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53
tenants with them to the new home, despite the fact that sub-letting
and lodgers are forbidden on the County Council housing estates.
They therefore seek means of evading the restrictions and wrongly
name their lodgers as members of the family.
4. The worst rent payers are often those families who have the
largest incomes. These are also frequently the most thriftless and
most careless.
5. The housing problem has its reflex in the moral degradation
and the change for the worse in the habits and social amenities of
those affected by the housing shortage. A family consisted of the
parents and 5 children whose ages ranged from 8 weeks to 4 years.
They occupied one very small back room and were very overcrowded.
They were originally taken in by the owner temporarily until they
could get better accommodation. This was found to be impossible.
The owner wanted the room and cut off the gas and made things
generally unpleasant. They had one double bed and a cot. There
was no oven, and the fireplace was very small. The weekly income
was 65s. The mother explained that since the family had had to
live in one room, her husband had completely changed. He used
to be a steady industrious sober man, he had been a "good" man,
who stayed at home at night with the family. But now "since
they had had to pig it in one room" he never came home until very
late at night, often drunk, and used the most dreadful language.
He had taken to excessive drinking to try and forget the awful
conditions under which they were living.
Illustrative cases.
1. The parents and seven children occupied one small top
room at a weekly rent of 6s. They had lived here for 10 years.
The room was much overcrowded. The children's ages ranged
from 10 months to 14 years. The two youngest were twins. The
father was an ex-service man and had been a war prisoner in Germany.
He worked at Shepherds Bush. He found it impossible
to accept a house at Becontree owing to the exigencies of his employment.
2. The parents and twelve children occupied 3 rooms at a
weekly rental of l1s. 4d. They had lived here for 8 years. The