An outhouse, (also known as a privy or kybo) usually refers to a type of toilet in a small structure separate from the main building which does not have a flush or sewer attached.

The term outhouse originally referred to an outbuilding, or any small structure away from a main building, used for a variety of purposes, but mainly for activities not wanted in the main house.

Outhouses are used for storage, animals, and cooking, to name a few uses. Larger structures have names such as barn or stable.

Maintaining Outhouses

Maintaining outhouses is carried out differently in different parts of the world. Waste deposited in earth closets was also euphemistically referred to as "nightsoil". In suburban areas not connected to sewerage, such outhouses were not built over pits.

Instead, waste was collected into large cans, or "dunny-cans", which were positioned under the toilet, to be collected by contractors (or "nightsoil collectors") hired by the local council.

Collected waste matter would then be removed from the premises and disposed of elsewhere. The contractors would replace the used cans with empty, cleaned cans. Until the 1970s Brisbane relied heavily on this form of sanitation.

Outhouses Around the World

The term "kybo" is popular within the Scout Movement worldwide. The word is believed by some to have originated as an acronym for "Keep Your Bowels Open" although there is some possibility that it is a backronym.

The term "kybo" may have originated at the Farm and Wilderness Camps in Vermont where it came from the coffee cans (Kybo brand coffee) that held the lye or more often lime used to keep odour to a minimum. It was only after Kybo coffee was no longer available and the cans were no longer used that folks began to come up with other possible reasons for the term "kybo".

The term biffy is sometimes encountered in the context of U.S. Girl Scouting, and may have originated with the "BFI" logo of what was at one time Browning-Ferris Industries (now part of Allied Waste Industries), a waste collection company whose trade lines in some markets include the servicing of portable toilets.

An alternate explanation: when backpackers prepare a cat-hole or trench latrine in their overnight campsite (even embellishing it with fresh-cut flowers), they call it the BIFF - Bathroom In Forest Floor. A backpacking group will carry a zip-lock bag with a trowel, toilet paper, and a lighter (to burn the used tissue); this bag is known as "the BIFF key".