To ask how you manage with one bathroom

[Intrepidintrovert]

We have one bathroom in our house and it's getting pretty unbearable. I don't really know what to do! Are there ANY 'workarounds' that you've come up with? We categorically can't move for very specific reasons that are too outing to share but are 100% solid stone.

Every morning when I wake up I need a wee straight away, and inevitably my husband is in the bath. We have no shower. No way of installing a shower as it's a very old, pokey house and the ceiling is very low and sloping over the bath and there's no other room. I end up in discomfort (and unable to do anything to start my day as I need it too urgently to move about). Occasionally I go in and wee but hate invading my husband's privacy and since the bathroom is tiny, it's pretty weird to just sit next to him weeing. Even if you told me to get over myself (I know plenty of people don't mind weeing or pooing in front of their spouse), we have two children who are approaching teenagehood and whom definitely won't want to wee or poo in front of mum or dad while mum or dad is naked in the bath, or vice versa. Obviously right now it's not a problem when the kids are bathing or on the loo as they barely even shut the door but that will change.

To add to the fun I have IBS, which doesn't flare often but when it does I need to go urgently, and someone being in there can be quite distressing. We can't have visitors despite having a spare room as we can't manage any more people using the bathroom. It's a very old house, rented and no way they will put in another bathroom - we have tried to persuade them! There's also no way of dividing up the room and separating the loo from the bath as it's tiny and the bath is against the back wall, door would then be off my son's bedroom. The kids and I bath in the evening to space out the usage, but husband is a big sweaty fella (sorry!) so needs to bath in the morning before work.

Just typing this out has made me realise how shit it is, but other people must live like this too... don't they?

[quote CheetasOnFajitas]@oakleaffy “DH: I need a blowout”
Eurgh . What a grim expression.[/quote]
My friend used that expression for when men hog the loo.
Basically : ''I may be some time, and you'll need to wait til bathroom airs''.

Matches are your friend. Strike one and ''blow it out.''...Maybe that is what she meant?

@Intrepidintrovert

You don't have a back door?

Well, we do but it's broken so we can't use it. It's a very old house. If we owned it (or had any money!) we'd do things to it but we can't, and the LL keeps it 'servicable' but no more. We have asked for re-jigging off the bathroom many times but it's not going to happen.

Re back door, get the bloody landlord to fix it for goodness sakes.. He is raking in money, and it too tight @rsed to fix the back door???

It will probably be the hinges?

Getting a new back door won't cost that much. His responsibility.

I grew up one of seven kids in a 3 bed semi with one bathroom. Obviously not ideal but we coped - and we weren't unusual.

Now I live alone in a new build with 3 loos - aaahhhhhhhhhhhh much better.

You cope - what else can you do.

Have you outside space? If so consider buying a caravan. We have one for holidays but its also used as a guest room one weekend a year when due to a local sporting event our house fills to overflow. The caravan is hooked up to power and water, shower and toilet are usable, toilet cassette has to be emptied but that's easy. I know on cold morning it might not be the most pleasant but it's an option.

Could this work? So the shower curtain doesn't go to the top, but offers privacy where the eyeline would be?

Well, I grew up with 7 people and one bathroom. Lots of hammering on the door but no-one had a bath in the morning. We survived.
(And now I have two bathrooms and a cloakroom just for me and it's lovely!)

We only have one bathroom (it's downstairs to add to the inconvenience ) but we have a separate toilet . Is there anyway that your bathroom can be divided to two rooms so your toilet is separate ?

It also helped in our house that DH worked shifts so was getting ready and going out a different time to me and DS.

We managed as kids but now I won’t even book a holiday cottage if it doesn’t have two loos! My husband spends hours on the loo and it would be awful. The kids would hate it too. You could get a commode for your bedroom and see in that then tip it away. My MILs one looked like quite a nice chair and you couldn’t tell it was a commode

Looked like this

Can you put a commode / camping toilet in the large upstairs cupboard. You can get stick up battery lights, and if you have an old fashioned jug and basin (like this www.pinterest.ca/tothelastdetail/pitcher-basin-sets/ ) then it is basically an extra loo.

I think the morning thing is just a scheduling problem, isn't it? So a few options for that:
You get up earlier to have your wee before his bath.
He gets up earlier so he's done with his bath before you wake up.
He washes faster.

The kids aren't necessarily going to hog the bathroom when they are teens. Mine got more sensible and better at planning and we fit round each other more easily than when they were little.

Tip: discourage people from doing grooming in the bathroom which could be done elsewhere. Put up some mirrors in the hall or in bedrooms with a shelf underneath, and make sure the area is well lit. Shaving mirror by the kitchen sink.

@TinySleepThief

We never struggled growing up with 4 people to one bathroom, it's the norm where I live.

Honestly without wanting to sound like a mumsnet cliche it sounds like you have a husband problem rather than a bathroom issue. Why is he having a bath every morning? That seems very rude, why doesn't he have a shower and save the baths for later in the evening when he can be courteous and ask you first if you need the loo?

It's literally on the op that they don't have a shower and can't fit one in physically

How awful. I grew up in a 3 bed house with two parents and two older siblings, with only a cold tap in the scullery, an outside toilet, and a tin bath brought indoors once a week.

I wouldn't have wanted my own kids to grow up without an indoor loo but there are worse things than having only one bathroom.

Agree with pp to get a tattoo shower. They're a dick to use but it should speed DH up in the morning and will bake hair washing easier too

We only have one (3 of us). We manage pretty well although there's been some lockdown banging at times when someone's taking too long.

No flipping way would someone have a bath in the morning though! That would cause chaos. We have quick showers only in the am and 'proper' showers with hair washing etc in the evening.

He needs to nudge you when the bath is running so you can have a quick wee and go back to bed.

How did we cope - when my dad went to the loo to read the paper, my mum used to climb up and pee in the kitchen sink. I never understood why she didn't just go for a wee before his mamouth sit down, since he did it at the same time every night!

Looks like you need to work towards moving at some point in the future.
You say you can't move right now but is there scope to move say, by 2025 or 2030?

How long does he spend in the bath?
He sounds quite selfish, to be honest.

We have a rule that if you dont go to each person in turn to say "I am having a bath, do you need the loo?" then if someone does need to go youu either put up with them going while you are in there or getting out while they go (more usual). It only happens once when they are teens!

I would pee in front of DP but I draw the line at pooing so I would insist that he tells you (waking you if necc) that he is going for a bath to give you a chance to go.

Also, we cant fit a proper shower, but I got one of those shower and tap together arrangments. The pressure isnt high enough to have it on the wall, but like you we dont have the height to do it so I use it as a hand held.

We found it pretty annoying having one bathroom (we did for first 4.5 years of living here). We got a loft conversion with second bathroom when our eldest turned 13. 3 years later I think we would have had breakdowns with one bathroom and 2 teens. It's not ideal at all.

@SlightlyJaded

Could this work? So the shower curtain doesn't go to the top, but offers privacy where the eyeline would be?

You could do a curtain like slightlyJaded says and then put a hook in the sloping wall and either a loop or a hole on the side of the shower curtain to pull the curtain across and hook onto the sloping wall. When I was growing up we had a downstairs bathroom off the kitchen with a second door inside to the loo. So although the loo was seperate you had to go through the bathroom. After a bath though we had to go through the kitchen, living room and past the front door to get back upstairs so we were snookered if we forgot to take all our clean clothes in with us.

Or stick on velcro!

You say you've got a big under stairs cupboard. Could you put a portapotty in there with a jug and ewer like a PP said? Also, there must be some way to fit a shower curtain to the bath. It goes inside the bath.

I meant to say growing up we had only one bathroom with a bath but luckily we had a separate loo which DM refused to get made into one room. We were 6 in the family.

I have 5 kids, one bathroom, no shower. We manage fine because pretty much all houses where we are have 1 bathroom, most of which have no shower. In fact, I can only think of two houses I've visited that's had more than one, in my whole 32 years alive.

There is no way my partner or I would toilet in front of one another. It definitely is not the norm.

OP, your situation sounds tough. Earlier waking time for some would apoear to be the best solution. And a hand-held bath attachment to simulate a shower.