INSANITARY CONDITIONS IN LEVIN BLOCK

Chronicle (Levin), 26 July 1947, Page 4

INSANITARY CONDITIONS IN LEVIN BLOCK

Disgusting and insanitary to the extreme was the mildest extract from descriptions given a blo.ck of six State houses erected in Levin seven years 'ago on land possessing not a vestige of drainage, says an article in Freedom, the National Party's weekly paper. The majority of the occupants are unable to dispose of water from their sinks and baths and one tenant, an invalid, has had to soak up overflowing water from the closet with bath towels. /

(^ONTINUALLY overflowing drains have covered the already saturn rated ground around and beneath the houses with fo,ul sGum covered water. • . Alrea&y one case of typhoid fever has been reported. Another tenant has just returned from Rotorua, where he has been receiving treatment for rh'eumatism — a complaint, he contends, he has never had before. This situation is not just a recent development but has its origin from the time the dwellings were erected. Repeated complaints over the past few years have been lodged and countless official inspections made by the Housing DepartmentA State Advances and sanitary inspectors, but though many promises have been made, nothing has been done. It is learned that the erection of the dwellings on this particular area of land was not approved by the Levin Borough Council, which is said to have strongly advised against the use of the land by the Housing Department. The district health inspector is also reported to have advised the Department of the nature of the ground- and is said to have suggested that if it was the intention of the Department to carry on, only four be built and the extra sections used for seepage pits. In spite- of a knowledge of the ground and the probable consequences, the Department, in its wisdom, saw fit to continue with the project. Eleven inches of top soil over hard clay is typical of the sections on which these particular houses are built. "When the men were building these houses, they were in gumboots with water practically up to their knees," said one tenant. "I never imagined then that I would be occupying one of them." The situation was getting so desperate that the whole of the drainage system should be sealed and other accommodation arranged for the tenants, she declared. "It would suit me to get right out. The whole house is damp and musty and the clothes go green in the wardrobes." The smell from the ■stagnant water, particularly in the summer, was "putrid," she added. A State Advances offrcial from Palmerston North had admitted to this tenant that the smell was a "bit obnoxious." Because the flush water from the septic tank could not get away and was overflowing into the hall, an earth closet had been provided outside. During a vlsit from officials , from Palmerston North, she had been told not to let the sink water away but to "get a bucket and throw the water into the garden." "The bath water flows over my . path. It is a terrible state of affairs," said another tenant. It was a dangerous situation, particularly from a health point of view. Seven weeks ago his boy had been sent to hospital with tyohoid fever.