London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Finsbury 1913

Annual report on the public health of Finsbury for the year 1913

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135
1. The provision of two rooms for the occupation of the keeper
or of his deputy.
2. A sufficient supply of lockers, or other receptacles, with
suitable means of fastening, for clothes and for food
storage.
3. A sufficient supply of kitchen utensils for cooking, for eating
and for drinking.
4. The provision of lavatory basins, of facilities for washing
clothes, shirts and socks, and for foot-washing.
5. A sufficient supply of hand towels and roller towels, their
number, and their actual cleanliness and condition at the
time of inspection.
6. 1 he provision on the premises of a bath available for use as
such, and not kept as a storage receptacle for coal, boots,
and odds and ends.
7. The provision of a room with some degree of privacy for
repairing clothes. In the common lodging house under
review two of the lodgers were found with bare legs in the
common kitchen mending the trousers which they had taken
off. They sat on forms near the table where others were
feeding.
8. Hooks for coats and hats.
9. The height of the rooms.
10. A supply of hot water.
The above details are in addition to the usual sanitary requirements,
as, for example, the provision of sufficient water closet
accommodation, of facilities for the disposal of house refuse, the
lighting, the ventilation and the water supply. On the question
of food storage, when the occupants were asked "Where do you
keep your food?" they replied almost with one accord, "We
don't keep it, we eat it as we get it, we can't keep it."
The founding of Rowton Houses and of hostels in various parts
of London has raised the standard of comfort which may now be
reasonably expected in metropolitan common lodging houses.