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10
In nearly all cases the tenant has been in occupation of
the room for some years at the comparatively low rental of 4/6
per week, and frequently this sum is as much as the tenant can
afford to pay. In other cases, it is found that originally the
one-roomed tenement became occupied by a son or daughter of
the tenant of the house. The son or daughter wishes to get
married, and being unable to obtain a flat or rooms, one of the
parents' rooms is allotted them as a temporary measure. The
room becomes their permanent abode, as the supply of suitable
and adequate accommodation does not tend to increase in any
appreciable degree.
Where illegal overcrowding is found to exist, a notice to
abate the nuisance is served upon the occupier of the room, and
the only practicable way to comply with the Council's requirements,
is for him to arrange with friends or relations for the
lodging of one or more of the children. If this cannot be done,
the tenant has to search for other accommodation. If he is
successful, he has to pay an increased rent, which often he can
ill afford.
Some of the older types of three and four storey houses
with a couple of rooms in each floor are let by the landlord as
two-roomed tenements at an average rent of about 8/6 a week.
The difficulty encountered in these is due to the unsultability of
the premises for subletting. There is usually one, or at most
two W.C.'s in this type of house, and the scullery or wash-house
on the ground floors is used in common. Occasionally, a small
sink is fixed on one of the landings, or in the back rooms of the
upper floors.
In the south-east and south-west parts of the district there
are a number of streets mainly comprised of six-roomed houses
which are let to two families as flats at rents from 9/9 to 12/6
per week. These flats although having a front entrance door
common to both, have usually a separate scullery and W.C. to
each flat.
Similar in housing capacity to this class of house, there
are also mariy six-roomed houses which have but one scullery
and W.C. used in common by the two families to whom they are
let. The rent is usually slightly less than for the former class
of "flat"; although frequently let by the landlord to two families,
it is quite common for the whole house to be rented by one tenant,
who sublets two or three of the rooms. The smaller house of
four or five rooms and a scullery is usually let by the landlord
to one family at an average rent of about 14/- a week.