Housing endangers health and safety
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caused an explosion and fire
Useless gas outlets are also a fire hazard. Many houses in the 50 to 100 year old neighborhood were originally lighted by gas lights. The gas lights in several houses still work. Jorgensen said he would force landlords to remove any gas lights that were reported to him.
Five tenants on Ohio Street complained that the heating in their house was inadequate. They said that in cold weather the only warmth in their rooms was near the heat outlets. Though they didn't have thermometers, they thought temperatures in the drafty house fell below 60 degrees on cold days last winter.
Obsolescent wiring can cause fire or electrocution. According to the Minimum Structures Code, all dwellings must have safe wiring with two outlets in each room.
Wiring in many old rooming houses is old and overloaded. Octopus-like tangles of extension cords leading from wall outlets can easily draw more current than the wiring was designed to provide.
12 KANSAN Jan. 7
1970
"The circuit breaker blew and the whole house was without electricity for five hours last February," one tenant on the 1600 block of Louisiana Street said. "I could smell burning insulation from the wiring in the walls. I called an electrician who said the wiring was old and dangerous and needed repairs. Though the landlord received the recommendations in February, he still hasn't made repairs."
In other instances, light switches can't be used because they short circuits and blow fuses. The hallway in one rooming house is dark because of a bad circuit. If the light is turned on, the central circuit breaker cuts off all electricity for the whole house. Another hallway has two bare wires in place of a light fixture.
Two bare wires sticking out of a hole in the wall provide the only electrical outlet for a tenant on Ohio Street. The tenant, a foreign student, plugs in lamps and radios by twisting the 120-volt wires around plugs.
Tenants should also be aware of structural hazards such as badly sagging floors, buckling walls, rotten porches and dangerous stairs, Jorgensen said.
Investigating a complaint at a
house on Ohio Street, Jorgensen said he found floors sagging down several inches. He ordered the landlord to brace the floors and remove a gas line to avoid any possible structural collapse or an explosion caused by a broken gas line.
A badly weathered stairway and rotten porch supports could result in injury to residents of one house on Louisiana Street. At another, tenants said they were afraid to walk on part of the front porch because a couple of persons had nearly fallen through weak places.
The Student Senate Off-Campus Housing Committee has studied the problem for the past year
but its efforts have been restricted.
have the authority to make any kind of official inspection," Halina Pawl. Topeka senior and committee vice-chairman said.
"We don't know exactly how widespread the problems are. We have a good idea, but we don't
Next: The City's Problems
FINAL WEEK! FEB. 2 thru 7 at the Student Union SENIORS CALL NOW-UN 4-3728 for appointment