A HOUSE-HUNTER'S DILEMMA

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 34, 3 November 1937, Page 12

A HOUSE-HUNTER'S DILEMMA

'Homeless Hector.")

Trying to Rent a Home in Napier "YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"

(By'

"Good morning. I want to rent a house." "Sorry. We've absolutely nothing to rent or lease," replies the youug lady behind tho land agent's countor. She adds helpfully, "I don't tliinli you '11 got anything at ull in Napier." "Good morning. I want to rent a house or a flat." "Pardon me. Did you say rept a house?" asks the kindly gentleman with the broad smile in the nest agency. "Tliat's the idea. Roof over the head. Accommodation. To rent Or lease." "But surely you must reali^e you can't do that in Napier." This iast in the tone one might dxpect a police inspector to use if one declared one's iutention of committing murder. So it goes on, ad lib. One exhausts the agencios, the newspaper advertisements, calls at a. few addresses supplied by friends, gets desperate. Inquiries from the Police and Borough Council. Still the answer is the same. . . "Rent a house! You can't do that in Napier."

Impatient of these refusals — one has to start work in Napier soon — one returns to the attack, resolved darn well to buy a place to lay one's head. Ah! This is better. But for immediate occupation. . . . That is not easy. A few there are, for sure, but not of a price and quality to make them attraetive buying. One drives all over Napier 's suburbs. One examines a place adjacent to tjie butcher's shop. . . "Not near enough to catch any smell, ' ' the agent says. tJnsuitable. .One is shown an old home built for gl6om and damp set in a wilderness of untended grounds. Too pricOy, when one thinks of all that must be done to make it habitable. There remains but one alternative — oue must decide to build. That is ar« ranged satisfactorily, and one now has only the problem of temporary accommodation to solve. Houses are not to be had in any circumstances, still -less to be rented for short periodsj of vacant flats there are none. Purniehed rooms, perhaps? One hears of.a plafe that has rooms to let; hurries there. . . One must hurry, for the house hunt in Napier is keen. • "Yes, I have qne room," says tho landlady of a souiowhat dubioua-look-ing accommodation house in a somewhat dubious-looki'ng street. One examines about 60 square feet of floor space occupied by twin beds and a vonerable ducheas. "Only 17/6 a week," the landlady conlides in one's shocked ear. "Of course," she hastens to add, "You cannot cook here. 1 don't like any one using my kitdhen. Wauld you want your meals cookedf" One confesses one does prefer them that way, if possible, and goes off, horrified at the price. A few more such experiences, and the seeker after shelter becomes discouraged and throws in the towel. " There 's only one thing for it," says one to one's "bAtter half," "We must camp for a while." So the househunters alight in the camping-ground, convinced that the people who told them that the housing shortage was acute in Napier knew their Napier, i