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additional poison baiting is introduced whenever it is found that the infestation is
rising during the migratory periods.
The staff required for sewer baiting consists of two employees of the Borough
Engineer's Department working as one gang, with a rodent operative in charge. Each
treatment covers a period of eight weeks, and as this occurs twice a year it means that
for at least four months of every year there is only one rodent operative available for
routine control work throughout the Borough and for carrying out other essential duties
in the Public Health Department.
A similar situation arises when one rodent operative/handyman is engaged almost
full-time for a period of two to three weeks in carrying out extensive block treatments.
This leaves little, if any, margin to cover emergencies, and infestations requiring
special attention must necessarily be carried out at the expense of routine rodent
control work, investigation of complaints, etc. However, at the time of preparing this
report this Council had agreed (vide minute 2369, 1960/61), to the appointment of an
additional rodent/laundry operative to work on a flexible fifty-fifty basis between the
two community health services relating to Rodent Control and the Laundry for the
Incontinent.
During 1960, 716 complaints were received concerning rodent infestation, involving
treatment by the rodent operatives of 457 private houses and 108 business premises.
The total number of visits in connection with these investigations and subsequent
disinfestation amounted to 4,429.
BUSINESS PREMISES - GENERAL
The statutory provisions affecting the 2,391 business premises in the Borough are
many and varied, including legislation designed to cover specific buildings such as the
Factories Acts, 1937/60, and the Shops Act, 1950; and more general enactments which
affect properties of all kinds, i.e. the Public Health Act, 1936. A large number of
business premises are concerned with matters which require registration and/or licensing.
Due to the close proximity of dwelling houses and industry in parts of this Borough,
it is not surprising that the two cannot exist side by side without occasionally giving
rise to annoyance. The cause of such annoyance can be any one of a number of conditions
ranging from air pollution by smoke and dust to excessive noise, particularly the
latter, which with the increasing mechanisation in factories is the subject of a large
proportion of complaints made to the Public Health Department, necessitating many
inspections and observations outside of the normal office hours.
The legal provisions dealing with complaints of noise are contained within the
statutory nuisance sections of the Public Health Act, 1936, as extended by section 52
of the Leyton Corporation Act, 1950, with the recent addition of the Noise Abatement
Act of 1960. With these provisions it is possible to deal with the more serious type
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