We were looking for houses for rent in the Ilford area. The most striking thing, apart from how old the houses were, was that all of them had just a single bathroom. No separate toilet. I learnt the importance of having multiple toilets several years ago, and was only reiterated early in the morning this weekend where one toilet and one bathroom were shared by six of us at Swindon.
The reason, I was told by a very courteous young Punjabi, is that the Councils used to tax buildings based on the number of their toilets. So you would find three bedroom buildings with one toilet, four bedroom buildings with one toilet, …
Which still doesn’t explain why most of the houses have toilets only on the first floor.