Don't let them tear down ....

[Tallpine]

that little brown house ...   

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,364768,00.html

BATAVIA, Ohio   An ailing retired farmer who refused to give up his outhouse after authorities declared it to be a public nuisance finally got a new one.

Elbert "Lew" Preston, 79, stood his ground long enough for a nonprofit group to come to his aid and build him a sturdy new outhouse with a waste tank underneath.

Anyway, he's used an outside toilet since settling in Washington Township 40 years ago and likes the privacy of a privy.

"When you're in a house, sounds carry," Preston said. "Everybody knows your business."

 

[wmenorr67]

Wow.

Wonder if he still has indoor plumbing for the wife and guests.

 

[LadySmith]

My great-grandmother had an old outhouse. If you ever run across one, please don't do what I did.
I got a flashlight and looked down the hole.
Things...live...down there.  That was decades ago and I still get the heebie-jeebies.

[MicroBalrog]

"That old outhouse wasn't up to code," said Steve Green, project manager for the Cincinnati-based group.

I wonder if anybody realizes how completely insane this sounds.

[wmenorr67]

My great-grandmother had an old outhouse. If you ever run across one, please don't do what I did.
I got a flashlight and looked down the hole.
Things...live...down there.  That was decades ago and I still get the heebie-jeebies.

What did you expect to find?

[The Annoyed Man]

  Decades ago I lived in the Hollers of Appalachia. HUD had come through, insisting on putting  plumbing and indoor water faucets for the people who lived there. Then tried to charge them for it; the residents just laughed. "You're the ones who wanted to put it in." HUD couldn't even garnish them. They had no wages. And the little brown house still sat out back (Complete with the Sears catalogue, I kid you not). Along with the smoke house and the can house.

[LadySmith]

What did you expect to find?

I was very small and got to wondering how I'd get out if I fell in the hole. So I got a flashlight with the intent of plotting my escape if that ever happened.
I no longer worried about falling in the hole because trees and bushes became my best friends when I went to great-grandma's house. 
I didn't go anywhere near that outhouse again in case those...things...were able to get out.

[Tallpine]

I've used outhouses on a daily basis quite a lot in my lifetime.  Though many times it was more "out" than "house."

One time up in the Alaskan bush, I was down over the hill at the outdoor "seat" when a small plane came puttering overhead.  In AK nobody flies more than 200 AGL.  Nothing to do except smile and wave 

[AZRedhawk44]

I didn't go anywhere near that outhouse again in case those...things...were able to get out.

Sounds like the extras from Stephen King's imagination lived down there, the way you say type it. 

[BlueStarLizzard]

i used to go to a privet music festival every year. and they always had these to outhouses. later they replaced the older one with two porta potties. i didn't like it much. the porta potties sort of messed up the autmosphere (its a bluegrass/traditional music type thing) and, to be honest, smelled WORSE then the outhouses.

[Tallpine]

About 20 years ago, I spent a summer running a little gift shop in the Colorado mountains that still had a men/ladies outhouse for a public restroom.  About once a week I had to hose out the inside.

For all I know, it may still be that way - if the business is still open.