These houses rent for $35 to $45 a month with constant heat and hot water, so that the heavy work is reduced to a minimum; but the exigencies of family life are illustrated in the fact of the almost universal demand of the tenants for continuous heat and hot water night as well as day.

The ordinary childless apartment house banks its fires at night.

A supplementary apparatus would mean work by the tenants, however.
This is a good example of the balance which must be struck in all new plans until they are tested.
The change in what one gains under the name of shelter, what one pays rent for, must be kept clearly in mind.

Two or three decades since it was a tight roof, thinly plastered walls, and a chimney with "thimble-holes for stoves," possibly a furnace with small tin flues, a well or cistern, or perhaps one faucet delivering a small stream of water.

To-day even in the suburbs there is furnished light, heat, abundant water, care of halls and sidewalks.