I live in NH and have lots of friends/family in MA. I've never had one and wouldn't call them universal, but they seem fairly common for people on city sewage (and not used at all by people with their own septic systems/leech fields).

My house in New Jersey didn't have one when we moved in, but we bought it from the original owners who'd moved in in 1923, and I installed one when we renovated it.

Other than that, every house I've lived in in California, New Jersey, and Oregon has had one.

My townhouse in Pittsburgh did not have one. That was 20 years ago, though. If they replaced the sink since then, it probably has a disposal now. Most modern sinks seem to include one. That townhouse was a really old building and had a lot of old-fashioned elements like painted-over ends of gaslights and lead glass windows that were distorted from gravity. We found some sooty old newspapers from World War II in the attic.

In college, I lived in a cheap, crummy apartment that had been carved out of part of a decaying fancy hotel in Baltimore. That apartment had a bathtub with feet and-- get this-- a boarded-over DUMBWAITER. No disposal there, either. :-)

Modern urban buildings all seem to have them these days, though.

I've never had one: not in any of the several places I've lived in New York City, nor in the student apartment in New Haven. (They were illegal in New York until recently, I believe to try to reduce the strain on the sewer system, and they're still very rare here.)

In my experience it depends on the age of the housing, and to some degree also, with rental housing, how fancy and expensive it is. None of my Minneapolis apartments that I lived in after college had a disposal. They were all in buildings dating from the early 20th century. The '50's ranch house David and I had in Massachusetts had one. When we bought a 1926 bungalow in Minneapolis, we installed one along with a dishwasher and other amenities, but nobody had done so before us. Our present 1916 duplex, which I think was lower middle-class housing when it was used in its intended fashion, has none in either kitchen.

When I was about eight my parents had a house built in a new subdivision, and it had the first dishwasher and the first disposal any of us had ever had or seen. This would have been in 1961 or so, in Missouri. The older houses we lived in later in Omaha, Nebraska did not have disposals. In one house we installed one.

P.

I agree with the others. Disposals and septic systems don't really mix well, so you won't find them in houses that aren't on the public sewer, or a lot of older houses that were built before the sewer was put in.

We aren't on the sewer, so we don't have one. I don't miss it that much; sure, dealing with sink strainers is sometimes gross, but it's not terrible.

I'm intrigued by this discussion, having never to my knowledge even seen what you're talking about. Are they for all food waste, or only compostable, or what?

We have a garden so can compost. But if we didn't, we could put all our compostable stuff in a council-provided bin (as we do with the non-compostable food waste), which is collected every week with the rubbish/recycling. Does the US not have similar services?

I have had them in Omaha, NE, in multiple houses; in Minneapolis suburbs in multiple houses; in Lawrence, KS, in a house; and in two different apartments in the Bay Area. But there is a strong element of selection there: my mother and I would both not at all enjoy dealing with a kitchen without one, and would tend to put a lack in the negative column when considering features and choosing between places to live.

With the exception of the apartment I lived in in Ohio, which was in a building built in 1939, every house or apartment I've ever lived in had/has a garbage disposal.

I haven't had one in a house (and I've lived both urban and rural), but I had one in a late-70s era apartment here in Portland.

I'd say something like 80% of the houses I've had cause to know about having one, have had one. Fewer in houses with septic tanks. Fewer in older houses. (I've mostly been in the know with houses in Michigan and North Carolina.)

I first encountered them when I was living in Ohio. When I moved into an Ontario house that had been renovated in the, probably 1970s, it had one as well - but as soon as we started our own round of kitchen renovations the contractor and plumber informed us that it would be illegal for them to reinstall it.

They don't seem to be illegal in Alberta, but I would avoid having one, both because they frighten me and because I think they're an inappropriately extravagant use of potable water. In the building I currently live in, some ongoing drainage problems prompted the condo board to pay to have them removed from all units that still had them, since the stuff that went through the disposal was still more likely to block the pipes than what went down ordinary sinks.

My grandmother's house, where I'm living now, has one. The two houses I grew up in (New England) and two apartments I've lived in (New Orleans) haven't had them. I didn't think they were a common thing.

My inlaws put in one about 10 years ago. Same time they installed a dishwasher.
I grew up with one in Northern VA, can't think of a house, except maybe the dump we lived in in California in the early 90's, that hasn't had one. Although our one in TX didn't work very well. When we lived overseas we did not have one.

I've never had one (once in a hotel, I think). I remember the first time I saw one in use and thinking, "what a waste of water!" I don't know whether carting away solid trash is more or less ecologically sound, but -- having lived through water shortages in an area that usually has enough rain -- I would not want to liquefy my trash.

We own a three-family. The first floor has a garbage disposal; the other two don't. Lis and I have occasionally discussed installing one, but haven't yet bothered. It wouldn't be too difficult -- they're like a couple hundred bucks, and the plumbing and electrical are simple enough that I think I could do it myself. But, like I said, I've not bothered.

I'd estimate that over half of the kitchens I know have garbage disposals, but not MUCH over half.

They are pretty common in California and Alaska, both places I've lived, where they are mostly standard. Don't know about other areas.

Current and previous 2 places, on sewer systems, had them. Previous place unit was old and ineffective. In the two previous places we had back yards and composted extensively, used disposal little. Here we are in a condo in the middle of (Vermont's version of) urbia. But our garbage collector has started collecting compost. Trial system, but the state talks about requiring it in a few years. Purely voluntary now - not particularly convenient, and only some residents use it. But our disposal now is used seldom. [Lemon rinds - makes a nice smell. :-) ]

I would say No. (And thank heavens.)

I've pretty much always lived in a home with a garbage disposal (or at least for the last 45 years I have). Every appartment and house except a mobile home we rented in college. That covers MD, PA (Philly area) and the eastern panhandle of WV.