If we did have any market gardens in our area, I can't remember them!
But I will always remember my Mom saying about if you wanted good fruits & veggies, to go to a Chinese store!

the copper was out in the shed along with the concrete twin tubs and quite often, the out house aka toilet.

It would be near impossible to get a building permit to have a copper today what with all the consents, fire restrictions etc. Plus you'd only wake up one morning to find it had been nicked.

When we first got married, we bought an old house that had said copper, tubs and out house in a shed which was normal for the area. Part of the shed held the coal supply as well unless you were lucky enough to own a coal bin!

The newer homes had septic tanks.

My gawd you peeps who have never had an out house, don't realise when you go to the loo, what we had to put up with. No sewer for waste water etc - everything went down into a septic tank. I doubt whether many sections today would be big enough to put a tank down! Writing this, I now wonder where in the hell did our wastewater from the house go! Maybe there was a septic tank there afterall!



The nightman called once a week to change the loo container. Yep, we sat on a flat piece of board with a hole in it. We scrubbed it out with hot water and carbolic [I can still remember the smell!]. In summer, we often also hosed it out.

Yep, we had potties in those days. Do you think we were crazy to go out on a freezing night to use the outhouse? If you have to go and do #2's, then you had no blardy option!

Potties came in enamal or ceramic and often there were little night stands they were kept in. [Next time you look at your bedside cabinet, remember where they originated from :-)) ] Come morning it was trot out to the outhouse, empty them then rinse them out!

For washing, I had to cart hot water from a tap on the outside of the house to the shed when we finally got it electrified and were able to put an agitator washer in.

But oh, rinsing out in cold water in winter was something else.

Whilst we had an electric stove, we didn't have electrified hot water so had to keep the fire going 24/7 for hot water [wetback fireplace to heat the hot water]. It didn't take too long before we installed a unit which we were able to control to keep it going day and night.

Because the sewer was supposed to come through within 12 months of us buying the property, we decided to just sit it out.
Finally some 2 years later, the sewer was being put in which meant we added onto the house, extending the kitchen[complete with Formica cabinet doors and benchtop], adding a laundry and toilet and installed a very large electric hot water tank.