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50
Medical Officers of Health Annual Report.
bye-laws have been enforced is not in a much better
condition than was formerly the case. The important
element is undoubtedly frequent inspection, for landlords
who cater for the class of tenants I am referring to, will
not take the trouble to do the frequent cleansing work
that is necessary, without very constant looking up.
Then there are many other nuisances recurring, such as
defective waterclosets, dilapidated walls and staircases,
leaky roofs, &c., that cannot be dealt with under the
bye-laws, but require the service of another set of
notices, so that the procedure is made more complicated.
There is also the difficulty that where a tenant (usually
himself a weekly one) sublets to others; it is he who
has to be proceeded against for breaches of the bye-laws
as regards the sub-let portion, manifestly a hopeless
business. On the whole it seems to me that proceedings
under the nuisance section of the Public Health Act,
provided that inspections are made frequently enough,
is equally effectual in dealing w ith such houses.
General
Nuisances
During the year 5,548 houses and premises
were inspected, of which 1,319 were systematic
house to house inspections, and the total number of
nuisances dealt with amounted to 4,733. Of these 823
were abated without the service of of a notice, and 3,910
after such service. The number of notices served was
2,102, of which 2,000 were preliminary and 162 statutory.
The Table on page 30 gives a statement of
nuisances that can be conveniently classified, and others
not appearing there, involved the carrying out of work,
amongst which was the following:—338 new watercloset
apparatus fixed in place of old ones, 12 additional waterclosets
built, seven watercloset pans disconnected from the
drinking water cisterns one closet apartment ventilated,
140 new soil pipes fixed, 20 existing soil pipes repaired,
12 ventilating pipes repaired, 45 leaky water fittings