I don't even know what to say to this.

I have to guess that the update was only cosmetic, and this was grandfathered in?

But wait, can that be a functioning toilet? It is hanging over the edge.

Me, after the first night:

Why? Makes no sense!

I have seen raised toilets in old houses the predate indoor plumbing and in lesser-developed countries. I think it is done to retrofit plumbing, especially if the floor is a slab and you cant run plumbing underneath?

But I have only ever seen one step!

Gives new meaning to the word throne.

Based upon the window, I'm guessing this is a below grade basement. And there's probably a septic pump under there.

Why?

Well the rest of the bathrooms are not an improvement:

What in the actual what???

My legs aren’t long enough. But at least I’m short-torsoed so i won’t bonk my head,

Is it a basement bathroom? They could not splurge on a pump so needed to raise the toilet above the sewer line so it would flush.

And.....don't you just love a big window above your toilet?!

Now that’s what i call a crapper!

Well one plus is the squatty potty is built in to the design.

We stayed in an apartment in Surlat, France - it was on the 2nd floor. The toilet/water closet was a step up from the hallway with a door that swung out over the step but once you got in there the toilet was level to the floor. The bathroom with the sink and tub was the next room over but it didn't require a step to get into it.

I am not sure that this was to get the closet bend above the shower line because there is a shower with a low drain directly across. This is not a macerating toilet. Maybe it is built directly atop an ejection pump except you don't do that, you need access to the pump. The pump for our below ground toilet was in the room behind the bathroom, mostly buried in the floor with part of it sticking up a couple feet and the drains went vertically. Here there appears to be a floor drain in the shower and a floor drain outside the shower.

Who knows what's going on.

What I will say is the property is not exactly cheap but it is being marketed as an investment property and it is in a bad neighborhood. You have a choice of two elevated stops where there are literally people on the sidewalks shooting heroin.

I was sort of hoping for something more along these lines:

I am still struck by the fact that it hangs over the edge.

I used to think you might be overstating the drug issue in Phila. and then I saw something on the news recently about "tranq" in Kensington.

Xylazine, a large-animal tranquilizer not approved for human use, started showing up routinely in the drug supply in 2019, but didn't take off until the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020. Also known as tranq, xylazine can give users horrific skin lesions that can result in amputations.

Just Google Kensington and Somerset or Kensington and Allegheny

I’m with Jilly on that toilet.

I read a story about that drug in Philly in the NYT. Horrific.

I may fixate, but I rarely overstate or exaggerate.

Compared to other cities with drug problems like San Francisco or Seattle or LA to some extent, the locus of the drug problem is mostly removed from where people will see it or have to interact with it, up in it's own section of the city.

The particular stops of the elevated in those areas are bad, but I know people who live in that section of the city and you get a few blocks away from there and it's not like what you see on the videos of those areas right near the elevated. It's working class or non-working class, but it's neighborhoods that people live in

The latest streetview, which is a few years old, looks like this. There are a lot of neighborhoods that look like this with cars that are maintained and the houses habitable. It's not the South Bronx in the 1970s by a long shot.

The step up toilet is bad enough, but the entire bathroom design (and the mix of tiles!) is hideous so the toilet situation fits right in.

Is that wide caulk around the second toilet base?

I had jojoco’s same reaction to the title! 😂

It might be caulk, it might be a big rope of plumber's putty. It might be grout.

Am i the only one being driven crazy by how the base of the sink doesn’t sit in the center of the circle of the tile? Makes my ocd itch.

They did not attempt to pattern match on the toilet pedestal at all. The circle tile shows up in random spots throughout the rest of the house as well. All of the floors in the house are ceramic tile it appears. The neighborhood has a relatively large Hispanic and Asian population, higher than the mean population of the city. I feel like there are certain features like ceramic tile on floors and walls in many rooms that reflect the vernacular interiors of the houses in their countries of origin.

We have much better flippers in L.A. and I generally like what they do, especially in my neighborhood.

The first photo looks like a puzzle for which one should identify all the flaws, which should be numbered.

That looks like a basement bathroom. The toilet flange must be higher than the floor. It possibly has been set up like that for many years.

We have much better flippers in L.A.

So do we, a lot depends upon the neighborhood. This particular property is in a poor neighborhood being marketed to a landlord, not a homeowner.

Maybe the throne toilet is made for some very very tall person. I'm imagining it would take a very tall man to be able to stand and urinate at that toilet. (Of course it's more likely someone just built the steps to route a plumbing waste stack.)