Good housing that pays /

by Fullerton L. Waldo

Here is a young man with a moral inheritance that the friendly rent-collector knows by heart. He has a job slicing bacon with a meat-packing concern. Today is a holiday, he explains. Query: will he hold down the job, or go on drifting? The fever of the wandering ne’er-do-weel burns in his veins. His father is a dipsomaniac, who runs amuck periodically with a carving-knife and finds his foes in his own household. He once killed a man and escaped to an adjoining State. Detectives caught him and he was lodged in the “Pen.” He blamed his wife for it, and sent her letters demanding $80 for a shyster lawyer to get him out. He sent her pictures of caskets, as portents of her fate when he should finally emerge from durance vile.

At last she raised the money and got him out. He wept on the doorstep—the neighbors, whose heads were at all the windows, said he shed buckets—and she took pity on him and abandoned her design of procuring a separation. He has been home for a few days, and on this particular day husband and wife are off on a picnic together. The son knows all the story. How long is the peace to last? Will the boy in time follow in the erratic footsteps of the father?

Here is another sinister family history that faces the visitor. The mother is feeble-minded. There are five children. Two of the boys and two of the girls inherit the maternal defect. The other child, a girl, is normal. The father works by fits and starts. A former source of income to the family was a woman boarder of bad character. The Society for Organizing Charity and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children have interested themselves in these derelicts, and the Octavia Hill Association is trying to help.

Another kind of trouble constantly cropping up is that of the victims of rascally insurance-agents. They turned over their books to the agents to keep. The agents took the money and either did not enter the sums or recorded them incorrectly. In some cases those who expected an old-age pension or at least their burial expenses will not get a cent.

“But,” someone may ask, “what has this humanitarian effort to do with rents and dividends? Couldn’t the money be obtained and no questions asked, no advice given, no ‘hard-luck stories’ heard? Business is business. Let the charitable societies, the soup kitchens, the Salvation Army or what you will, look out for the other side of the matter.”

The answer to this contention is that a conscientious landlord can hardly be satisfied to accept money from any sort of house without knowing or caring how it is obtained. Several times in the experience of the Association the owners of houses which had descended to base uses were shocked and grieved inexpressibly to learn of it. In one instance a good lady residing in England who had never seen the property managed by her agents in Philadelphia couldn’t believe the tales that were told her concerning its condition. The agents themselves were unaware of the facts until the Association reported to them the lively horrors. Owner and agents alike were glad to have the houses pass into the control of the Association, which at once converted them into dwellings which no longer were a blot on the ’scutcheon of the City of Homes.

The question of repairs, when the tenants make their requests or the rent-collector’s inspection discovers places where they may be needed, is a matter determined by urgency, and by the amount of money already expended on the property, and by the evinced cooperative spirit of the tenant. It stands to reason that slovenly and destructive occupants are not accorded the same attention that is given to the representatives of those who are clean and careful and prompt in their payments. What a difference there may be on opposite sides of a thin partition-wall! On this side of the wall is a family inclined to dirt and disorder, because of its unperfected social education. On the other side of the wall, only a few inches away, the floor, neatly carpeted, is spotless. The center-table holds a gaudy lamp, or a vase of dried grasses, or lurid paper flowers. There are pictures on the walls, of saints or landscapes or the family, in crayon,—perhaps the bridal couple arm-in-arm, or the head of the house in the gorgeous uniform of a Polish benefit association.

One may find the bureau turned into a shrine, with a crucifix and candles; or perhaps the royal family of Italy is a prized possession in a glorious flamboyancy of colors.

The rent-collector refers all-important questions of improvements to the superintendent for his decision. Part of her special care it is to see that the plumbing is in good order. The Octavia Hill Association is largely responsible for the considerable reduction of the number of cases in which six or eight or a dozen families in a court live off the same hydrant. In one court visited, a pet dog had been giving considerable trouble, since he had learned to turn on the water himself, and would leave it running.

Garbage and ashes come under the rent-collector’s supervision, too. When the former is thrown where the latter should be, it becomes necessary to inquire more particularly who had watermelon for dinner, who had chicken, and who had corn-ears—perhaps at a dollar a dozen. In one case where an orthodox Jewish family was blamed by neighbors, the supposed culprits were exonerated by the discovery of a ham-bone in the can when the lid was lifted.