View from above of rows of timber houses with outhouses built by the Queensland Housing Commission in Norman Park, Brisbane, Australia around 1950. The little sheds in each back yard are "outhouses" or "dunnies". (sourced from: Wikimedia Commons)Here in urban Australia we take it for granted that we can flush our toilets several times a day, with little or no thought about the process of removal of such waste. The sewerage pipes take care of it. We don't need to think about it.
But deep sewerage is a relatively new phenomenon. It was the 1970s before the whole of Brisbane was connected up to it, and parts of Tasmania had to wait until the 1980s. Many rural areas of Australia still use septic tanks on each property, but they do have the benefit of water-flushable toilets.
Many of my parents' generation remember well the days before indoor, flushable toilets. The days of the dunny, the thunderbox, the shed up the back, the outhouse, the sh*thouse, the building at the bottom of the backyard which was often covered by a creeper, perhaps a choko or a morning glory?
The bluestone-cobbled laneways that the inner-suburbs of Melbourne are so renowned for were not designated so that 21st century families could build double-garages with convenient rear-access. They were actually there to provide access for the 'night soil' collectors who came by during the night once or twice a week with their horse and cart, collecting a removable pan of waste from each outhouse and replacing it with a new one.
'Night soil' - such a delicate euphemism for human excrement!
And what, once it was collected, was a night soil collector to do with his bounty? This was an issue that local authorities struggled with over a long period of time. The City of Kingston local history website highlights that, "Much to the annoyance of many local residents the sandy soil in the Shire of Moorabbin was seen by some councils as a prime dumping ground for this accumulating waste," while the Monash City history pages detail how in the Oakleigh area, "Despite various attempts to ban it as harmful to the health, night soil was a major source of fertiliser for the surrounding market gardens" and how in the early part of the 20th century, there were many attempts "to prevent market gardeners taking produce to Melbourne and bringing manure back on the same carts".
Local authorities across Australia drew up by-laws about the hours during which night soil could be carted, and the depth at which it had to be buried.
The City of Kingston article about night soil is particularly interesting if you wish to persue this topic in more detail.
Even once flushable toilets became more common, many households installed them in the existing (or a new) outhouse. In my lifetime, I have certainly made use of many outdoor facilities at people's homes and even nowadays, many cafes and restaurants in strip shopping precincts have facilities 'down the back'.
The outdoor dunny phenomenon has led to a multitude of references in Australian folklore, including the classic 1972 Slim Newton song, The Redback on the Toilet Seat, which is now available as a children's picture book.
I am extremely grateful for the invention before my time of the flushable toilet, and glad that in most Australian houses nowadays, it is located in the warmth and comfort of the main house. However, I am very mindful of the fact that for a large part of the world's population, sanitation is indeed still an issue and that for those people, not having access to basic levels of sanitation threatens their health and opportunities for development.
Those of you who have already seen the Academy-award winning movie, Slumdog Millionaire, will recall a particularly graphic scene involving a long-drop toilet and the main character as a small boy. Everytime I think of that scene I am particularly grateful for my flushable, sewered toilet.
What memories or experiences do you have with non-flushable outdoor toilets?
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Thank you to H&B from House & Baby for suggesting this subject as part of our series on ideas and skills from before our time we can't do without.
H&B wrote, "I had a great old chat with my mum recently re: the dunny man... he had another name though ... nightman, I think? I myself grew up with an assortment of long-drops. I could kiss the flush toilet, in fact, my new one is so un-scathed, I might just do so now...I think about him often as we take our 'shortcuts' down the back alleys of our cobblestoned suburb to get to kindy. I love thinking of the history as I go down the backalleys, and the boys love the bumpy ride in the pram."
This is indeed the kissable new flush toilet at H&B's house. Photo courtesy of H&B.
H&B has been blogging the suburban life since 2006 and is a professional photographer.
If you have something you'd like us to cover please email us at beforeourtime@bigpond.com
27 comments:
Sorry, even at my grand old age, I have no experience whatsoever of the old outdoor non-flushing toilets by houses but can imagine what they must have been like – especially shared ones! The nearest I've ever got were "public" toilets of a hole in the ground by long distance "roads" in Kamchatka and they were CHOICE! I certainly appreciated indoor flush toilets back home but an even greater luxury then was being able to turn on the tap and drink the water! Arctic settlements I have stayed in have indoor bag toilets as for 10 months of the year the ground is too deep frozen for mains sewage. The bags are taken away by council truck and dealt with. Of course, outside toiletting while wild camping doesn't count but my biggest appreciation of warm, indoor, flush toilets was after our sledge trip. It was no fun, I can tell you, having to strip all the layers off in order to squat in a metre of snow in temps. down to –40ºC, several times a day so I'm all for them and thank-you God. At the millenium, those of us with relatives in their nineties asked them what was the best thing that came out of the previous 100 years. Three things came equally top of the lists – electricity, antibiotics and INDOOR FLUSH TOILETS! Many rural areas here, including ourselves, are also on septic tanks.
That first pic with all the 'little houses' is so amazing !
I have just finished a novel on life in the Liverpool slums during the bombings of WWII and how whole communities had one 'lav' for over 100 people. The main character expressed emergency toilets were not provided because the council didn't want to encourage them to 'get comfortable'. Absolutely shocking conditions - foul!
And um, where I live now used to be a major market garden site for all of Melb. So after reading this, it seems my house could one that poo built :)
Man.... ...who wouldn't want to kiss that gorgeous loo of H&B's? What a nice room! I especially love the sink. :)
I am probably a rarity, but I grew up in rural Idaho, and our pipes froze every winter, so we had to have an alternate. It was a matter of great contention when we first moved to the country. My grandpa offered to build us an outhouse (a proper one) and my dad had a fit at how uncivilized that was... ...Grandpa went home, winter arrived, pipes froze, and we ended up rigging a bench with a bucket in the shed. This went on for years and years, until they could afford a new well (our well went nearly dry that first year too, so we had to haul drinking water from town, and we recycled the dish water to flush the toilet during the non-winter months... In the '80s!) and new plumbing (which didn't happen until I had left home). It was very miserable, stumbling through the snow in the dark with a flashlight, holding your breath in that horrible stinky shed, and...
...and I'm only just now trying to recall WHO dumped the bucket. It must have been my poor mother, because Lord knows it wouldn't have been my dad or any of my siblings. Sudden guilt flash!
Anyhow, this particular topic is one I'd wish WAS before my time!
While I love the convenience, I hate the waste of water involved in the flush toilet, so I'm looking forward to the mainstreaming of composting loos
I am not a fan of outdoor toilets. I imagine that families in times past did not linger long in the outdoor dunny with a newspaper or magazine. I imagine trips to the outhouse were quick and done holding one's nose.
I have, however, used long drop toilets while camping and found that they weren't the unpleasant experience I was expecting. I certainly wouldn't want to fall down one 'though.
I definitely like my indoor toilet. Perhaps, 'though and outdoor one for the boys would be a good idea.
Innercitygarden - I think you raise a really valid point.
Flushing does use a HUGE amount of water and I suspect we over-flush. The dual-flush cistern was in fact an Australian invention for exactly this reason, but I'm not sure that it is used widely in the rest of the world?
There is, of course, that water-saving adage: "If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down."
Megan - you must have visited some pretty nice camping sites - the longdrop is not a nice place to sit ( or hover ), and the smelly 'lolly' thing really didn't do much IMO :(
And I do remember men still taking the paper down !! Ack! - there were spiders in those boxes, just awful !!
and hey - speaking of newspapers, isn't that what people used to use ? Cut into squares and punched onto a nail ? No quilty 4-ply softness there.
Ugh.
Just horrid.
( and just for the record, we conserve flushes here, according to Alsions' rule ..unless we have guests .. )
I would rather hold on than use the long-drop toilets. I'm so squeamish. Maybe I'd better NOT go see Slumdog Millionaire?
Our innercity house had the laneway for the nightman but the outdoor toilet was long gone when we lived there. Interestingly the landlords had left the sewerage ventilation pipe. A little reminder.
Coincidentally we had a discussion on this very subject at the Patchwork group this morning. It started with talking about length of thread one should use when hand sewing--the young one work with very long threads whilst us oldies were taught never to use longer than from fingertip to elbow. From there it progressed to 'Domestic science' classes in School which were designed to prepare you for married life and how most of us oldies started with very primitive conditions in the country. And from there the conversation progressed to sanitary conditions and the outhouse which most of us had experienced.
So you never know where conversations may lead!! From Thread to Outdoor toilets!!
It was the spiders and the thought of the occasional snake that worried me most -- not to mention the frogs seeking cool shade under the toilet seat!
'When you've gotta go, you've gotta go'-- but please let it be near a nice flush toilet or a secluded tree in the Bush!!
Thank God I have no outdoor toilet experience! My mother and aunt do, however. When visiting their grandmother in the country, they used an outdoor toilet... it was actually a two-seater! The Sears & Roebuck catalog and dried out corncobs served as t.p.
My grandparents had an outhouse that was not quite as bad as some that I have used at parks, etc. That is one modern convenience I am so grateful for!
I remember the outhouse from my youth. My grandparents had one. Also, my sister and brother-in-law had an outhouse. One morning my brother-in-law was using the outhouse and all of a sudden he came stumbling out with his britches half down and running as fast as he could under the circumstances, why? Because some bees had decided to make their nest in the outhouse.
A friend of mine used to live in inner Sydney, in a very old suburb (just near the Brett Whitely gallery of all things) and she had an outdoor toilet. It was miserable to use during a dinner party on a rainy night, stumbling over the slippery and uneven bricks in the back yard, then finding yourself in a leaky, draughty little room.
Still, that was sheer luxury compared to the "shit pits" that I had to dig and build during my time in the infantry. We had to dig one pit per week, which was a long, deep trench that was then covered with 4x2's and corrugated iron, and "thunder boxes" were then placed over holes in the tin at intervals. The whole construction was then surrounded by a hessian and star picket fence for a degree of privacy - although once you were within the fence, you might find yourself abluting with 5 others (depending on the size of the shitter).
If someone had scrounged a newspaper, various bits of it would be passed up and down the line so that everyone got to read the good articles. Lime had to be tossed into the pit after each use to keep the flies away. The whole thing was otherwise open, and the hessian fences were never very tall - you could usually see everyone from outside from about the nipples up when they were sitting down.
The whole thing had to be dismantled and filled in at the end of the week, and a new one dug. It was not the best of duties. But it worked, and I have never complained about an indoor toilet since, no matter what the condition.
Owww H&B's new bathroom looks bloody marvelous doesn't it?
I remember my grandparents who lived in Williamstown (Melb) at the time, lived in a gorgeous old Victorian style, double fronted house. The only thing though was their toilet was located down the end of a garden path in the backyard. Used to freak myself out when I would have to visit the loo during the night - going down the path, avoiding the spider webs with torch in hand.
I am so glad I never had to experience the outside dunny full time. I have a vague recollection of a farm stay as a kid with an outdoor dunny. I think the use of portable indoor toilet (chamber?)pots (they have a name I think?) would have been widespread for night time "relief" to save a scary trip to the outhouse at night.
I've use a variety of long drop and environmental toilets, but do prefer the flush
Well, this subject has certainly got us all going! One of my grandmothers called the chamber pot the "Jemima Jane" but I expect Dee from Downunder means proper names not nicknames.
On a different note, like mof, we used (and I still do as old habits die hard and this one really works) a thread length from finger tip to elbow as that avoids tangling needing only one pull through with a wee extra bit of finger tip to wrist for through the needle.
and and furthermore .. there was a time in my youth where my whole family lived in a caravan for several years ( think: Home&Away ).
At nighttime, we had a piss bucket in the annexe.
I still think my upbringing is why I have the strongest bladder out of anyone I know. I was far too prudish for the pissbucket, being a laydee-in-the-making. Even when pregnant, I rarely wee'd. I do not like public/school/work toilets.
I think I have issues :)
Oh my what a glorious post.I never had the privilege of anything but a flushing toilet except while travelling the outback we did encounter a few less than ideaL LOOS. I am so grateful for flushing indoor toilets.... soft loo paper too.
A local park has an enviro dunny with a very long drop ...think 3 metres.It smells awful too.
I love H & b's new bathroom. I saw her funny invitation too.
We (actually definitely not me LOL) have to deal with portable/caravan toilets in our business - I 'can' use them but ick at emptying them).
Love this post, brings back lots of memories.
We had an outside "netty" as they were called when I was little but it did flush. Also remember those horrible squares of newspaper hung on string and a nail. Thank goodness for Andrex!
However the toilets at our junior school didn't flush. They were like wooden boxes you sat on and were built on a slope in the school yard. Funny but I can't remember them smelling horrible. Maybe they cleaned them regularly.
Luckily we didn't have to worry about redbacks and the wood didn't feel as cold in winter!
We have double flushing loos to save water now and the water companies send out these packs to put into the cistern which expand so that the cistern doesn't need as much water to fill it. Our little grandchildren save water too because they always forget to flush!
Great post to find on a newly discovered blog.
Until I was about 10 or 11 I can remember having an 'dunny.' I hated it. During the day in summer it smelled and at night, there were frogs. I never came across a redback spider or a snake.
I remember one morning the dunny emptier came late to collect and replace the full dunny. My mother, thinking he'd been had let the dog out, and while the man was carrying the full dunny on his shoulder, the dog dutifully protected the dunny from being stolen. It refused to let the guy out of the gate, and he was too far away from the out house to turn back. He just had to stand there until my mother resuced him.
great post I really enjoyed reading it. My uncle's farm had an outhouse and we often we go in to use it and there would be snakes in it!! I had a friend who was in a terrace house in South Melbourne during the 80s and she had an outside loo!!!! Also my hubby grew up in Brisbane and he was in one of those houses that didn't get an inside loo until the late 70s! I used to think he was joking!!
Some of the older houses in Queensland (particularly unrenovated Old Queenslanders in inner cityish areas) seem to have almost a partial version still.
Yes there is a flush toilet, but I have lived in a few houses where the loo was located just outside the back door, in a little room of it's own. So you'd have to take the keys with you, go outside onto the little verandah above the stairs and go ouitside first and then in a little dunny (but still part of the house) room. I also don't remember encountering one with a wash basin inside it.... you then had to go back inside to was hands. Wasn't a big deal though - unless it was winter post sexual relations lol.
I wonder if this was a transitional thing with people not having space in their bathrooms to install a "new fangled flush loo" so easiest was was adding a new room just outside the back door..... or was there some psychological aspect where people were used to having the loo outside and maybe feeling it unclean to have totally inside the house.
Any thoughts on this matter? Is this a Qld specific thing?
Before sewerage were septic tanks. The toilet flushed, gaining pressure from a tank suspended over two metres above the seating unit, but filled with mains pressure water. A chain was pulled to release the flushing water.
Early units had the pedestal above the concrete storage tank below and the stools plus paper lodged on a large board, to stop splashes. Raising and lowering the seat after caused the board to swing partly under the 'water' in the tank, hopefully dislodging the waste with the water swirl. Such tanks were still used in the inner western suburbs eg Auchenflower in Brisbane when I was at university in the late Sixties.
For those interested in what happened in the concrete tank, the bacteria dealt with the mess and the overflowing liquid went off through a pipe to a nearby 'French' drain which was a channel of rocks and sand covered with corrugated iron and topsoil and approximately a metre or so underground.
Toilets were rarely cleaned except with a brush in the bowl, but when cleaned, lard based soap had to be used. Use of modern chemicals, chlorine or disinfectants would disrupt the bacteria, giving off a very foul smell. The gold standard way of reintroducing the 'right' bacteria was to lift the access lid of the tank and drop a dead cat into it. The septic tanks had to be pumped out occasionally to rid them of solids.
Just to add, the water from the kitchen entered the septic tank after passing through a grease trap outside near the kitchen. This was another source of wafting odour. Grease traps were particularly sensitive to any cleaning chemical that could disrupt the flora inside, real concern when detergents were introduced. Grease traps and septic tanks continued to exist in for example Main Beach on the Gold Coast decades after developers promised fully sewered building sites.
Anyone who would promote anything other than sewage with a pedestal inside really hasn't hasn't suffered the inconvenience and health issues of other methods.
Someone asked why some houses had the toilet located on the back stairs landing when sewerage was introduced. It was done for three reasons: firstly, most houses were tight inside, not spacious as even the moderate newly wed homes are today and there was no room in the bathroom to locate them; secondly, money was always scarce. Modern people cannot realise just how budget concious people had to be - backyard vegetable patches were a necessity, not a hobby. People had very few clothes and rarely went out if it cost money; and, the third and final reason was that after enduring toilet odours from birth, few wanted any risk of smells actually in the house. Defecating was seen as an 'outside' thing. Who was ever to know that one day women would see the bathroom as a place they would like to spend time primping and preening.
I am Canadian and I am totally shocked how backward Australia is. It is really hard to believe that parts of urban Australia didn't have indoor toilets until the 1960s or 70s. Truly shocking.
In Malacca, Malaysia where I grew up we had a dunny system for the whole city until the council required all houses to be fitted with flush toilets so that the dunny system ended in 1980. I was 19 years old by then and so I grew up shitting into dunny buckets in outhouses far yonder.I remember sometimes the dunny man could wait no longer at the back alley and would yank the bucket out in the midst of me doing my job. Imagine having to hold on in bombing run until he inserts an empty bucket back in place. Houses that did not have back alleys have to have the weekly "hold your breath" session when the dunny man comes and collect the bucket often walking through the dining hall during meals. You better not cross the road to walk on the other side with better air when you meet the guy or he will scold you. So us school children practise holding deep breaths with pleasant smiling faces as we walk pass the bloke. There are so many more stories to tell but now 35 years later I can only wonder who and where all these brave dunny men are. Imagine the city without them. God bless them and their children. If you come to historical Malacca, amidst the old Portuguese, Dutch and British colonial buildings don't forget to walk down her back alleys and notice those small now plastered holes at the back wall of houses where once upon a time many dunny adventures happened.....by the way I now know why my brother in law who is Australian, never had an issue with that smallest room in the house when he visited.
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