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The reasons for overcrowding include the following.
(1) The total absence in the district of housing accommodation available and suitable for
families of the working classes, such for instance as one, two or three-roomed tenements.
(2) When the children in a family grow up, and get married, the new wife or husband as the
case may be, is brought home to live with the parents.
(3) The original tenant in consequence of the higher rent and cost of living, has of necessity
to sub-let a room or rooms to another family.
(4) The natural increase of births over deaths yearly adds to the number of persons in a family.
(5) The use of small rooms not originally built as living rooms, but as box rooms, attics, lumber
rooms or such like and constructed without fireplaces or other efficient means of permanent
ventilation.
Overcrowding of persons per house brings to the notice of health officers other attendant or
adverse conditions affecting the amenities of the inmates, such as for example :—
(1) Insufficient water closet accommodation.
(2) Insufficient accommodation for cleanliness, i.e., domestic washing, ordinary cleanliness of
the person, inability to bathe a child.
(3) Lack of sink accommodation.
(4) Lack of proper cooking accommodation.
The moral aspect of the subject is one that does not enter into the consideration of health
officers, but it is one that cannot altogether be ignored. It must be admitted that young children
brought up under existing unfavourable conditions have their moral sense blunted at an early age,
.and it is to be remembered that what is instilled into the minds of youths and of young girls lasts
with them for all times. This also equally applies to personal and environmental cleanliness and
generally healthy living and good citizenship.
Measures Taken for Dealing with Overcrowding.—Forty-two cases of overcrowding
were reported to the Council during the year. Intimation notices were served in all instances, but
owing to the impossibility of obtaining ejectment orders, Statutory Notices were not served, the
Council recognizing the uselessness of taking formal legal proceedings.
Fitness of Houses.—The 24,654 houses in Willesden may be classified as follows :—
(a) 4,529 houses of the better residential class occupied by one family only ;
(b) 12,324 houses of the better tenement class occupied generally by not more than two
families; and
(c) 7,801 houses occupied by three, four or more families.
The houses in class (a) have, on an average, about five persons per house and represent about
13 per cent, of the total population ; those in class (6) have, on an average, about 6-5 persons per house
and represent about 47 per cent, of the total population ; while those in class (c) have, on an average,
about nine persons per house and constitute about 40 per cent, of the total population. Class (c)
houses are generally situate in the older portions of the district and their general standard of fitness
is bad.
General Character of the Defects Found to Exist in Unfit Houses.—The general
character of the defects found to exist in unfit houses are : Dampness of walls, caused by the absence
of or perished damp-proof courses, earth or other deposits above damp-proof courses, defective gutters
and rain water pipes : leaky roofs ; absence of or defective paving of yards ; defective or perished
plastering ; choked or defective drains ; windows—perished woodwork ; defective ventilation ;
staircase—worn out treads ; floors—worn out floor boards; dirty and uncovered cisterns ; grates
and ranges broken and unusable ; water closets insufficiently supplied with water ; offensive accumulations
or deposits in yards ; insufficient food storage accommodation ; woodwork generally
perished and rotten and brickwork generally perished or pointing defective.
Difficulties Found in Remedying Unfitness.—For many years past the health officials
of the Council have experienced considerable difficulty in getting remedied the common or minor
defects in house property, such for instance as broken window frames, broken window glass, defective
cooking stoves, broken plastering, dirty and loose wallpaper, cracked and loose ceilings, broken
hinges to doors, etc., etc.
The difficulties experienced are caused by the fact that no definition of " nuisance " exists
which includes the above common or minor defects.
The Willesden Council, in May, 1923, requested the Minister of Health to receive a deputation
to urge that amended legislation should be introduced to extend the definition of " nuisance " under
section 91, Public Health Act, 1875, by the inclusion of the common defects referred to in the Manual
of the Ministry of Health on Unfit Houses and Unhealthy Areas, Volume 1, page 11, under " general
repairs." The Ministry replied that the powers contained in section 26-28, Housing, Town Planning,
&c., Act, 1919 (now sections 6 and 3 of the Housing Act, 1925) appeared to the Minister of Health to
be sufficiently wide to enable the Council to carry out such objects as they had in view, and that it
did not appear that there would be any advantage in receiving a deputation as suggested.