London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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St Giles (Camberwell) 1883

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Camberwell]

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161
reasonably good condition. In such cases it is clear
that the unwholesome and dilapidated state of the
one house, and the comparative luxury and cleanliness
of the other, are due solely to the different
habits and characters of the tenants, over which
neither sanitary staff nor landlord has any control.
The landlord would be only too glad to get rid of
the bad tenant if he could.
As examples of sanitary defaults due to tenants
discovered in the course of inspection, I quote the
following facts which come to my mind. In one
case the inspector found that the tenant of a small
house (a costermonger) was stabling two donkeys
and a rabbit in one of his ground-floor rooms; in
another case he found that of three rooms on the
first-floor, one was used as a bed room, while the
other two accommodated between them about a
hundred fowls and ducks, the floors being thick with
their filth ; in another case he discovered a husband
and wife, living by themselves in a small house, and
employing a charwoman to wait on them and to purchase
and prepare their vituals, while they, regardless
of all decency and cleanliness, passed their time
day and night, in beddrinkingorsleepingoff the effects
of drink; in a fourth case he found a small house
occupied by a middle-aged man (in fair work) living
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