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fuckthewholeroster t1_iszxmr0 wrote

Reply to comment by _Silver_Engineer_ in TIL In 1945, a mere 5 percent of France’s homes had a private, indoor bathroom by Chris_Hackett

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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