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NinDiGu t1_iswvl1f wrote

Until the late 1950's the majority of fertilizer in Japan was untreated human waste.

Old style Japanese houses had a room, for pooping, that was over a pit that was emptied weekly and used as fertilizer. An indoor outhouse so to speak.

There are still many houses that use this system, usually in more rural areas.

So these are private and indoor, but not in the way most Westerners think of private and indoor.

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TWiesengrund t1_isyfvgc wrote

And most garbage like broken pottery was collected and used for land reclamation projects. There's an interesting display in the Edo-Tokyo-Museum about it. We used to recycle before we used to recycle.

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NinDiGu t1_it7j76b wrote

> Edo-Tokyo-Museum

That is a stunning building, and a stunning museum.

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TWiesengrund t1_it7z3pv wrote

Absolutely! And I was blown away by the fact they offer free tour guides inside if they are available. I had a private tour in 2018 and I am still grateful for that.

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Bashfulapplesnapple t1_isvhqfk wrote

Didn't only like half the U.S. have them?

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Chris_Hackett OP t1_isvirr2 wrote

Yep!

“In 1940, only 55 percent of homes with plumbing had what the government considers a "complete system" - hot and cold running water, a flush toilet and a tub or shower. Sixty years later, 99 percent of all homes had all those features.”

[Sauce] (https://www.ourmidland.com/news/article/Many-Changes-in-U-S-Homes-Since-1940-7059827.php)

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waffles-n-gravy t1_isvgml6 wrote

Now the entire planet is interconnected... by sewers

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ieya404 t1_isvnmsz wrote

As opposed to a public indoor bathroom? Please say a crapper in the kitchen was never a thing... :)

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Ryjinn t1_isvxeq4 wrote

No, but a shared bathroom between multiple tenants was pretty common.

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ieya404 t1_isx9vp8 wrote

Ahh, of course - like when you might have found an older (very old now!) hotel where not all rooms were en suite.

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marmorset t1_isxmik5 wrote

Bathtubs in the kitchen used to be a thing. That's where you produced the hot water, that's where you took baths. Indoor plumbing came about much earlier than indoor plumbing with heated water. You'd use your stove to heat the water, there was no hot water system.

Cold water flats were the standard apartment in NYC and many big cities until after WW II.

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Circus_Brimstone t1_isvhuuh wrote

Then again, there was that whole pesky world war about defeating evil fascists and junk.

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_Silver_Engineer_ t1_isvmaxw wrote

Was that because WWII had destroyed the infrastructure or indoor plumbing just hadn't caught on before the war?

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sektabox t1_isvsw9a wrote

Nope. That's just how it was.

There was one bathroom per floor for 3 apartments where I visited. Not the most comfortable experience.

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Randomly_Cromulent t1_isxtvhq wrote

I was there several years and was looking for hotels. Somebody online recommended one because of its location and it was close to a subway station. I immediately dismissed that one because it had a shared bathroom.

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fuckthewholeroster t1_iszxmr0 wrote

My dad remembers 1-3 communal toilets for an entire street and he’s 63. Europe didn’t evolve much beyond the late medieval periods for a very long time.

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refugefirstmate t1_it8ksfr wrote

Hence the development of the bidet (not the recent bidet attachment; the fixture that looks like a mashup of a toilet and a sink) - it took less room than a bathtub and used a lot less water, so you'd straddle it to wash your naughty bits in between your weekly bath.

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goug t1_it0c0b3 wrote

I don't know, wasn't Europe like just a couple of decades behind urban America?

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fuckthewholeroster t1_it1nqwn wrote

The European landscape was dominated by farms, horse carriages and cobblestone roads for a very long time. The America of the 50s looked like a space age civilization compared to my own country back then lol.

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OldMork t1_isvrccx wrote

I still today dont have a private bathroom

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reptarcannabis t1_isvkczu wrote

If you go to Paris now it is there’s human feces all over the sidewalks alleys streets it’s everywhere because the cost of rent and the housing market is so high that people shit to protest outside of multi million dollar apartments

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sektabox t1_isvt164 wrote

Good old times in Paris when you had to play hop-scotch only around dog shit.

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Fiyanggu t1_iswmfjf wrote

Paris is much dirtier feeling than London. Even the subway is grungier.

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Omnimpotent t1_iswpo7q wrote

But they're cuisine is le best in ze world!

Why? Because it's French! There is no other reason they're food is the best, it's just French and that's it and butter.

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really_random_user t1_isx2l06 wrote

Usually it's dog feces, and believe me, it used to be wayy worse 20 years ago

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marmorset t1_isxmz9f wrote

The rent is too damn high AND people are shitting in the streets, but they're unconnected. Both things are happening but they're not related.

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crankyoldbrent t1_isvlz36 wrote

Is it that percentage now for showers? Hahahs

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