eli5 how you could pick up a telephone and hear another conversation(not in the same house)

Question

when i was a kid you could pick up the landline and hit the call button and join whatever conversation was already happening. though i’m reading salems lot right now, and they mention picking up the phone and hearing a conversation from those i know are not in the same home. how did this work???

In: 0

Answer 1

My parent’s first phone line was a party line with a house two doors away. Harry, the other part of the party line, had two late teens daughters who spent every evening on the phone to their boyfriends so we couldn’t use our phone between 6 and 10 most days.