(Romania) I grew up with an outdoor outhouse instead of an indoor bathroom - what about you?

[Nurzat]

Fellow Apricitans,

Especially Easterners and Balkanites, has any of you grew up with an outdoor outhouse instead of an indoor bathroom, like me?

Living in the Romanian countryside in the 1980s and early 1990s it was not only common but the norm to have an outhouse. Most Romanians in the countryside still use an outhouse to this day. Official statistics place Romania at some 32% of its population using an outhouse, and it all comes from the countryside - about half of Romania's population still lives in the rural side, thus the high percentage of outhouses.

When I jokingly mentioned this on the run (just to have a laugh with fellow Balkanites and Easterners that went to an outhouse themselves), some Romanian users on here got really mad and said it is not true that many Romanians have an outhouse, that only the Gypsies have outhouses, called me a Gypsy, called me a troll, said Romania is no different than the West on bathroom conditions etc.

So - would you find it embarrassing to have grown up with an outhouse? Have your direct ancestors (parents, grandparents, greatgrandparents) grown up like this? Have you ever experienced doing business in an outhouse - how was it?

Also, I didn't find myself inferior in intelligence or knowledge to town boys and girls when I went to a town to study in highschool (on the contrary) and countrylife gave me skills and a mental strength that so often city dwellers lack, so if having an outhouse was the price for growing up healthy (mind and body), it was totally worth it. Otherwise, we were bathing inside the house on Saturdays like all other Romanians and were washing the hot spots every day (mostly, maybe less in winter, but Western hygiene standards are anyway an exaggeration).

Share your thoughts - are the Romanian members on here right to call me a troll and thumb me down/neg rep me just for being honest? And is it so shameful to have an outhouse?

The Business Review:

"In 2017, 27.2 percent of Romanians had neither a bath, nor a shower, nor indoor flushing toilet in their household, according to Eurostat.

This percentage is far above the proportion seen in the other EU member states.

After Romania, the highest share of population living in households without bath, shower or indoor flushing toilet is registered in Lithuania (12 percent), Bulgaria and Latvia (both 9.8 percent).

In the EU, the average share of population living in households without bath, shower or indoor flushing toilet is 1.9 percent, and in most western European countries the proportion is below 0.2 percent of population.

However, Romania has registered some progress in improving the living conditions of its population. In 2007, the first year in the EU for the Eastern European country, more than 4 in 10 Romanians (41.5 percent) were living in households without bath, shower or indoor flushing toilet."


Vice:

"Romania is the undisputed European champion of poor plumbing. According to Eurostat, nearly a third of all households use an outhouse, but the proportion is much larger in the countryside. Last year, the National Statistics Institute found that about 6 percent of city-dwellers don't have an indoor toilet, compared to 58 percent of those living in Romania's rural areas.

Of the 41 counties in Romania, Giurgiu has the worst public plumbing infrastructure; only two of its 51 towns and villages have public sewage systems."

[TheMaestro]

Indoor whole life, but I used to live at my grandma in southern Slovakia countryside for several years as a kid and I used to shit in those outdoor bathrooms very often, I always feared falling down and the smell was "refreshing" ehm ehm, got used to it.

[21993]

I certainly would not be ashamed in such a case.

[Nurzat]

I certainly would not be ashamed in such a case.

is the situation in Turkey the same in the countryside? I think people use to have an outhouse in the countryside everywhere outside the West. if it changed a bit it's only in these recent years.

[21993]

is the situation in Turkey the same in the countryside? I think people use to have an outhouse in the countryside everywhere outside the West. if it changed a bit it's only in these recent years.

my father told me outhouse toilets were very common in the rural 10-20 years ago. Now, in house toilets are getting more common in the rural parts of Anatolia but I guess outhouse toilets still do exist in some regions.

[Nurzat]

Indoor whole life, but I used to live at my grandma in southern Slovakia countryside for several years as a kid and I used to shit in those outdoor bathrooms very often, I always feared falling down and the smell was "refreshing" ehm ehm, got used to it.

my father told me outhouse toilets were very common in the rural 10-20 years ago. Now, in house toilets are getting more common in the rural parts of Anatolia but I guess outhouse toilets still do exist in some regions.

as our outhouse grew old and there were some cracks between the wood planks, it was nice to feel the wind blowing on your buttocks through the cracks when you were dropping a load

[Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić]

We call it ''poljski zahod'' (field toilet) but can be translated as ''Polish Toilet'' also

that's because poljski means both field and polish

Those were pretty common in countryside, now more rare but you can find them from time to time.

[War Chef]

If you haven't taken a shit in an outhouse your life is a joke

[Pansarkamrat]

In my familys house in Finland on the countryside we still got it.

[Alenka]

Outhouse pride Balkan-wide.