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53
RATS AND MICE DESTRUCTION ACT.
I have received the following report from Mr. A. White —
During the year 1937 a considerable amount of work has been done
in rat repression, and many premises have been entirely freed of rats.
Concentration has principally centred on the abolition of defects in
sewers and drains, which in a Borough like Southwark, where most
property has been rebuilt several times, is usually the source from which
premises become infested.
Although a riverside Borough, it is perhaps surprising that while
one would expect to find the greater infestation in the northern section,
which fronts on to the river, it is in the southern wards that most rats
are found.
While it must be acknowledged that there are undoubtedly many
premises which are infested with rats, either continually or at intervals,
of which the Council have no knowledge, it is a fact that the greater
number of individual cases dealt with, through complaints or other
information received by the Health Services Department, have been in
the districts south and south-east of the Elephant and Castle.
This is best explained when it is realised that in this part of the
Borough there are very many more properties consisting mainly of
dwelling-houses and flats. A great number of these houses are separately
drained, and there are, therefore, many more miles of drains which may,
and in many instances do, become defective, and allow rats to gain
access to the adjoining property. Examination of the drains of these
houses invariably proves that unless they have been reconstructed during
the last 47 years, since the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, was passed
into law, they are in a very poor condition and likely, at any time, to
become the source of rat infestation. A number of cases have been found
where, although the house has been redrained, the old disused drains
have either never been abolished or have been ineffectively sealed off.