View report page

154
They are administered by the London County Council, and are
licensed annually at a special meeting held in June of each year.
Notice of objection to the licence of any common lodging house
must be sent in duplicate to the Clerk of the London County
Council, at least a week before the date of the special meeting.
The occupants of one of the above houses were very much
harassed in July, 1912, by a plague of mosquitos. The inmates,
drawn from the very lowest grades of society, were becoming
almost panic stricken : they were afraid to go to sleep. Very few
escaped being bitten; some were bitten very severely. They
were alarmed to find that when the mosquitos were caught and
squashed that blood stains were left on the wall or table.
It was commonly asserted that the mosquitos had been liberated
from some foreign chests and boxes of a neighbouring firm having
an extensive trade with Argentine houses.
Many were caught and submitted to the Entomologist of the
London School of Tropical Medicine, who recognised them as
specimens of the common English mosquito—Culex pipiens.
Their breeding ground was searched for, but not discovered.
All the known neighbouring water cisterns and places holding
stagnant water were carefully examined for larvae, but without
success.
The closest largest water areas are the Regents Canal and the
lake at Finsbury Park. The existence of these places would not,
however, explain the curious localisation of the mosquitos to this
one common lodging house. The rooms and passages were
fumigated. Fly killers made of wire gauze were given to the
night porter and inmates and were effective in destroying the pests.
Systematic House to House Inspection.—The details
of the work done under the Housing (Inspection of District)
Regulations, 1910, are indicated briefly in the subjoined table :—