I

CHOOSING A HOME

THE choice of a home is usually decided by the pocket-book. Other considerations carry weight, but matters of convenience, preference, and location are lighter in the scale than the sum one can afford to pay for a shelter. What proportion this will bear to the rest of the income must be settled by each one for himself after an estimate of the other expenses which must be met.

When a whole house is taken and the cost of heating and the charge of the outer premises, as well as the entire care of the place, have to be assumed by the tenant, one-fifth or one-sixth of the income is all he should give for rent. The price of coal, the wage to be paid the person who is to clean snow from the sidewalk in winter and dirt from it the rest of the year, look after the furnace and ashes, put out garbage; the consideration of the services of the one who must sweep front steps, halls, and stairs; the small repairs every house demands from time to time, will all have to be added to the sum devoted to rent. While the tenant and his wife may perform part or all of these duties, it is only reasonable that they should understand how much they are saving in actual cash, and comprehend that what they economize in this respect is the equivalent of what they would pay to the landlord were they to occupy an apartment in a flat building.

This state of affairs justifies the man who lives in an apartment in allowing a larger proportion of his income for his rooftree. The details to which I have referred just now are included in the price paid for a flat, to say nothing of the reduction of work when all the living is on one floor, when stairs do not exist for the housekeeper, and her responsibilities end at her own front door.

The selection of a location is determined by the make-up of the family and the man’s place and time of business. These considerations must be taken into account before the house-hunting is begun. Distance from the center of the town usually means a reduced rent, better air, and more attractive surroundings. To counterbalance these are the long journey back and forth, night and morning, the cost of transportation, inability to come home for the midday meal. As a rule these drawbacks do not equal the advantages to be gained by a home remote from the business district.

In order to accomplish the strenuous task of finding a home with the least outlay of labor and worry—for in any case there will be enough of both these commodities—as much planning as possible should be done in advance. The number of rooms necessary should be settled, as well as the sum which can be paid for rent. The sections of the city which are suitable should be studied and, if feasible, traversed, so as to get a general idea of them. Sometimes even a cursory inspection of a neighborhood decides the would-be tenant against it.

Then, when lists of houses or apartments have been culled from advertisements and secured from real-estate agents the actual work of house-hunting is begun. One resolution to be laid down at first and adhered to positively is not to go over a house or an apartment if the first glance shows it to be undesirable. When six rooms are the limit for a flat there is no more sense in inspecting a ten-room apartment than there is in scanning a house at twelve hundred a year if seven hundred and fifty is the extreme price that can be paid for rent. Such examination not only consumes time and strength, but it also provokes dissatisfaction with smaller and cheaper quarters which may be seen afterward.

A few essentials must be fixed in the mind, to which any house or flat should conform. It must be light—not a dim twilight illumination, but, if possible, sunshine, either direct or reflected—in the living and sleeping rooms. The kitchen must not be a dark corner, not only because such work-places affect the health of those who occupy them, but also because of the additional charge there will be for gas or electricity burned by day as well as by night.

The matter of heat must next be considered. When a house is taken the rent is usually higher if there is a first-class heating arrangement included. Old-fashioned appliances mean lower rent, but they also require increased work on the part of the tenant or servant and are often unsatisfactory in the amount of warmth they supply. A good furnace or steam-heating plant may add to the actual sum of the rent, but it is generally cheaper in the long run. The quantity of coal burned by such a plant should be ascertained before concluding to take the house.

All these questions are eliminated for the man who engages a steam-heated apartment, but he may change the place and keep the pain. The comfort of the entire winter depends upon a sufficient amount of heat, and radiators should be examined and a number of direct inquiries put so as to make sure that adequate warmth may be secured in bitter weather. The time when the heat is turned on and off should also be learned, since it is quite possible to shiver and suffer in September and May as well as at Christmas-time.

Plumbing is always to be investigated closely, whether in a house or an apartment. No amount of gilding and marble fittings can compensate for cheap plumbing and a poor supply of hot water. The dweller in a house is dependent upon his own kitchen fire for hot water, as a general thing, but in nearly all apartment-houses the hot water is declared to be supplied from the cellar. Even in high-priced flats hot water is not always ready, and queries as to this are to be voiced before the lease is signed. More than that, care must be taken to make sure that the plumbing is in perfect repair and is not likely to give way at inconvenient seasons.

All these details are essential and there are others little less important. The quantity of closet room, the pantries, the facilities for washing and drying clothes, the quiet of the house as assured or banished by the character of the neighbors and other tenants, the cleanliness of paint and paper, must all be looked after.

No matter what inducements in the way of lowered rent are offered, it is always a mistake to go into a house which is not absolutely clean. This does not mean only that it should be swept and scoured before taking possession of it, but that paint and paper should be refreshed. The latter is not to be done by pasting fresh paper on over that which already covers the walls, as is the custom of many decorators—a custom connived at by landlords because of the saving of expense it implies. The incoming tenant must insist that the walls shall be scraped clean before the new paper is hung and that fresh paint shall be used wherever it is needed. It is hard enough to keep a house spotless in the best of circumstances, and when one enters a dwelling and establishes himself in the midst of the dirt of the departed tenants the task is the most discouraging that can be undertaken.

Moreover, vermin must be banished. This is an easy thing to say, but hardly a housekeeper of middle age can be found in the length and breadth of the country who has not had a struggle with the pest in some form or other. In one home it may have been cockroaches or water-bugs; in another it may have been black or red ants; in many it has been that worst and most dreaded of plagues, bedbugs. Sporadic cases of any of these may be conquered without much difficulty, but when once the enemy is intrenched in the home it seems almost as if the only way to get rid of them finally is by burning the house down!

On all considerations, therefore, the house-hunter must make sure that vermin are not established in the new dwelling. If there is even a possibility of their presence she must insist upon radical measures being taken before she will contemplate entering the house. When the pests have been there and have been driven out it is still wise to take reasonable precautions against their return. No picture-moldings should be tolerated in the bedrooms, since these make a lurking-place for insects. The walls of sleeping-rooms should be painted rather than papered, and dark cupboards, drawers, etc., should be scoured out, disinfected, and painted.

I have dwelt upon the need of such care in the bedrooms, but it is no less essential in the kitchen and pantries. While bedbugs occasionally get a foothold even here, the usual plague is the roach or Croton-bug. He is said to be inoffensive and he does not possess the deadly odor of the Cimex lectularius, but apart from the damage he undoubtedly does in nibbling table-linen and the like, he is an exceedingly unpleasant housemate. He frequents uncovered garbage-pails, bread and cake boxes which have been left open, wire safes with imperfectly closing doors, and the provision compartments of refrigerators; and it does not tend to improve the appetite to have him pop out of the cereal carton or run from under the cold roast.

So every precaution should be taken against such creatures as well as against mice and rats before renting the house. Mice-holes should be choked up with broken glass and dusted with red pepper; boiling water should, when possible, be poured down the runways of insects; borax scattered about their haunts. After that, strict care in the way of keeping food put away closely, pains to see that no crumbs or drippings are allowed on the floor or the shelves, and rigorous cleanliness of every vessel which has been employed in cooking are the best agencies against the return of the adversaries.

Other points should be looked to about the kitchen. The stove is the chief consideration after light, cleanliness, and pantry space.

Locality has much to do in determining by what means cooking shall be done. In the country, where gas is not and wood or coal is burned, a good range, suitable for either, must be depended upon. Of such ranges there are many, and there are divers items to be regarded in each make. The size and fashion of the fuel-box is one. The average kitchen stove will burn a ton of coal in from five to seven weeks, the time contingent not only upon the care of the cook, but upon the size of the range. One should be selected with a maximum of heat for a minimum of fuel consumption. The range with an upper oven is easier for the cook, who by its means is spared constant stooping and bending, but some ranges with the upper oven are said to burn more fuel.

No range or stove should be considered which does not provide adequate means for heating water. When there is running hot water in the house a boiler is usually arranged at the side of the stove, but in the country, where the water must be drawn by a pump or from the well and put into the reservoir by the pailful, a large enough receptacle must be furnished to make it possible to have the supply for the day all poured in at once. In this way the man of the house may attend to this heavy duty in the morning or at night, so that no woman may have to strain her back by filling and lifting pails of water during the day.

The coal or wood stove in the country may be supplemented by an oil or gasolene stove. Of these there is a good variety, each possessing its own special merits, but they are not to be considered in renting a house, since they are purchased by the tenant, not supplied by the landlord.

In every large city, and in many small towns, cookery by gas has superseded coal and wood almost entirely. The cleanliness and convenience of gas in cooking, while inferior to those of electricity, are yet so far ahead of the other means to which we have been accustomed that the amount of time and trouble the gas saves is incalculable. The stove is generally owned by the local company, who install it and keep it in order, but in some places effort is made by the landlord to charge the tenant for the use of the stove. Common usage will have to determine the tenant’s course in the matter, but as a rule the stove is included in the rent and it is worth while for the man renting the house to make an attempt to secure this concession.

There is a difference in gas-stoves and an up-to-date kind should be selected, fitted with an upper oven as well as a lower one, and possessing such features as a low flame for simmering, a plate-warmer, the latest make of broiler, etc. The inexperienced housekeeper is frequently imposed upon and the old-fashioned stove is foisted off upon her. This should be guarded against when the house is rented.

The inside of the house has received principal attention in this consideration of the rented home. The outer surroundings usually compel a measure of thought and are obvious enough to force themselves upon even the uncritical observer. Yet there are a few points worth emphasizing.

The character of the neighborhood in a country or a small town generally proclaims itself and the details that must be noticed have to do with sanitary conditions, the presence or absence of such nuisances as unsavory factories or businesses, the vicinity of noisy occupations, the over-close proximity to public schools with the accompanying racket at certain hours of the day, etc. In the city the drawbacks may be less self-assertive but no less objectionable. Before renting a house in a street it is always wise to learn something of the people who occupy the adjoining dwellings, to make sure that there are no unpleasing features connected with the section and so insure oneself against future annoyances.