View report page

14
(5) The case of two contiguous first-class houses in
Grosvenor-street, each suffering more or less from sewer
vapour. These houses, which we will call for distinction
sake x and y, were the subject of inquiry in January 1864,
when it was discovered that an old dead drain had been left
under x, after the fatal and most reprehensible custom of
workmen and a small cesspool in the vault of y. These were
done away with, and a soil pipe in y was better trapped and
repaired, and it was hoped the case was at end. But 14
months later, fresh complaints were made by the occupants
of x, and these led to a further inquiry, at which we examined
the whole of each house, and also had the opportunity
of taking such evidence as was tendered by the
builders who had built, and had since repaired these houses:
for sad to say, they are both newly built, and we are not now
dealing with the misdeeds of the last generation. Each
house has great depth from back to front. The water-closets
are in the middle of each house, and drained by a soil-pipe
which passes down within the party wall. Instead of being
made of lead, and being embedded in a groove covered by a
panel, so that they could be got at and repaired if need
be; these pipes are mere cast iron rain-water pipes,
with loose joints, and embedded in the brickwork, so that
they could not be got at without cutting away the wall, and
spoiling the decorations of the house. This being the case,
the inhabitants of x complained of drain effluvia which they
believed to proceed from the soil-pipe of y, embedded in the
party wall. Whether this were the case or not, we could not
say, for the soil-pipe of each house being similar, there was
as much probability as not that x's complaint arose within its
own wall. Before advising the Sanitary Committee to call
on y to pull down his pipe and deface his house, we thought
that x should do the same; but as he declined, there the
matter rested.