Ok, homosexuals, let’s talk sewage.
Because there’s nothing the gays love more than public sanitation!
I assume we all know that your typical American sewage system starts at your toilet, with a narrow pipe emptying into a larger pipe called a sanitary pipe that runs from your neighborhood to a sewage treatment facility. That’s assuming of course you have a sewage system and don’t need a septic tank.
Then there’s a parallel pipe called a storm water pipe, that takes rainwater from the street via catch basins in the road.
This is the typical system. But are any of you aware of an older and more eccentric sewage system in any location in the USA that is NOT A SEPTIC TANK SYSTEM — something more old fashioned? Perhaps a larger connection of some sort in the house to the sanitary pipe? Some very old or very odd cities may have something else?
It’s an extremely odd question, I know, but if there’s some location in America where one can directly access a home from the sewage system it would help me with some fiction I’m writing.
| by Anonymous | reply 21 | October 23, 2024 2:31 PM
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Combined Sewer Overflow into the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY back in 2010. 😷😆
I'm glad I live in an area with sanitary and storm sewers.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | October 22, 2024 8:11 PM
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I know right, r2? Gross.
What I’m looking for is any community that has a connection between the home and the sanitary pipe that’s larger than the little pipe going out from the toilet. Maybe there isn’t such a thing.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | October 22, 2024 8:15 PM
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Definitely an odd question! To clarify one bit: is this intended to be set in present day? I'm wondering because I know the earliest types of plumbing and sewer installed in the US were basically ad hoc. Bathroom access (or, rather, the lack thereof) was a big issue in late 19th-c. & early 20th-c. NYC tenements in particular.
R2, sewer overflows are in no way specific to Brooklyn, plus the Gowanus Canal area is being rapidly gentrified. I was there earlier this year for the first time in 15 years and barely recognized the place! But that's not an "eccentric" system; it was merely badly overloaded with, well, shit.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | October 22, 2024 8:15 PM
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Older downtown areas always smell like sewage and I hate it.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | October 22, 2024 8:18 PM
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Well, it's not to be sniffed at, sweetie.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | October 22, 2024 8:21 PM
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I'd ask my (hetero) plumber aunt but I doubt it r4.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | October 22, 2024 8:21 PM
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Many DataLoungers probably remember the days when there were public toilets in the neighborhood where you went to take a crap. It was a great place for getting to know your neighbors. Plus, re-use of the sponge stick to wipe down there meant no toilet paper, so this was far more beneficial for the environment.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | October 22, 2024 9:15 PM
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Cesspool which is bad for the environment.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | October 22, 2024 9:25 PM
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Yes, present day, r4. That’s why I think if any such sewage system survived to this day, it would be in some old, oddball place like New Orleans.
Lol r10!
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | October 22, 2024 9:25 PM
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Well, you could always change your character to a rat, OP -- they get through the pipes.
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | October 22, 2024 9:30 PM
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In terms of the reality, there are few locations where the water shoots up crisp, clean and pure. Other than that, all you ever encounter is shit.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | October 22, 2024 10:21 PM
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Is this your idea of a sick joke?
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | October 22, 2024 10:25 PM
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The French Quarter smells like sewage early in the morning.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | October 22, 2024 10:29 PM
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R16 isn’t that part of the draw? I heard it was mixed with vomit
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | October 22, 2024 10:37 PM
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"I'm going to have to excuse myself for a few minutes after reading this, Marlow! Bring daddy the Vaseline Intensive care and lock the door when you leave."
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | October 23, 2024 12:55 AM
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Exciting! No joke. I'm an historian and there have been some odd off-shoots before the modern day sewage system. One that comes to mind, was mainly European in the 18th century, was those "privy closets" where it was basically a common outhouse, except instead of a hole dug in the ground, there was a pot under the seat, and it got cleaned out through a back access door, by some shit-cleaner. They tried a lot of stuff. Dug outhouses were common in my city in the 1800s. When the city did a maggot redevelopment of an infection, they took down several old buildings and some archeology group did a "privy dig " in the yards. Some buildings had three or four privvies dug, filled with shit and garbage, and covered over several decades.
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | October 23, 2024 4:36 AM
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What is a maggot redevelopment?
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | October 23, 2024 2:20 PM
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