Living with Outhouses in the Backyard - Democratic Underground

MountainLaurel

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Sun Mar-05-06 11:07 AM
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Living with Outhouses in the Backyard

This in one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, home of such DC power brokers as Rick Santorum.

:cry:

Less than a mile down the road from a million-dollar emblem of greater Washington's housing boom, Emma G. Howard and her son, Bishop, tote drinking water from neighbors or buy it at the Safeway eight miles away. They scrape their plates into a slop bucket on the kitchen floor and wash them in a basin of boiled water.

And they relieve themselves in a wood-planked outhouse across the back yard.

The Howards and 15 other people live in the western Loudoun County hamlet of Willisville. Surrounded by rolling pastures, horse-country manors and new mansions -- many with four or more bathrooms -- most of Willisville has existed without indoor plumbing since it was founded just after the Civil War, when freed slave Heuson Willis bought a cabin on three acres for $100.

It was terrible land then, and it is terrible today: soggy, heavy with clay, not fit for crops, pastures or, more recently, simple septic tanks. But on the eve of the 21st century, Loudoun officials promised to help. In 1999, the county received a state loan to build a small sewage treatment plant in Willisville.

Seven years later, at least six residents live with outhouses and no running water; an additional nine live in houses with failing septic systems. Construction on the sewage plant has not begun, and its projected cost has more than doubled, from $250,000 to about $600,000. Design delays, bureaucratic hurdles and government neglect have caused the Willisville On-Site Wastewater Treatment and Disposal Project to founder, county officials say.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/04/AR2006030401258.html

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babylonsister

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Sun Mar-05-06 11:11 AM
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1. Failing septic systems? How is this even legal, never mind

moral. I think the blame rests totally on their elected reps (Santorum), and America's apathy, though I hadn't even been aware of this til now. :cry:

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MountainLaurel

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Sun Mar-05-06 11:16 AM
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4. Santorum isn't their elected rep

He just lives in the same county, about 30 miles from DC. (I remember this because of the issue of him cheating the state of PA, where he is the elected rep, for his children's homeschooling money.)

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SujiwanKenobee

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Sun Mar-05-06 11:18 AM
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5. Not in Pennsylvania. This is northern Virginia and one of the wealthiest,

fastest growing counties in the US.

It is true that there a definitely issues with soil and water that would mandate expensive corrections in equipment. SOme developers built on substandard land anyway and owners of expensive houses are suddenly realizing the true costs of building in such areas.
Slop bucket-compostable material
Outhouses--still used in some areas. Grandparents didn't get plumbing until the 50's and some older relatives chose to continue using outhouses (but now enclosed in garages).
Poor land-may not be correctable. May be too $$.
Sounds like off the grid living.

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bperci108

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Sun Mar-05-06 11:33 AM
Response to Reply #5

7. Exactly.

I've got family that still had an outhouse up until the early 80's and another great-uncle a few miles away from them that still schlepped out to the privy at the old homestead, even in the dead of winter, until he was well into his nineties. That was around 1993.

If they are properly maintained, constructed and used, they really aren't that bad. :)

BUT...

This story above is a perfect example of corruption and "hooray-for-me-and-to-hell-with-everyone-else" thinking and civil planning.

They should be held accountable by the electorate. :grr:

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SmokingJacket

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Sun Mar-05-06 11:12 AM
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2. This kind of poverty is invisible to most people.

But there's a lot of in this country, if you know where to look.

I lived an area where many people had no car, no phone, no *door.* But a casual person driving around would never see these houses -- they were hidden in the hills and on back roads --

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cali

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Sun Mar-05-06 11:14 AM
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3. OK, this is awful, but let me speak up here for

outhouses! I live in a house for two years that didn't have running water. I had a pump in the kitchen, a bathtub that I heated water for on the woodstove, and an outhouse- all in northern VT. I look back on those years as happy and contemplative ones.

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ayeshahaqqiqa

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Sun Mar-05-06 11:26 AM
Response to Reply #3

6. Nothing wrong with outhouses

Or using a bucket filled with sawdust, or a composting toilet. They don't use up valuable water like the flushers do, and the compost you can make can be put around trees and non-edible plants.

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bperci108

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Sun Mar-05-06 11:36 AM
Response to Reply #3

8. And don't forget...

...the nickname for that chamber-pot in the bedroom under the bed was the "Arkansas Fire Extinguisher".

:rofl:

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dennis00

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Sun Mar-05-06 11:54 AM
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9. Ode To The Little Brown Shack

They passed an ordnance in the town.
They said we'd have to tear it down.
That little brown shack out back so dear to me.
Tho it's day is over and done
It will always be the one that lives forever in my memory.

Billy Edd Wheeler
Billy Edd shoulda lived in Willisville.

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