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What makes you say that? I’m not saying they had modern sanitation, but bucket loos, pit toilets and chamberpots are all period solutions to the problem. Plus they used shit and piss for all kinds of stuff, they didn’t generally leave it lying around.
The chamber pots got emptied…by throwing the contents into the street. That is why colonial houses had a 2nd story overhang=so as not to drop the contents on to people waiting at the door.
The “newest” re-enactment place I’ve been to is “Old Sturbridge Village” here in MA. It portrays life ca. 1845. This is about 70 years later than Williamsburg. Not too much difference, except that machine-made cloth was available. Slightly grubby; the houses were well kept though-I wonder how people made their own housepaint, or were houses unpainted (for the most part)?
It’s a pretty poor town that doesn’t at least have gutters if not actual cisterns for this kind of thing. The notion that people would just toss their shit in the street is ridiculous (and don’t bother bringing up the fake etymology of ‘loo’)
No, colonial houses had jetties because that’s how timber framed houses were built in England - and you won’t see "for unloading your toilet"given as a reason for them. That andfor defense - and why would you need the overhang over walls that don’t have doors in them? Or a trapdoor…
The flies attracted birds… lots of them. Flies are good eating. all of that manure made surface wells contaminated. Which is why NYC built a water system 9to bring clean water from up North). The Croton Water reservoir was built in the early 19th century, i believe.