Growing up in a century-old house came with quirks\u2014creaky floors, drafty windows, and a spooky basement. But what puzzled<\/p>\n\n\n\n
me most was the lone toilet sitting out in the open down there. No walls, no sink\u2014just a toilet. We never used it, but it stuck in my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Years later, while restoring old homes, I discovered this wasn\u2019t unique. These were called \u201cPittsburgh potties,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
common in older homes, especially in industrial cities like Pittsburgh. Back then, steelworkers and laborers<\/p>\n\n\n\n
would enter through basement doors to clean up before going upstairs, helping keep the house tidy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But these toilets served another purpose\u2014flood control. Before modern sewer systems, backups were common during<\/p>\n\n\n\n
storms or overuse. These basement toilets, placed directly above sewer entry points, acted as overflow relief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Growing up in a century-old house came with quirks\u2014creaky floors, drafty windows, and a spooky basement. But what puzzled me most was the lone toilet sitting out in the open down there. No walls, no sink\u2014just a toilet. We never used it, but it stuck in my mind. Years later, while restoring old homes, I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1839"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1841,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions\/1841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/horizonvibe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}