A northeast toilet in a flat you can't rebuild

It isn't a curse. It's a layout conflict: a wet room in the corner that Vastu would rather keep open and light.

You can't move the plumbing stack, and you don't need to. Keep the bathroom dry, aired and shut. Put your quiet or prayer shelf somewhere else. Keep the brightest corner of the room you live in clear and usable. Skip the kits.

ClassicalThe old manuals talk about the northeast as the corner for the gods, in a house you are building. Brihat Samhita says: "The apartment for the Devas shall be built in the north-east" (53.118). The same chapter lays the figure of the house, the Vāstupuruṣa, with "head in the north-east" (53.51), and has the first foundation stone laid at the northeastern corner (53.112).

ClassicalThe manuals don't treat the northeast as a place where nothing practical may happen. Mānasāra puts kitchens "in the north, north-east, or the Parjanya quarter" (36.26), and allows kitchen smoke openings "at the south-west or the north-east" (38.42).

What they don't talk about: indoor flush toilets. These texts describe plots, whole houses, courtyards and temples. Mānasāra does name bathing rooms (36.41), but neither text has a flush toilet, let alone one in a rented flat. Any "verse" about your toilet corner, or about putting salt in it, is not from these chapters.

Living practiceThe usual modern reading is about light. In the northern hemisphere the east and northeast get early sun, so people prefer to keep that corner open, quiet and lit. That's a reasonable design reading, not a line from the text. See why the north-east is talked about.

Living practiceModern consultants don't agree on where a bathroom should go.

• The northwest school puts toilets in the northwest, with the west as second choice. It's a common view on Vastu blogs. Some of these blogs quote old texts for it. We couldn't find those verses in the house chapters we checked.
• The south-of-southwest school prefers south-of-southwest, with west-of-northwest or east-of-southeast as alternatives. Architectural Digest India, quoting a Pune practitioner, also notes that apartments rarely allow a bathroom to be moved.

The schools disagree on the best spot, but most avoid the northeast. That's a planning preference for new builds. For a flat that already exists, both end up at the same advice: keep it clean, dry and closed. See two schools arguing over a northwest toilet.

Check before you worry. Many "northeast toilets" aren't.

1. Use your unit's floor plan, not the tower's. The building's northeast corner may be someone else's flat.
2. Find the middle of your unit and split the plan into a simple three-by-three grid. The northeast is the top-right cell when north is at the top.
3. Get north right. Use the plan's north arrow or a map app. Phone compasses can be off near steel, wiring and appliances.
4. Notice the grid you're using. Schools divide a plan into 8, 9, 16 or 32 zones. A bathroom on a zone line may land in a different zone depending on the school.

If the bathroom sits near the middle of the plan instead, see a loft with a bathroom near the centre.

We don't sell pyramids, strips, helixes, yantras as house fixes, or salt kits, for this or anything else. The Shop only lists ordinary household things, such as lamps and salt, for the Change steps above. See what we will and won't sell.