72
BARMEN.
There are, however, certain features associated with defective housing elsewhere
in Germany which are practically non-existent in Barmen. One of these
is the " back-house,” the nature of which is fully explained in reports on other
towns. Only about one tenement in ten of the working class type is situated
in such a house in Barmen. The proportion of basement tenements, moreover,
is so small as to be negligible, viz., 176 in a total of 36,311 dwellings. The proportion
of attic tenements also is small, only 47 per cent, of the two-roomed
and 2 9 per cent, of the three-roomed tenements being situated higher than the
third storey.
Barmen resembles most other German towns in the fact that practically the
whole of its population lives in flats. Thus, of the 36,311 dwellings which were
occupied at the date of the housing census, only 1,160 or less than 3 per cent,
consisted of a whole house. In addition to the two or three rooms which
constitute the usual working class dwelling, each occupier of such a tenement
has allotted to him a portion of the cellarage and has a right to the use of the
loft for drying clothes. In some cases part of the cellar-space is fitted up as a
washhouse for common use, and in the more recently built houses, where each
tenement has a balcony at the back, the latter is not infrequently used for
drying. Seven or eight appears to be the most usual number of rooms on each
storey of a tenement house. To illustrate the arrangement of the tenements
and their rooms the following examples may be taken.
Example I.—On reaching the stair landing on the first or any succeeding
floor one finds on either side a door. Through these doors admission is
obtained to corridors, one belonging to the right-hand, and the other to the
left-hand, tenements. A description of the tenements on one side will suffice
in this case, as the arrangement of the four rooms constituting the two
tenements is the same on both sides. The first of these consists of a front room
and a back room, each entered by a door from the corridor. The back room
has a window looking into a backyard, and the front room a window looking
into the street. The second tenement consists also of a front room and a back
room, and is entered by a door from the corridor leading into the back room,
admission to the front room being obtained by means of a door connecting the
t\\ o rooms. Here also the back room has a window looking into a backyard
and the front room a window looking into the street. It may be mentioned
that the front rooms of the tenements just described are connected by a common
door, as also are the back ones. These doors are kept locked, so as to separate
the tenements, but admit of being used to form tenements bavina different
arrangement or number of rooms. Similar use can be made of a locked door
connecting the front rooms of the tenements on the immediate rio-ht and left of
the landing.
In this class of house there are on each landing two w.c.’s ; also a tap and
metal trough affording the water supply. ' ’ 1 1 ‘
Example IL—In this case, which is apparently less common than the
above, there are three tenements on each floor, two on the left of the landing
and one on the right, and there is only one corridor, which is entered by a door
on the right of the landing. The first of the left-hand tenements consists of
two front rooms, and the second of two back rooms. Each of these tenements
is entered by a door from the corridor leading, in each case, il Z room
nearer the landing. Each room in the back tenement has a window looking
into a backyard, and each room in the front tenement a window looking into
the street. The third tenement on the floor, viz., the one to the right °of the
landing, consisting of three rooms, two front and one back, is entered^ a door
leading into the back room. J he back room has a window looking into the
backyard, and each of the front rooms a window looking into the street
provid%dtttrha%nd%°l^roa:C^rl%%it%r'"^ ^conies are
