Fox News reports that the Pittsburgh potty was invented for pure convenience and that its origins lie in the city's mining industry. Per "Today," real estate agent Jackie Konopka likened the Pittsburgh potty to a "historical mudroom." Ted Zellers, who is working on a photography book of Pittsburgh potties explained, "Steel workers would come home. They would clean up down in the basement before they came upstairs." Stephen Cummings, a Pittsburgh realtor, told WESA that he believed that in some cases, a Pittsburgh potty may have been installed for the servants who used the basement as a "living quarters." Although these theories have endured, it's widely believed that the Pittsburgh potty was the result of bad plumbing.
In an interview with WESA, Martin divulged that the Pittsburgh potty was placed in the basement because it was never supposed to be used. He noted that the sewage system in the late 1800s and early 1900s was rudimentary. The city became heavily populated and the sewage pipes were not designed to support the amount of fluid passing through. Thus, the sewer would get backed up and the Pittsburgh potty was the solution.
Martin explained (via "Today"), "When a sewer backs up, it backs up into buildings. So the idea was to put a fixture in the basement where the line came into the street, so if there was a sewer backup, it would go there instead of the main house." Simply put, the Pittsburgh potty was designed to avert disaster.
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