Neighbour has complained about Portaloo

That can't be helped though. I can just imagine the bemusement of the neighbours that the OP has a fully functioning toilet available but finds it "inconvenient" to let any workmen use it!

Depends - we had our garden landscaped and the way from the back door upstairs to our only toilet crosses a couple of carpets.

We didn’t get a portaloo but I can see why people do. I needed my carpets professionally cleaned afterwards, tonnes of mud trodden in.

The neighbours must have loved dd2! She lives in a semi and the portaloo was outside for over a year! They weren't living there at the time and the bathrooms and kitchen were being renovated so sometimes there was no usable loo. Dd2 is certainly not a snob but a lot of contracts insist on a portaloo now.

And it’s November, so it shouldn’t be festering away, and people tend not to use their gardens as much in the colder months 🙂

yet if you look it up it says should be emptied regularly, maybe yours was as unless you were there all the time.
surely a loo being used for 4 weeks is going to fill up when being used multiple times a day

We had a portaloo outside our house that we AND (shock horror) the builders used during building work, for about a month. I can't remember it being emptied at all, and the only smell was inside the loo, not outside. I think your neighbours are trying it on.

surely empty it as it will smell
if its left for 4 weeks, ,others on here who have had them said they have been emptied weekly/ fortnightly. Why would you want 4 weeks of crap parked up
on your lawn- what if it were to overflow ?
also if causes major fault out with neighbour is it worth it- if you ever sell you have to declare that sort of thing don’t you ? Surely saying to neighbour we haven’t noticed a smell but we are paying to have it emptied early as we have taken your concerns onboard but it has to stay until the works are finished , is just easier ?

@lucylox I agree with you but most people are selfish these days and only care about their immediate family. It's always tell your neighbours to put up with it, tell them to wear ear plugs, tell them to do this or that so the main character OP doesn't have to inconvenience themselves listening to their grievances.

I hope the money you save is worth spoiling neighbourly relations for. Although you sound like your head is so far up your own behind you won’t care about that anyway.

I may be in the minority but I think you sound like a very selfish, inconsiderate neighbour and a bit of a snob.

Oh, the Mumsnet bloodhounds are a classic. My favourite used to the ones who didn't much care for scented sanitary towels, which on the surface is fair enough. But they didn't just dislike them, they claimed to be overpowered by "the stench"... of unopened ones in other women's handbags in the room, or of ones being worn by a woman several feet away, underneath multiple layers of clothing. The stench prevented them from working and gave them headaches and nausea. McDonalds brings up some gems too.

I think there may be a bit of princess and the pea mentality going on.

I'm amazed that so many Mumsnetters appear to have such an incredibly keen sense of smell. Are you all secretly bears who can smell a fart from a mile away, downwind, in a rainstorm? 😄

But OP has stated they aren’t willing to pay for it to be emptied after 2 weeks and instead it will wait until the work is done or 4 weeks. I know I keep banging on about this 🙈 but OP just get it emptied so you can say to your neighbours it has been cleaned and there is only a couple of weeks left. It seems like you won’t do it to prove a point because a couple of people have ‘verified’ there is no smell (can one verify a lack of smell?) yet your neighbours have said they can smell something. So get the portaloo emptied and cleaned and any other issues your neighbours have then tell them to jog on because it will be gone before you know it.

Portaloos these days come with water and soap for handwashing, and should be serviced and emptied every week or fortnight depending on number of people using so that they don't run out. Tradespeople are used to using them - what do you think they use on building sites before toilets are plumbed in, for example? My husband is a tradesman, and he really doesn't mind using a portaloo, as it's much quicker than taking his boots off to go into the householder's bathroom everytime he needs to pee.

The smell from my point of view was chemical and like very strong air freshener. It was sickly and v unpleasant.

My objection was my neighbours put it next to my door and not theirs... But then they're v inconsiderate in general.

But your neighbours say there is a smell - smell is subjective so why not just have the portaloo emptied after 2 weeks?

You’re right - the neighbours may moan about something else e.g the sight of the portaloo but at least they (the op) could show they were taking concerns seriously rather than ‘my main contact validated there is no smell’ which lets be honest is subjective. If the neighbours continue to complain after the portaloo is emptied then, well, it’s only a couple of weeks to go and what can they do in that time? But to deliberately be an arse by saying ‘I am not paying now’ is just unnecessary but then I don’t look for rows everywhere I turn and nor do I ignore other people’s opinions

If there was an option, I'd pay. Given that they cost c. £40 per week to rent, I wouldn't have thought that the additional cost of emptying can be much higher than that. With 2 weeks left to go until the end of this work, you'd probably only have to empty it just once before they come to pick it up.

Having said this, I don't know the neighbour. They could then start complaining about something else if they are just generally the complaining type. @Helenwalker2 knows them best 😊

Yabu It’s not a building site. There's working toilets the property so yabu to subject your neighbors to the smell of a portals that benefits you.

Ah I missed that update from the op. I think it’s a shame they won’t pay extra to get it emptied and instead will leave it for 4 weeks.

I agree with others, I think if your neighbour is complaining about a smell then just ask the building company to get it emptied.

But you had yours emptied weekly not at the end of 4 weeks so maybe that’s why you had no complaints.
FWIW I don’t think there should be a problem having a portaloo in your front garden but I think there should be give and take with neighbours and I don’t think it is ok for multiple (how many workmen?) people using the toilet every day and it not being emptied regularly. Apart from that I am on op’s side - just get it emptied weekly!

Just noticed that OP has said it’s only being emptied at the end of the project, which is surprising, there is a possibility it could smell in that case.

It’s quite normal to have a portaloo for building works round here, I have often seen them.
I am surprised at the amount of people horrified by this.
We had building works which took about 2 months and the building company said they wanted a portaloo, we didn’t insist on it. I think the builders don’t want to be having to take their work boots off etc. and they also said it would spread the dust if they were going upstairs.

It was better for us though as our loo is in the bathroom and it would have been difficult in the mornings with everyone getting ready if the builders were using the loo. Plus I didn’t want all the extra cleaning!

It was out the front and it definitely didn’t smell, but then it was emptied weekly. Thats why it has to be at the front, how else does the lorry empty it??

Quite funny though we did have delivery drivers asking to use it! It was kept padlocked though.

None of our neighbours have complained but then I don’t live in an area with Hyacinth Bucket types 😀

I would pay to have it emptied weekly if it kept neighbour relations onside - surely in the grand scheme of things with the renovations etc it isn’t a massive deal? Having friends who live on canal boats they definitely empty their loos at regulated stop off points more than once a month. I just think why piss off neighbours more than is necessary but it seems these days more and more people aren’t about community relations and just get the arse when it really isn’t needed. Give and take people, give and take. Our family motto is don’t be a knob if you don’t have to be, sometimes take the moral high ground. Not everything has to be a fight.