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69
Inspection of Dwelling Houses.
At the present time inspection of dwelling houses is carried out under the
following circumstances:—
1.—Whenever a case of notifiable infectious disease (except Consumption) is
reported, the house where the case occurred is subjected to a sanitary
inspection and the drains tested. During the year 1057 such inspections
were made, followed by 1533 re-inspections.
2.—Whenever a complaint is received as to the condition of any house a sanitary
inspection of the house is carried out. The drains of many houses are tested
by this procedure. During the year 2857 inspections were made in consequence
of complaints, and 7047 consequent re-inspections.
3.—All registered tenement houses, and certain other dwellings which require
frequent inspection (known as " inscribed dwellings ") are visited
periodically (six monthly, where possible,) and inspected.
There were at the end of 1913 2360 houses on the tenement house
register (i.e. the register of "houses let in lodgings, or occupied by
members of more than one family"). These are sub-let houses which are
of such a nature as to make frequent inspection desirable. They are
nearly all let unfurnished. Two such houses were added to the register
during 1913. The number of " inscribed dwellings" at the end of the
year was 207.
1763 routine inspections and 3287 consequent re-inspections of these
houses were made during 1913, in addition to those made under the
Housing, Town Planning, etc. Act, 1909 (see below). Weekly inspections
were also made of the yards of mews and stables. 4615 inspections
of these and 237 consequent re-inspections were made in the year.
4.—During 1913 the routine inspection of houses prescribed by Sec. 17 (I)
of the Housing, Town Planning, etc. Act, 1909, has been put in operation.
This sub-section provides that " it shall be the duty of every local authority
to cause to be made from time to time inspection of their district
with a view to ascertaining whether any dwelling house therein is in a
state so dangerous or injurious to health as to be unfit for human
habitation." It also enacts that in this connection regulations made by
the Local Government Board must be complied with. These regulations
[The Housing (Inspection of District) Regulations, 1910], were summarised
in the Annual Keport for 1912 (p.p. 98 and 9!)).
In accordance with the regulations a list of streets was prepared by the
late Medical Officer of Health, the houses in which, in his opinion,
ought to be inspected at once. This consisted of those streets, the
majority of the houses in which were already subject to periodical
inspection as registered tenement houses or "inscribed dwellings." The
number of houses included in these streets was 3821.
The inspections under the regulations were begun on 1st January,
1913, and in every instance a case paper has been filled up and filed.
A number of streets which are not included in the above-mentioned
list have also been inspected. 1545 houses have been inspected during
the year under Sec. 17 and 26 of the houses received a second routine
inspection later in the year, so that the total inspections carried out
under the Section in 1913 was 1571. The re-visits consequent upon
these inspections numbered 3668 (see table 9, page 110).
The details of this work are shown in the following table-