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93
VERMIN IN RELATION TO HOUSING.
Arising out of my report to the Housing Committee
last year, systematic efforts are now being made to
reduce the risk that families moving into municipal
houses may be carrying vermin into the new tenement.
Notwithstanding the efforts of clean tenants to get
rid of them, bugs are found in the furniture as well
as in the walls of most old houses in such congested
districts as Bethnal Green. This arises from the fact
that in this property the defective plaster and woodwork
and the recesses of the furniture provide excellent
breeding and hiding grounds. Ordinary methods of
disinfection by spraying or fumigation are only
partially and temporarily successful. Houses are
closely built in terraces and vermin find it comparatively
easy to travel from house to house, while a
further complication is that in many cases poor
tenants are compelled to buy second-hand furniture
in which the presence of vermin is difficult to detect
and even more difficult to eradicate by the means
mentioned. While therefore some good is being done
by our present methods of disinfecting the furniture of
prospective Council tenants, it cannot be pretended
that they afford any guarantee of destruction of the
vermin therein and certainly they give no guarantee
of the disinfestation of the old tenement. In these
circumstances, serious consideration has been given
during the year to more effective measures for vermin
destruction of which the hydrocyanic gas process has
been the most favoured. The gas is introduced into
a specially constructed removal furniture van in
which the furniture has been placed and the method
appears to give a guarantee of the complete destruction
of all vermin without damage to the furniture.
The gas is of course highly dangerous and the process
has to be carried out by specially trained men under
conditions of safety. The containers, motor chassis
for conveying them, and the electrical plant for
carrying out the process involve substantial capital
expenditure while the cost of running the plant is also