View report page

52
6. Considerable difficulty is found from time to time even now in maintaining a
reasonable standard of cleanliness of water closets in the poorer type of block
dwellings. Maintenance of cleanliness is greatly aided by good natural
lighting and ventilation and will be made much more difficult in future
if daylight is entirely excluded.
7. The standard of hygiene of social class V people, some of whom will no
doubt tenant the flats, is probably on average less than that of the social
class of people inhabiting hotels, or similar places which the exception to
the byelaw (it is thought) was primarily designed to help. The chances of
bacterial infection are thereby increased.
8. Hotel and office block users are either not resident or are only resident
for very short periods. They are therefore able to put up with theoretically
objectionable practices in a way which permanent residents cannot. In any
event they are less likely to be chronically ill and even if they became acutely
ill they would not remain there for more than a few hours.
9. When natural lighting is omitted in large office blocks, hotels, etc. the usual
thing is that the WCs are in suites and the total size of the whole WC compartment,
including the individual cubicles, is relatively large and therefore
mechanical ventilation produces no draught and it also produces less feeling
of oppression. Furthermore excellent maintenance can be relied upon.
10. It must be accepted that a proportion of adults have feelings akin to claustrophobia.
Such feelings are more likely to be exacerbated in having to use
the type of WC and bathroom proposed.
11. Even assuming that everything works perfectly now, or has been working
perfectly for a few years at some estates, there is no guarantee that individual
flats will not be sold within the next 60 or 70 years to individual tenants. This
is more likely with one political party in power than another and it is more
likely in the small blocks of flats than in the taller blocks. If this is so steps
would have to be taken to ensure that the extraction mechanism would be
within the control of each individual flat owner.
12. If this method of construction is used by one authority it would be difficult
to stop "slum" landlords (whose existence we must accept) from also
adopting windowless water closets. Here proper maintenance is much less
likely to be satisfactory, and many hygienic and other evils may thus result.
13. If any of the tenants happen to be poor or to become poor (and this is a matter
which cannot be ruled out) it is likely that the electric current, if based on a
pre-payment meter, will not be maintained, or that an electric bulb which
may normally light the WC may wear out and not be replaced for a matter
of hours or days. During this time there would be likely to be increased
fouling of the WC compartment and thereby increased risk to anybody
using it.
There must of course be reasons for a contrary view and so I have
endeavoured to ascertain why things which are natural (such as light
and ventilation) should be avoided. The point which immediately
springs to mind is whether by so doing money could be saved. It appears
that this may be possible, though not so in every case, and where it is
possible the amount saved is only a small percentage of the total building
cost. It is also said that there would be less danger from frost but this
can be no real objection, because with present methods of construction
the pipes can be properly protected and in fact can be all within the
framework of the house—thereby also cutting out the aesthetic objection
that the facade of the house or block of flats may look unpleasant because
of multiplicity of pipes. In fact there need be none. As it seemed that the