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39
Overcrowding. This very difficult problem has cropped up at
times and intimations were served on the occupiers of several
houses, to reduce the number of the inmates. In three instances
statutory notices were required and were duly complied with, but
it must be confessed the improvement is by no means always
permanent.
Dirty Tenants.—An endeavour has been made to deal, to a
small extent, with the problem of the dirty tenant, both the persuasive
methods on the part of the Health Nurse and Sanitary
Inspectors, and also by somewhat stronger methods by the service
of notices on the tenant himself. It is in these cases that the
advantage of combining the School Medical and Health Departments
under one head is specially felt, many very dirty homes being
discovered as the result of finding persistent dirty or verminous
conditions among some of the school children.
Such tenants make a pig sty of any clean cottage in a few
weeks and many intimations, and eleven statutory notices were
served during the year.
The improvement in many cases was striking, but it would be
taking too optimistic a view of the cases to believe that the change
for the better would be permanent. Sloth, poverty, alcohol, want of
proper knowledge of how to clean up thoroughly, all contribute
towards the production of the dirty tenants, but an occasional
example has a wonderfully good effect in the immediate neighbourhood
for a time, at any rate.
Refreshment Houses.—Systematic visits have been made to
restaurants and places where food is prepared. Altogether 226
visits were made.
No food was seized in any of these places, but instructions as
to cleanliness were given and in one case very marked defeets in
the drainage of the premises were discovered and duly rectified.
Premises Controlled by Bye-laws.
Inspection of Slaughterhouses.—There are eight registered
slaughterhouses and two are licensed annually, one of the latter