#19 Shit House

Have you ever noticed that some of the older streets in St. John's don't have a house numbered 19? 

The houses go from 17... straight to 21. 

At first, you might think it's just a numbering mistake. But I read an interesting story on CBC that tells another story.

There's actually a fascinating piece of Newfoundland folklore behind it. 

For much of the early 1900s, calling something "Number 19" wasn't referring to a house at all. It was slang for an outhouse.

In fact, many Newfoundlanders considered the number so unpleasant that they refused to have it on their homes.

One family building a house on Smith Avenue in the 1940s learned it had been assigned Number 19. The owner reportedly told the city, "I can't have my house be Number 19. That's a shithouse number."

The city changed the address to Number 21.

Even today, Smith Avenue, Morris Avenue, and several other older streets still skip Number 19 altogether.

So where did this strange tradition begin?

One theory comes from Memorial University folklorist Philip Hiscock. He believes the expression may have started with Newfoundland's first golf course, which opened near Golf Avenue in 1896.

Golf courses have eighteen holes. The outhouse became the joking "nineteenth hole."

Young caddies working at the course picked up the joke and carried it throughout St. John's. Before long, "Number 19" became a well-known nickname for the outhouse across much of Newfoundland.

The superstition became so strong that some people even dreaded turning nineteen years old because of the teasing they knew would follow.

Today, most people have never heard the expression.

But if you're walking through one of St. John's older neighbourhoods and notice the houses jump from 17 to 21, now you'll know why.

Sometimes the biggest mysteries aren't hidden in old buildings.

They're hidden in the numbers on the front door.