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20
Speaking generally, the condition of the poorer house property
in Hornsey has improved during the last few years. During
the War and in the years immediately succeeding it, the cost of
repairs was excessive, and it was difficult to persuade property
owners to do much to their houses. Now, however, prices are
more reasonable, and labour is easier to obtain: the result is that
the necessary repairs are carried out, and this class of house is
better than it was three or four years ago.
Many houses in the Borough which were originally intended
and built for the use of one family are now occupied by two or
more families, and it is in these especially that sanitary supervision
is needed. If two, three or four families share a sink or
water-closet, it is no one's business to keep it clean: it is the
business of nobody to look after the common passage and the
common back-yard. Another evil associated with the sub-letting
of these houses is that many of the families have no proper
cooking-place: there is only one cooking range or gas-cooker in
the house, and only one family has access to it. The remainder
have to get along as best they can by cooking on a bedroom fire
or on a gas-ring. Hot water and baths are unknown luxuries in
many of these tenements, and it is not to be wondered at that
vermin are sometimes found in these houses. Indeed, it is a
matter for astonishment that so many people in such adverse
circumstances manage to keep themselves and their homes clean
and respectable.
As I stated in my last Annual Report, I do not think that
the provision of more working-class houses would materially
diminish this overcrowding, for the reason that the families now
living in one or two rooms could not afford to live in larger houses
and to pay an additional rent. It is difficult to obtain figrures
which are comparable year to year regarding overcrowding; but
my personal experiences during 1922 lead me to believe that the
overcrowding was not so acute as it was during 1921. The house
shortage, as far as Hornsey is concerned, is mora a national than
a local problem.
During the year under review we discovered 39 houses that
were bug-infested. It is not an easy matter to rid a house of
these creatures, for they are more than usually tenacious of life,