240
ESSEN.
In the very centre of the town, with its old houses and narrow, irregular,
and uneven streets, housing conditions are far from satisfactory. The old
houses have small and dark rooms, the sanitation is often defective, and there is
a general air of discomfort and neglect. But these streets and houses cannot
fairly be regarded as typical ; they are giving way, if only gradually, before the
builders. In the new streets the building regulations have been vigorously
enforced, and the authorities have done their utmost to prevent overcrowding
and the rise of slums, and have imposed fairly stringent sanitary requirements.
The typical modern dwelling-house in Essen, throughout the whole of the
working-class districts, contains accommodation for six or seven families.
The general plan is everywhere the same ; the door is in the centre of the block,
with two windows on each side on the ground floor, five windows on the first
floor, five on the second, and above a “ half-story ” or attic floor, with often
only two windows. Sometimes there are " half-houses ” (*‘ Halbhaiiser ”), %.g.,
houses with dwellings only on one side of the doorway. Asa rule there is one
w.c. on each half-landing, for the use of two families, but in the newest houses
there is one for each family. In the older houses the water-supply is on the
landings, but in the newer ones it is within the dwellings. In new houses the
rooms must be 10 feet 7 ins. high ; smaller ones may not be used as complete
dwellings, but only as adjuncts to rooms of the full dimensions prescribed.
The usual size of the working-class dwelling in Essen is three rooms;
though many households occupy two or four rooms. Of 3,914 dwellings
whose rents were classified for the purpose of this report, 1,609 or 41T percent,
consisted of three rooms, 1,064 or 27*2 per cent, of two rooms, 1,039 or
26 5 per cent, of four rooms, and only 202 or 5 2 per cent, of a single room.
The following are notes of typical dwellings :—
(1) A house in a street built about 30 years ago, one of a number of
identical houses in a group of streets of the same general type.
The house contained 16 rooms, including attics, and was let to a
single tenant for £70 per year (inclusive of water-charges).
This tenant sublet 12 rooms and attics, charging 8s. 6& per
month for each room and 6s. a month for each attic. One
sub-tenant had a tenement of four rooms and an attic, and paid
therefore £2 per month ; in one of these rooms he had four
lodgers. The largest of his rooms was 14 ft. 7\ in. wide by
14 ft. 7tj in. long, and 11 ft. 4^ in. high, and was given up to his
four lodgers.
(2) A house in a street built six years ago, one of a number of the same
kind. Each of the two dwellings on the ground floor consisted
of two rooms, the bedroom being 14 ft. 7^ in. square and the
kitchen 14 ft. 7¿ in. by 13 ft. The rent was 14s. per month,
but was about to be raised to 15s. On the first floor there were
also two dwellings, one of three rooms and one of two. The
three-room dwelling consisted of a kitchen (14 ft. 1\ in. by 13 ft.),
a parlour (14 ft. 7J> in. by 10 ft.), and a bedroom (14 ft. 7i in.
by 11 ft. in.), and the rent was 21s. Qd. per month. The
rent of the two-room dwelling was 15s. The floor above
had the same dwellings, but the rents were a trifle lower.
To each dwelling a share in the cellar was attached ; all papering
and whitewashing had to be done by the tenants, the landlord
doing it only for new-comers.
The following table shows the predominant rents of working-class
tenements as determined from the returns obtained for this report :—
Predominant Rents of Working-class Dwellings.
Number of Rooms per Tenement.
Predominant Weekly Rent.
Two rooms
Three rooms
h our rooms
2s. 9d. to 3s. 7c?.
3s. 8c?. „ 5s. 9c?.
5s. 9c?. „ 7s. 8c?.
