The house as a home is merely outer clothing, which should fit as an overcoat should, without wrinkles and creases that show their ready-made character.

The woman, born housekeeper as she considers herself, is rigid in her ideas of what she thinks she wants, but when the builder has followed her plans she is far from satisfied with the result.
She is used to material which puckers and stretches in her clothing; she cannot understand the inflexibility of wood and stone.

The remedy is for high-school girls, probably even grammar-school pupils as well, to have along with their drawing some problems in house-planning and some lessons in carpentry.
It will be seen from the foregoing glance at the rapid change and steady deterioration of houses that the care of such living-places must involve special discomforts in most cases.
The time required to keep clean old splintered floors, to carry pails of water up and down stairs, to dry out the cloths--the base boards with their grimy streaks tell the story of carelessness--is not counted in the wage schedule.
Why is there so much dirt brought into the house?
Because shoes and streets are muddy.

Why is there so much lint?
Because we have too many things in a room--too much wear and tear.
And unnecessary dirt is found even in the newer apartment-houses with the ever-changing population and ever-lessening space for maids' quarters, together with the sham character of construction due to the fact that most of these houses have been put up by speculators at the lowest cost of the cheapest materials which will show wear in a few months.

Flimsy construction is a direct result of the notorious lack of care taken by the tenant, so that quick returns must be the rule; also of the probability that the neighborhood will deteriorate and that a class which will bear crowding and be less critical will replace the first tenants.
Conveniences for doing work in the houses built to rent, that is to bring in the greatest returns in the shortest time, will not be put in (for the first cost is great) unless the house will rent for more.