago, Corraleno said:

I think my comment about two adults "with college degrees" having to live without an indoor toilet to save money was misinterpreted. I certainly wasn't implying that people without college degrees don't deserve indoor plumbing — quite the opposite. I was commenting on the fact that in decades past, blue collar and even minimum wage workers could afford a basic starter home, but now we tell workers who complain about low wages that if they want a better standard of living they should go back to school to get the skills they need for a better job. And yet we're now at the point where young adults who did everything they were told — and who often went into significant debt to get the college degree they were promised was the key to unlocking the standard of living that their parents and grandparents enjoyed without a degree — have discovered they can barely afford rent, let alone save up enough to buy a simple starter home. Gen Z got conned — no one told them that the fine print on the go-to-college-&-get-a-good-job deal was "get a degree that you will likely spend several decades of your life paying off so that you can camp out without basic amenities for two years in order to save enough money to reach the bottom rung of a property ladder that many of your parents and grandparents easily ascended with less education and little to no debt." 

All three of my Boomer siblings were able to buy homes in their 20s on a single blue-collar income. My auto mechanic brother bought a cheap fixer-upper for cash. My sister was able to buy a small house as a single woman with a basic office job, then she married a construction worker and they fixed up the house, sold it, and bought a 5 BR home in a cheaper area with a large down payment and a small mortgage, which has long since been paid off. My other brother, who was a garbage collector for a while and then worked on a commercial fishing boat, bought a small 2 BR house at the age 21 and lived in that until he got married, then they bought a nice 4 BR house and kept the smaller one as a rental. He's 62, with two paid off houses and around $2200/mo in rental income.  A small 2 BR starter home in his neighborhood, like the one he bought at 21 for less than $30K while working on a garbage truck, is now around $300K.

My kids will likely never be able to afford a home in the area where I live now. The cheapest house I can find with no HOA is an 840 sq' 2 BR 1 BA house on a busy street in a town further out with a longer commute — exactly what most people think of as a basic entry-level starter home. It's $390K!  That's a $40K downpayment (assuming they could get a loan with only 10% down) plus $2600/mo — that's basically the entire take-home pay of someone earning around $20/hr. Based on the 30%-of-gross-income-on-housing rule of thumb, it would require two working adults with a combined salary of over 100K/yr to own that tiny 840 sq' house. And how do you even save $40K for a downpayment when a 350 sq' studio apartment with a mini fridge and a hotplate is $1000/month??? Then add in college loan payments. These kids are totally screwed and they have every right to be angry and disillusioned.

Q.F.T.!!!

 

[Scarlett]

47 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

My grandma didn’t have indoor plumbing until I was in middle school.

My parents grew up literally dirt floors poor.

I don’t know what this is spinning off of and haven’t read the thread(s).  But my level of horror about living in squalor has nothing to do with whether they have degrees or not.  Living in squalid poverty to the point you don’t have plumbing is a far cry from having the luxury of CHOOSING to live that way. 

I keep coming at it from two points of view…..one yes it is terrible  young people can’t afford a basic starter home even when they do everything ‘right’ .  But also a home that is set up with no indoor plumbing is not the end of the world. Of course it would have to be rural …..you can’t have apartments with no utilities.  

[Murphy101]

2 minutes ago, Scarlett said:

I keep coming at it from two points of view…..one yes it is terrible  young people can’t afford a basic starter home even when they do everything ‘right’ .  But also a home that is set up with no indoor plumbing is not the end of the world. Of course it would have to be rural …..you can’t have apartments with no utilities.  

It’s not the end of the world for everyone, but it’s a good indicator that the end is nigh for most of those living there.

There’s a LOT of ill health that comes with not having plumbing.  It’s not happenstance that longitivtiy grew along the same paths of plumbing and electricity. By exponents for females.

I really don’t care if people can afford a starter home. Not everyone will even want one.  But people do need affordable housing of some kind for all stages of life and family situations.

[teachermom2834]

I’m quick to tell kids they have to scrimp while they are young and they can’t expect their parents standard of living in their twenties, etc. I’m nearly 50 and I don’t care much about ever having the latest greatest anything.

But I’m not okay with any of my kids going without indoor plumbing. I had no idea that made me fancy or that I had high standards: If you’d seen some of the places I’ve lived contentedly you would not think I was spoiled. But it blows my mind that anyone thinks that going without indoor plumbing is not a biggie. Like I never even considered this was something people would consider not a huge deal or just a rough patch. 
 

I’m constantly considering something new. This is definitely new to me that so many people are even relatively open to the idea and that so many people in this thread lived this scenario. I lived getting the electricity cut for non-payment. But we did have a toilet. 

Edited October 18, 2022 by teachermom2834

[rebcoola]

1 hour ago, Murphy101 said:

It’s not the end of the world for everyone, but it’s a good indicator that the end is nigh for most of those living there.

There’s a LOT of ill health that comes with not having plumbing.  It’s not happenstance that longitivtiy grew along the same paths of plumbing and electricity. By exponents for females.

I really don’t care if people can afford a starter home. Not everyone will even want one.  But people do need affordable housing of some kind for all stages of life and family situations.

Just having a place to live is hard to find here.  A "starter" home is around 300,000 now.  The rental marker is stuffed to the gills. There has been a ton of building but it's not happening as fast as the population is growing.

[Melissa in Australia]

I think this is where people are talking parallel to each other. I don't consider living in a caravan right beside a house that has plumbing as living without plumbing. Living in a caravan beside a house is basically living in a bedroom and kitchen beside a house and having full access to a flushing toilet. Possably the toilet would be closer than the toilets in university accommodation. They always seem way way at the end of some hallway. 

 

Way way different than living in a caravan in the middle if nowhere with no access to anything

[kokotg]

This is an interesting conversation. No, I've never lived without indoor plumbing. We certainly didn't have a lot of money when I was young; my Dad and grandfather built the house I grew up in themselves and the area was rural enough at the time that we couldn't get city water. But we had a well...with pipes that brought water into the house. 

My quick googling tells me that there are about a million people in the US without "connection to piped water" and about 34 million who are food insecure. So that's--what? more than 99.5% of Americans who have running water but about 10% lack consistent access to enough food. I don't think lack of indoor plumbing is a useful proxy for poverty in the US. Like...you're not doing okay as long as you have indoor plumbing. Not that anyone's arguing that, I don't think...just sort of thinking aloud (or, you know, silently typing whatever stuff comes into my head).

[lewelma]

28 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:

I think this is where people are talking parallel to each other. I don't consider living in a caravan right beside a house that has plumbing as living without plumbing. Living in a caravan beside a house is basically living in a bedroom and kitchen beside a house and having full access to a flushing toilet. 

Completely agree. In both of these threads I have only said that having access *at a distance* is no big deal. I see this as having access rather than living without plumbing.

[Scarlett]

I agree we are talking past each other.   I dont think lack of indoor plumbing is ‘no big deal’.  But I have lived in horrific housing situations and the lack of plumbing was definitely the least of the horrors.  

[73349]

Access is definitely different from no access; but also, access down a perpetually lit hall you can traverse in socks (such as a dorm) is a bit different from access via the outdoors in all weather when the house is kept locked (as houses are everywhere I've lived, east coast US).

[Clemsondana]

This thread came to mind when I woke up for the 3rd time in 2 months to a water main break and therefore no water.  We've lived here 10 years and have had more trouble with water than electricity.  There has been a lot of new home building in our area, and the old infrastructure was probably in need of repair or replacement before all of this new demand.  It's definitely not a 'living without water' situation, but it does highlight the difference between the 2 situations that people are describing.  Having no water at all is very different from having a nearby set of facilities, be it a family house next door or the showerhouse at a campground.  It would be inconvenient, and might not be the trade-off that everybody would make, but it's a different situation than living in a house without functional plumbing.  

And, I live in an area in which prices went bonkers when people moved to the area during Covid.  Prices are starting to go back down, but there are still weird things.  I was looking on zillow and there are several large plots of land that were bought by investors who are now trying to sell them.  I'm guessing that they bought them sight unseen and for some reason thought that they would be easily able to sell for 5 times what they paid, without realizing that those 5 acres aren't worth as much because they are all up a ridge and not easy to build on.  I felt a lot snarky when I saw that a price had been cut by a small amount and the seller was 'motivated'...but still asking for 5 times what they paid for it.  

[Faith-manor]

47 minutes ago, 73349 said:

Access is definitely different from no access; but also, access down a perpetually lit hall you can traverse in socks (such as a dorm) is a bit different from access via the outdoors in all weather when the house is kept locked (as houses are everywhere I've lived, east coast US).

Right. Access at a distance is all dependent on climate and weather. In the U.P. of Michigan in the winter, temps are routinely -17C (0F) and below with wind chills ranging from -10 to -20 or -23 to -28C, and 6-8ft of snow, 1.83-2.44 meters on average that must be treked through, and along Lake Superior, the snowfall totals.are far worse..Hypothermia is a very routine thing for people.who go out at night, and it happens quite rapidly if proper gear is not worn. In a camper without insulated indoor plumbing, strong heat source, and a lot of insulation in general, even having a jug of water for washing hands would be quite difficult because the water would freeze very solid. In the "good ole days" up there, people used chamber pots and the urine would freeze solid. No one washed their hands after using said chamber pot. Hygiene was an issue. Native Americans had medicinal plants that they rubbed their hands with after using chamber pot systems. They therefore had fewer diseases related to hygiene.

So for people living in Northern climates, lack of indoor plumbing during the winter really would be an indication of serious societal collapse if it became more than the occasional person choosing it as a lifestyle whereas it might not be seen quite so horrible in better climate conditions. Unfortunately, due to the number of folks trying to actually live as dispersed campers due to an inability to afford housing, in my state it is a very real indication of something along the lines of another Great Depression being around the corner if our nation does not get its act together. Some communities are trying to tackle it as best they can without state or federal support which is not the best way to address thie, but at least they are making an effort.

In my father's out house days, his mother refused to have chamber pots. They braved the elements. In the heated lean to at the back door, she kept a pail of water and a container of hydrogen peroxide beside it so everyone could disinfect their hands before entering the main part of the house.

[Scarlett]

33 minutes ago, Clemsondana said:

This thread came to mind when I woke up for the 3rd time in 2 months to a water main break and therefore no water.  We've lived here 10 years and have had more trouble with water than electricity.  There has been a lot of new home building in our area, and the old infrastructure was probably in need of repair or replacement before all of this new demand.  It's definitely not a 'living without water' situation, but it does highlight the difference between the 2 situations that people are describing.  Having no water at all is very different from having a nearby set of facilities, be it a family house next door or the showerhouse at a campground.  It would be inconvenient, and might not be the trade-off that everybody would make, but it's a different situation than living in a house without functional plumbing.  

I think people keep missing my point about having water available in a well outside. A water main break is literally no water. But if your home was set up with no indoor plumbing, he would have a well nearby where you would draw your own water. Or if you were fancy you would have a hand pump. Definitely no water on the premises where you live is a huge problem. 

[Clemsondana]

13 minutes ago, Scarlett said:

I think people keep missing my point about having water available in a well outside. A water main break is literally no water. But if your home was set up with no indoor plumbing, he would have a well nearby where you would draw your own water. Or if you were fancy you would have a hand pump. Definitely no water on the premises where you live is a huge problem. 

I agree.  People in our location are struggling today because they have no water.  Having to go pump water, or use a showerhouse, would be annoying but preferable to our current set-up.  As it is, many functions have ground to a halt because there is no water other than bottled water.  

[Jean in Newcastle]

44 minutes ago, Scarlett said:

I think people keep missing my point about having water available in a well outside. A water main break is literally no water. But if your home was set up with no indoor plumbing, he would have a well nearby where you would draw your own water. Or if you were fancy you would have a hand pump. Definitely no water on the premises where you live is a huge problem. 

And you're missing the point that sometimes there is no well outside.  We certainly didn't have a well.  There was a creek - a creek that lifestock would poop and pee in upstream. 

[Scarlett]

23 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

And you're missing the point that sometimes there is no well outside.  We certainly didn't have a well.  There was a creek - a creek that lifestock would poop and pee in upstream. 

Right. I do understand.  But that wasn’t my original,question.  Anyway, it has been interesting reading.

[Scarlett]

50 minutes ago, Clemsondana said:

I agree.  People in our location are struggling today because they have no water.  Having to go pump water, or use a showerhouse, would be annoying but preferable to our current set-up.  As it is, many functions have ground to a halt because there is no water other than bottled water.  

Exactly.  I Remember when the shop where I worked had no working toilet (septic system needed cleaned out and we had to wait for 1 day for the service to arrive). All I could think about was how long it was going to be before I had to go to the bathroom and how I was going to have to drive up the street to the convenience store.  

[Amy in NH]

Our supply pipe between our well - on the other side of the state highway - and our house froze during a very cold winter a few years ago, and we had no running water for three months until it thawed.  Luckily the well head has a constantly running overflow, and dh filled five 5-gallon buckets across the road every night for flushing toilets during the day.  We had a camping water jug with spigot for the kitchen, and went into town for the laundromat and to take showers at a fitness center which we afforded due to a gift certificate we had acquired.  It was certainly inconvenient.  We refinanced our house over the winter to include construction repairs and had a new well drilled in the spring.  We thoroughly insulated the well supply pipes and also upgraded the water systems in our basement.

[lewelma]

We had no water in our cabin in the ecovillage, but we did have a composting toilet inside. The main house was about a 10 minute walk away (1/2 mile), but we did have a hose where we could get water that was about 100meters away. In the winter it would freeze, but typically thaw for a few hours each day in the sun. So we would plan when we would fill our buckets with water to bring into the cabin. Inside the cabin would also freeze at night, but the buckets would only have a skiff of ice on them, they did not freeze solid. We would heat the water for washing dishes and bodies/hands. And at night we would preheat some water and put it in an insulated thermos so we could always wash our hands.  We used bottled water for drinking and had to carry it from the house. Showers and laundry were at the house. None of us ever got sick, including the baby.

What makes this situation different from other stories in this thread is that 1) we chose to do this so felt it was an adventure. 2) we had modern equipment like a thermos and a gas cooker that made heating the water straightforward. 3) we had a toilet -- and in this thread people without water don't have toilets because society has been built around flush toilets rather than composting toilets. 

 

Edited October 18, 2022 by lewelma

[shawthorne44]

 

Technically no, but we did spend time where we were limited to one thing plumbed.   It was a 99-year lease on Indian land.   
What everyone did was plumb the kitchen sink, and then also use that for hand washing.   Toilet was indoors but filled with a bucket.   

ETA: During Snow-pocalypse our pipes froze.  I learned the interesting fact that you need to melt 5 5-gallon buckets of snow for each toilet flush.  
 

Edited October 18, 2022 by shawthorne44

[lulalu]

Yes, when we lived in Central Asia we lived three years without indoor plumbing, toliets, running water,etc. It was very difficult. An outhouse wasn't the end of the world, but very uncomfortable during winter. 

But disease was so hard to keep away. Because getting water from the well was a lot of work people didn't always wash hands. Laundry was too difficult. We had to do it in the city which was a several hour drive away. I enjoyed our time living there, it taught me a lot. I have respect for the peoples who have lived this way for millennia. But honestly I wouldn't choose to do that again.