Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. unpleasant, disgusting, filthy, messy, second-rate.

1862		q. in Wiley Life of Billy Yank (1952) 199: You God-damned low-lived son of a bitch, you shit-house adjutant.
1939		A. Bessie Men in Battle 67: Yet even while they referred to any such bit of information as a ‘shithouse rumor’ they spread it even farther.
1959		G. Hamilton Summer Glare 82: You dirty rotten stinkin’ little shit-house bloody rat.
1960		Kerouac letter 12 Apr. in Charters II (1999) 251: I get such silly letters every day [...] Or ridiculous requests that I appear somewhere to read ... Whether it’s Oxford or shithouse college.
1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 83: That was a lousy rotten shithouse thing to say.
1973		Tharunka (Sydney) 8 Nov. 28/3: [A]ll their mouths agape to catch the filthy fucker flies that fly between the Union shithouse cafeteria and the Union President’s white elephant alternative ripoff shithouse cafeteria, the Wentworth.
1974		J. McNeil How Does Your Garden Grow Act III: sam: How do I look? mick: Shithouse. Yer a grub.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 13: The whole pommie economy is based on everyone doing a shithouse job as slowly as possible.
1986		T. Winton That Eye, The Sky 33: ‘How’s boarding school?’ I ask. [...] ‘Shithouse.’.
1989		R. McDonald Rough Wallaby 132: Now, that’s a shithouse thing to say.
1998		R.G. Barrett Goodoo Goodoo 30: You were shithouse. Wolfman Jack would be rolling over in his grave.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 78: There is also the crass but widely used shithouse, a term which has generated many useful and colourful combinations as ugly as a shithouse rat, built like a brick shithouse (that is, big and strong) and the simple description of something shoddy or inferior as shithouse.
2000		P. Temple Dead Point (2008) [ebook] ‘How’s the film business?’ ‘Shithouse’.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] ‘You don’t know how to fire [a gun]’ ‘Nor do you, judging by your shithouse shot yesterday’.
2018		Guardian 9 Jan. 🌐 [A] wag of the tail and a nudge of my leg on days when human life seemed shithouse to me.
2018		G. Gilmore Base Nature [ebook] ‘I’m working my way through it [...] but it’s still pretty shithouse’.
2021		C. Hammer Opal Country 320: ‘What was his relationship like with his daughter?’ ‘Shithouse’.

2. of a person, ill, exhausted, run down, highly nervous.

1977		H. Garner Monkey Grip 91: I asked him how he was. ‘Shithouse,’ he croaked. ‘Nauseous.’.
1994		J. Wambaugh Finnegan’s Week 275: I’m goin shithouse waitin fer the fuckin little hand to get on the six.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 78: It is even possible, in Lingo at least, to describe one’s general condition in this way: i’m feeling shithouse today.
2000		Age (Melbourne) Books 18 June 10/6: It’s afterwards that you feel shithouse.
2013		F. Bill Donnybrook [ebook] [A] crazy shithouse recluse.
2018		C. Hammer Scrublands [ebook] ‘How you feeling?’ ‘Shithouse. I cracked a couple of ribs on the steering wheel. They hurt like fuck’.