Worried by the spate of
neglect by some landlords on the provision of toilets facility for their residents, an expert in the public health, Mr Simon Ichendu, has said that it is a criminal offence for an individual to build a house without toilet facility.
Ichendu, who made this disclosure to The Tide on Friday while reacting to the high rate of pollution of the environment through the exposure of waste product by residents, especially in some area with Obio/Akpor, said that many landlords do not bother on how their tenants pass waste, but are interested in the rent paid.
He said that toilet facility is as vital as the rooms provided for rentage  but wondered why many landlords do not care about the effect of not providing toilet, which compel them to look for help elsewhere.
According to health expert, sewage disposal is very important and it is a criminal offence for any one to build a house and even give it out for rent to tenants without toilet.
He said “it is very important for people to ensure the safety of the environment which they live, and also control factors that could have adverse effects on the people”.
“It has been established by scientists that a gramme of excreta carried more than one million harmful bacteria, virus and parasites and people must always be concions of the purity of the water they use on daily basis, most especially in the kitchen,” The health expert said.
He, therefore, posited that it is always advisable to be conscious of some basic health rules wherever people live, instead of spending money in the hospital for cure, and urged landlords who do not have toilet to urgently provide such, even for their residents.
Meanwhile, the Rivers State Environmental Sanitation Authority  has come up hard on both landlords and tenants who do not have or make use of toilet for waste.
Spokesperson for the authority, Mr Olalekan Ige, who made this known in a press statement, said that the new Rivers State Waste Management Law that replaces the old environmental sanitation law have given them power to deal with both tenants and landlords that will throw or mess-up the environment with their human waste (excreta).
He said that substantial fines awaits offenders, as the authority will not spare landlords that do not provide such or tenants that pay to live in such houses.

 
Corlins Walter