HOUSE ACCOMMODATION

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 108, 8 May 1913, Page 9

HOUSE ACCOMMODATION

DIFFICULTIES IN MELBOURNE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, 3rd May. In Melbourne- the difficulty of obtaining housing accommodation is becoming as acute as it has been for a longer time in Sydney. Rents are climbing up with relentless persistence. In many cases the increase has been as much as 60 per cent, during the last twelve months. Landlords can pick and choose their tenants just as they like, and people with children are told that they cannot have a house under any conditions. Owners and agents speak of the law of supply and demand, and with more 'reason of the present exceedingly high cost of building labour and material. There has occurred during the week in Melbourne a case in which a young husband and wife were brought before Court on the chargfe of having abandoned their two infant children aged two years and six months tespectivety. The mother, who is only 19 years of age, called at a suburban shopkeeper's place, and after making a couple of small purchases, asked to be allowed to leave the children in the shop for a couple of minutes while she went across the road. She did not come back. When, arrested the mother said, "The reason I left them there Was < because we could jiot get accommodation with children." The father told the Court that they had been turned out of their last place of residence on account of the children. With the aid of a police constable they had searched in vain until half-past 1 o'clock at night for accommodation. The father and mother weTe each fined £5, with costs, in default two months' imprisonment.