FOUR SINGLE EXSERVICEMEN MOVE INTO EMPTY HOUSE

Wanganui Chronicle, 31 October 1946, Page 4

FOUR SINGLE EXSERVICEMEN MOVE INTO EMPTY HOUSE

PROPERTY OWNED BY THE STATE AT WANGANUI EAST Because of the overcrowded conditions in the house they were living in at Patapu Street, Wanganui East, four single returned servicemen took possession of a room in an empty State house next door on Tuesday evening. They shifted in their bedding and spent the night there. The house is not a new ope, but. is owned by the State Advances Corporation. The men rang the State Advances office in Wanganui yesterday, and told ofiic.als what they had done. Mr. R. G. Kay wood, officer in charge of the State Advances office in Wanganui, said he had no statement to make when the incident was referred to him yesterday afternoon. He intimated that “certain action” would be taken. It is understood that State Advances Department officials visited the house yesterday, and secured the window of the room in which the four men had left their bedding, and all other means of entry to the house. The men were not in the house at the time. Apparently entry was possible previously through a window which had not been locked.

The house was vacated three days ago, and a number of people are on the list as prospective tenants.

Jn the house next door whore the four ex-servicemen were living were also nine other persons, including children, one of them a girl who is sick and in need of a room to herself. The house has three bedrooms, and the crowded conditions in It were the subject of a statement to the Chamber of Commerce and the civic authorities some time ago. The four men who took possession of the bedroom next door had been sleeping on a porch open to the rain, and decided to get something drier when they learned that the house next door was becom.ng vacant. Efforts by various authorities to relieve the over-crowding in the house they were in had been unsuccessful.