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49
It has been assumed that those who read this report will be aware of the sanitary and social
evils which the furnished room system fosters and perpetuates. This class of tenement is either
let to homeless persons who are often very dirty, to prostitutes who ply their trade elsewhere, or
to couples who use the rooms for immoral purposes. Their lamentable condition is produced by a
sequence of events which move in a vicious circle. Through the filthy habits of some of the
tenants who use them, it is difficult for a keeper to find a hard working, respectable woman to
carry out the necessary cleaning, and because the cleaning is scamped only dirty people take the
rooms. Bedding, crockery and utensils have not infrequently been stolen by the lodgers and
pawned ; the meanest possible provision is accordingly made with the result that tenants of a
certain class do not hesitate to abuse in the grossest fashion accommodation which so far from
being worth a shilling a night would be dearly bought at any price. There does not appear to
be any reason for doubting the statement of the keepers that a nightly lodger will on occasions
use the greater part of a washstand as fuel for his fire, and the condition of furnished rooms is
in the first instance due not so much to the wilful intention on the part of keepers to neglect
their premises as to their practice of accepting for the sake of the rent, tenants whom they
know will make their lodgings filthy. The administrative difficulties that stand in the way of
securing the maintenance of cleanly conditions were dealt with in my last Report, and suggest that
what is required is the total abolition rather than the regulation of the furnished room system.
It has been suggested that this desirable lesult may be achieved if the recommendations of
certain members of the Special Committee appointed by the Council in December, 1911, are carried
out. The very valuable report of this Committee has been published in the Minutes of the Council,
to which reference should be made for further information as to the conditions prevailing in the
furnished rooms of Notting Dale.
Inspection.—The inspections of houses let in furnished lodgings during the year numbered
1,920. In the Notting Dale area alone 77 notices requiring dirty bedding to be cleansed were
served, and 7 beds were destroyed. In the same district 145 verminous rooms were dealt with,
and 265 registered lodging houses were cleansed at the instance of the Sanitary Inspector. In the
returns as to furnished and unfurnished rooms, the two classes of lodgings have been distinguished
as regards inspection, but owing to the clerical work which such a course would have involved
they have not been distinguished in the records of the sanitary notices served.