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42
It is quite impossible to preserve the ordinary decencies of
life when conditions such as are revealed in many cases exist.
Take one house in which two families are living under the following
circumstances. In one case, two females aged 20 and 1.5,
and two males aged 18 and 13 sleeping in one room, whilst in
the other part of the house a man and wife and a boy of 3 sleeping
in one bed; two females aged 17 and 14, and two males aged
16 and 11 are sleeping in another bed in the same room.
Table 3 shows the conclusions arising from these inspections.
It will be seen in the resume that that 70% of the inmates
keep their houses in a satisfactory condition. With regard
to the general condition of the houses, it will be seen that
50% are reported as damp, much of this is as one knows, due to
the fact that a large proportion of the houses belong to the older
class of property without damp courses, but with the present inspectorial
staff, it is quite impossible to deal adequately with the
inspection of the district, and such houses as have been rendered
dry through the activities of the Public Health Department have
only come to our immediate notice as a result of either complaints
or the occurrence of infectious disease in the house.
An interesting point is, that it shows that owing to the
small wage, it is necessary in many cases to sub-let, and the subletting
is in 60% of the cases to relations.
A further interesting point is the analysis of the overcrowding
which shows the actual number of bedrooms which are
required to relieve the over-crowding, and lastly, there are two
interesting facts emerging, namely, that only 22 of the overcrowded
families have been in residence in the district under ten
years, and that of these people who require more accommodation,
only 6% are unemployed.