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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 37, Number 2. 13th March 1974

Slum Clean∽up Needed in City

Slum Clean∽up Needed in City

These photos were taken at a flat in central Wellington. In the three years that the present tenants have been in it, the landlord has done no repairs. Bad enough when they moved in, the place is now a hovel despite the tenants' efforts to maintain and clean it. Their children's legs are covered with suppurating impetigo sores, a direct result of the squalid living conditions. They've seen the doctor, but there won't be much of a cure until the surroundings are fixed.

The kitchen floor is below ground level. Mice find easy access through holes in the floor and of the wall. Cupboard doors are, broken, neither dustproof nor flyproof. The hot water is inadequate for the needs of the family. Vermin infest the house and its surroundings. Rats' nests and rat-chewed rubbish are strewn around the back yard. At night when you turn the lights out, say the tenants, you can hear rats all over the place. They've even seen them on the beds.

If fire started downstairs, no-one would ever get out alive. The stairwell and the entrance are too narrow and have windows into them that would explode. If tenants jumped out the window they'd crash through the rusted lean-to roof. There's no fire escape.

A few weeks ago, the tenants decided to withhold their rent. They have paid thousands to their landlord, and feel they're entitled to a few repairs and some maintenance work. They got in touch with the Tenants Protection Association which is giving them full support. TPA thinks the place should totally upgraded or pulled down. The landlord should provide or find better accommodation for the tenants.

The Wellington City Council has by-laws forbidding most of the rundown features of this flat. But it has done nothing about enforcing them. For years, it has let the landlord extort his rent, and let the tenants suffer.

Ken Comber, M.P. for Wellington Central, has done nothing. When contacted by TPA he tut-tutted and said wasn't it a pity that tenants didn't know their rights.

Pat Hohepa, of the Ministry of Maori and Island Affairs, has done nothing. When contacted by TPA he was sympathetic, but wouldn't go and see the tenants. He'd seen slums before, he said, and was sure it was shocking.

TPA thinks that landlords should be forced to live in their own slums, and Cabinet and the City Council should be made to hold their weekly meetings there. Somehow, the ruling class has got to be made to face up to the squalor it creates. How long will tenants be oppressed?

The only entrance

The only entrance

Illegal roofs—no spouting, bargeboards missing.

Illegal roofs—no spouting, bargeboards missing.

These washing facilities are illegal. And the drains don't work.

These washing facilities are illegal. And the drains don't work.

Once a window, now inadequately boarded and wired up

Once a window, now inadequately boarded and wired up