TWO SMALL ROOMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 34, 10 February 1939, Page 14

TWO SMALL ROOMS.

FOR FAMILY OF FIVE. APPALLING CONDITIONS. ATTITUDE OF LANDLORDS. (From Our Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Thursday. Under notice to quit her home since September 1, the .woman who made the Minister of. Housing, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, temporary guardian of her six-month-old twins to-day has been unable to find a new home because of the unwillingness of Wellington landlords to accept couples with families as tenants. At present she and her husband are living in two small rooms rented to them at 35/ a. week. . They have a family of three children. The room used bv the family during the day measures 12ft by 1 Oft. The three Children sleep in this room. The parents' bedroom measures 12ft by 14ft and houses most of the family's kitchen utensils. A small passageway is used as a kitchen. Other rooms in the house are occupied by the landlady and her (laughters. A small outhouse at the rear of the house contains a bath and laundry facilities.. As the one way of getting hot water for washing is by lighting the copper (ire the woman has (inly one washday a week. All the hot water she required for washing the bahics'.clothes is heated ion her gas stove. Last month her gas bill amounted to £1 4/2. During the day the twins can be left under a tree in the small yard at the back of the house if the weather is line. Commenting on her action in leaving her twins in the eare of Mr. Armstrong, the woman said her sole object was to draw his attention to the appalling conditions under which the family lived. Now that the twins were getting older it was important that the family should have more room. The husband, who is in the Government service, said he had come to New Zealand- from England in 1028 and his wife had come from Wales in the same year. They had been living in their present home since May last year. The twins arrived in August. Shortly after their landlady put the lent up from 32/0 a week to £2 (subsequently reduced to 35/ a week) and told/them to leave as soon as they found "another house. "I have searched all over Wellington without success," said the husband. "As soon, as prospective land! rds learn that I have three children they refuse to let premises to me."