Serious social stigma (c. 1980)

“Minerva” of the British Medical Journal, July 1980:

Council estates are becoming more popular with rats, cockroaches, and bedbugs, reports “Roof,” SHELTER’s housing magazine (14 July 1980). This is apparently due to early occupation by the vermin, which move in while the estates are under construction; and once established they travel far and wide through vents and ducts. The report claims that a “serious social stigma” is attached to admitting that a flat is crawling with bedbugs or cockroaches, calls for higher standards of estate maintenance, and concludes (rather snidely) that the Government must face the fact that cockroaches don’t go away because a flat becomes owner-occupied.

NEWS AND NOTES. Br Med J 1980;281:317-320, doi: 10.1136/bmj.281.6235.317

Snidely?

These pages may be of related interest:

1. Strange indicators: bed bug infested electronics in 1968 Finland
2. “The kind of thing your eye slides over, registering nothing”
3. The poet and the bed bugs
4. Of considerable tact and other incongruities
5. An interview with Steven W. Smollens: law and history in NYC