Today we decided to cleanup a walkway to an old outhouse we have on the property. Yes, an outhouse like they used to have before bathrooms were made inside houses! The old outhouse is near a small, vacant, historic house on our property.
It's pretty neat to see, but it appears someone has dumped all sorts of trash around the outhouse. So much glass & other trash is out there that it was a true hazard to walk up to the outhouse. I was afraid I was going to slice open my foot on broken glass, even though I had heavy boots on. The glass bottles were at least a foot deep - and we never got to the bottom of the piles. They were covered in dirt, vines, leaves, and more bottles on top.
It's pretty neat to see, but it appears someone has dumped all sorts of trash around the outhouse. So much glass & other trash is out there that it was a true hazard to walk up to the outhouse. I was afraid I was going to slice open my foot on broken glass, even though I had heavy boots on. The glass bottles were at least a foot deep - and we never got to the bottom of the piles. They were covered in dirt, vines, leaves, and more bottles on top.
This picture is of the outhouse in the distance through the trees and vines. You can see just a little bit of trash in the foreground.
Here is some trash across the path from the outhouse.
Hundreds of glass bottles were covered in leaves & vines. These pictures don't show how much glass was really there. All this glass and other trash could not possibly be from one family!
We picked up 11 trash bags full of trash & broken glass. And this is just the beginning of cleaning up this little area. And we have many more trash piles like this to clean up... A little bit at a time...
Now we can walk up to the outhouse...
Here's the back of the outhouse. It has an old tin roof on it.
It has double doors with old skeleton locks.
Double seats in the outhouse!!
7 comments:
I used to own a property that had its own dumpsite...that seems to be the way they used to do it. It's a shame.......and a very time consuming task cleaning it up. Good luck!
Oh dear...an outhouse, huh? While I am terribly intrigued by (almost) all things old...old human poop does not rate high on my list. LOL. What are your plans for this area once you get the garbage surrounding it all cleaned up?
Sue - That's exactly what it is - a dumpsite. I guess people figured it was out in the woods, why not? It will take a while to clean up the trash on the property, but it does give an immediate sense of accomplishment at least.
Farmgirl_dk - This is a cool old outhouse. There's no poop there now! It doesn't smell bad, it hasn't been used for... well, I don't know for how long. Since they stopped using outhouses, maybe? So to me it's a cool old relic of times past. ...I can't imagine not having a bathroom in the house! To answer your question - one day, in many, many years, after we have renovated the main house, then we are going to renovate the little, old, white house which is near this outhouse. We'd like to make this little house a guest cottage for when we have company. Maybe we'll renovate the outhouse just so people can see how things used to be, or maybe we'll rebuild it into a tool shed or something usable for the little white house, I'm not sure. ...So many plans!!!
I love the outhouse!
We have the remains of a dump also, but no outhouse! I guess dumping your stuff out back was how farm families did things before the days of "special trash pickup."
Oh my. Well, one thing we don't have is an outhouse but we certainly had all the trash! I agree you should eventually renovate it. Folks will really get a kick out of it.
Thanks, Robin!
Your're right, Mary. I figured farm families didn't have any formal place to dump trash way back when. So I guess I can't fault them, although it's a pain to pick up after them!
Leigh - I think it'll be cool when it's renovated, too! One day...
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