RISING RENTS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2751, 20 April 1916, Page 6

RISING RENTS

"SOME TYPICAL CASES.

At a meeting lleld in the Trades Hall on Thursday to deal with the question of rising rents, the secretary (Mr. L. M. A. Rearden) gave details of eomo that had been investigated. They wore as follows: In a small shop, leased for £2 a week, on'expiry of, the lease the landlord demanded £4 a week, and as the tenant • could not pay this he had to give up his business"; a fourroomed house, in a very bad state of repair, increased from 13s. to 15s. 6d., the husband of the occupier is at the front; an increase from 20s. to 21s. 6d. was made, on the ground of increased rates and taxes ;• a tenant of four years' standing was called on to pay 2s. a week .extra for a small house; a block of small houses had been increased from 16s. to 18s. each; a tenant was informed that the house had been sold, and that if she did not quit by a given, date the rent would be raised from 17s. 6d. to 80s. ; a small house was increased from 13s. to 15s. at ihe beginning of Match, and; before the end of the monfli, notice was given that there would be a further increase of 55.; house of twelve rooms at the back of some shops was increased at the end of a four-years' lease from 30s. to 405.; three houses were raised from 325, 6d. to 355.; a four-roomed house, occupied by a woman whose husband is in camp, was raised from 14s._ to 17s. 6d. —the house had no glass in;the front door and no locks to any doors, the tenant said she could only pay 145., and the landlord thereupon gave her three days' notice to quit; on a ho.use lot at 20s. the rent was raised twice in two months, to 235. 6d.; a four-roomed house, out of town, was increased, first to 10s., and then to 12s.—there were four children in the family, and two were under a doctor's care; four rooms at 155., raised twice within a month to 18s. 6d.; a four-roomed house in a bad state of repair, was increased from 13s. to 15s. 6d. —the tenant was .earning £2 13s. 6d. a week and bad six children, all wider eleven years of age.