Back-Door Culture

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 361, 23 May 1928, Page 6

Back-Door Culture

NOT A RUBBISH DUMP Clean and Tidy Yard COUNT up your callers each day and calculate how many of them come to the back door. You will find it a large percentage; yet there are few people who try to keep the secondary entrance to their homes at all attractive.

It is not necessary that the door should be resplendent or even artistic. All that is required is the removal of the eyesores that have been so long regarded with tolerance, because they are “round at the back.” Chief among the ornaments that greet one at the back door of the ordinary home are the inevitable rubbish tins. In summer their odour is indescribable, while a swarm of repulsive flies, carrying the germs of innumerable diseases, hover above them. Every wandering cat or dog is attracted to the free lunch, and poising itself on the edge of the tin, upsets garbage, the liquid essence of which flows merrily

over the concrete paving of the yard. In nine houses out of ten this is a common occurrence, yet there are so many and such efficient remedies. Let us think of one only. Supposing your rubbish tins are built on the modern plan with their own wheels. Build a garage for them. Build it, if you like, as a lean-to in the fence or any other structure that will make a convenient fourth wall. Model your miniature garage on an original, and make it as charming as you like. Hinge the roof, and put a counterpoise weight on it. and there is the finished article. In the every day casting out of rubbish, a touch to the rof of your little building, and there are the tins secure from marauding animals, and comparatively flyproof. Once a week, in response to the dustman's call, open the front door of the garage and tow the tins to the gate. In regard to the tins themselves, there are two things to be remembered. Keep them well lidded, and do not spare the disinfectant. Other nuisances round the back door, though not so obnoxious as the dust

bin, are by no means attractive, at once combine to give the yard in the immediate vicinity of the door a “junk heap” appearance. In this category of scattered objects come father’s gardening boots, usually left where he steps out of them upon the verandah. There is no need to offer a suggestion as to what should be done with them. There are numerous places where they can be placed out of sight till wanted. Baby’s tovs too, often tend to drift to the great outdoors, though not far outside. Of course, that is merely a question of training the child and is only a transient phase. Next in order of mnsances comes the

obtrusive wash-house. How often this squat building shuts all sun from the verandah and back door for six days in the week, and, on the seventh, if it is a copper heated by fire, belches forth smoke from the chimney and ,§team from the door to be sucked into the house to the detriment of silver and linen. Even in a small section there is no need for the wash-house to be built “abaft” the back door. Or if it is absolutely necessary, there is no necessity to have the door in such a position that it strikes one’s gaze as the salient feature of the landscape. I have seen wash-houses that were actually adjuncts to the beauty of a home, though of course they were fitted with washing rnachines, gas coppers, or some other modern improvement to eliminate the smoky haze that, at one time, was one of the most unpleasant features of “Blue Monday.” It should also be remembered that a wash-house is not a lumber room, where each and every valueless article of that heterogeneous collection that every home can show, should be cast. Examine a modern laundry in a hospij

tal or some other model institution. There is no accumulation of rubbish. The walls and floors are as clean as those of the bath-room. And why not? Once the tidy habit is cultivated, it becomes an annoyance to see anything dirty or unpleasant about the home, and then you will understand why I make my plea for the back door. I