Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-07-11
WOMAN RENT COLLECTOR
Her Experience as Agent for Model
Tenements.
From the New York Tribune.

From the New York Tribune.
difficulties" said Miss Blanche Gcsry.
She said it musingly and with a rising in
Election. Then. seeming to decide she re-
sumed briskly: why. the engineers and
the scrubwomen are the chief difficulties"
Miss Geary is rent collector for a model
tenement house company. She has charge
or 33S tenants for It. and with the COM
plefon OF contemplated additions to its
East Side property this number will be in
creased by go. In n total annual rent roll
of $4,000. Miss Geary will lose perhaps so
IN year. For several years some Of her
buildings have not lost a dollar. Miss Geary
was the first and is still almost the only
woman TO do that sort of thing in this CITY
YOU see. she said, still concentrating
the sins of the engineer. ''if the water Is
not coming up hot enough or is so hot that
your pipes are bursting all over the house
or IL the tenants come In a procession ana
threaten to leave because they are freezing
to death. or II the furnace is consuming
TWO or three times as much coal as fl did
under the last man you had, why then
you know there's something wrong with
the engineer. In the days when these things
used to trouble me didn't understand fur
naces well enough to go down and teach
the engineer his business Nowadays I can
tell when a man is leaving his damper omen
and letting all his coal go up the chimney.
80 the engineer trouble Is long since
vanished. II belonged to my salad DAYS
But the scrub lady'-bless her HEARTS,
always with us. One Of nv greatest dim
culties is to get the halls and stairs prop
erly cleaned. We have no desire To save
on this point. We are perfectly willing
10 pay whatever is necessary to have n
well done. But there is not a scrub wo-
man In New York who will not clean three
nights or stairs in one pail of water thick
as nasty pudding with mud. We furnish
the soda and soap. All we ask is that
they change the water once or twice dur
ing the forenoon. But that is absolutely
what they refuse to do IL I put an ad-
Nertisement On the paper I will have line
and every one OF them will have tale
of woe about the exceeding number and
poverty of her children. Then If / take
her on she will wash down my stairs in
liquid mud. leaving long streaks Of IL wher-
ever her cloth has wiped.
Then another trade L have To know
continued Miss Geary. refectiveIy. is
plumbing. When there is a drain STONED
up 1 must tell the plumber what and where
the trouble is. What Is the plumber for?
Well, he is to fix the trouble when he
knows what 1t is: but half the time he
won't know what ii is unless You tel him.
An essential thing is TO know the wages
received by all classes of employes-car-
penters, Janitors, printers. clerks rnechan-
les or all kinds-in order to know Whet her
they are capable OF paying the rent Some
times people will take your rooms when
they are quite incapable of paving the
rent. When they tell you their OCCUPATION
you must know what wages they are prnh-
ably receiving. Then. again YOU must
know the different sections of the city and
certain streets and even certain houses in
them; and when you find that an applica MT
ior one or your flats comes from there YOU
deed"