Backyard Party Porta-Jon: How to Move It After It’s Full

When having a party in your backyard and you decide to have a porta-potty so people don't use the bathroom in your home, there are some things to consider.

Usually, the service that provides the portable toilets doesn't want to drive their big delivery trucks onto your lawn. That means, you'll have to move the porta-potties to the backyard manually. When we recently had a backyard party, we threw the big blue toilets onto the garden tractor cart and brought them to the back. It was fairly simple as these outdoor toilets aren't really that heavy. We brought them back, set them up and enjoyed the party. Then, when the festivities were done we realized the fact that what was once a big blue porta-potty with a manageable weight, was now a full porta-potty that was much heavier than when we dragged it behind the house when it was empty.

Now, what do we do?

We used EMJ Porta Jon in Westmoreland to handle our outdoor bathroom needs. Following a weekend party, EMJ was planning to pick up the bathrooms on Monday morning. It was our job to get them down to the front of the home where they could be pumped out and taken off the property.

How will we get these very heavy units from the back yard to the front? Not only do we need to figure out how to get them to the front of the house, we need to do it without spilling the "waste" all over the place.

It's actually pretty easy if you have a garden tractor.

The Porta-potty unit comes with what would be comparable to wooden skis that allow it to slide. The concept is to connect a rope to one side, and then the other and create a "Y" and connect the single line to the garden tractor's hitch.

It's important to have someone behind you to make sure as you drag the unit, it doesn't tip over. THAT would be a big mess.

Now, it's important to pull the unit slowly, so that it doesn't tip over. It won't fall forward, because the liquid and human waste is to the back of the unit. Still, you don't want it to fall backwards, which is one of the reasons it's important to have someone following along from behind to prevent a tip-over mishap

Following a pretty slow trip from the backyard, before you know it, you'll have reached the driveway in the front where the truck picking up the Porta-potty can have easy access.  We were able to bring down both units without an issue thanks to the help of Jeff Monaski, who assisted from behind.

A special thanks to EMJ Porta-Jon. We were all very relieved (literally) that the units were clean, with sinks and disinfecting wipes...as it made for a very comfortable and convenient party.