SHEDS AS DWELLINGHOUSES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXI, Issue 15257, 18 March 1910, Page 8

SHEDS AS DWELLINGHOUSES.

TO THE EDITOR. Si r _, —lii a recent issue of your paper appears a paragraph to the effect that “ the owner of a shed in Wellington is informed that he will not in future be allowed to let it as a dwellinghouse,” and again, Councillor M’Laren complained of places being let in which you would not house a dog.‘ Now, groat surprise as this statement is to many New Zealanders I think tho facts can be equalled in Christchurch“tho liolv citv ” of the dominion— if people will take the trouble to look round. Whilst on a house-hunting expedition a while ago I was directed by various local agents to the most diabolical shanties 1 have ever seen, and asked rents for them which can only bo described as robbery and fraud. As an Englishman, enticed out here by tlio Ivina: descriptions circulated in England of “God's Own Country, I. was at first astounded, but upon further acquaintance with colonials and their wavs this state of affairs was no surprise to me, for I found the landlomi?m of New Zealand quite as disnoueefc and infinitely more unscrupulous tnan the landlordism at Homo In the Old Land even the modern slums are pioperly built and drained, whereas out hero any rotten wooden shanty passes