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Show Modernization Inquiries Flood Offices Of Federal Housing Administration Requests For Information Come From All Parts of Country and Relate To Every Phase of Housing Improvement Leaky roofs are the chief concern of city home owners, while wells and other sources of . "water supply are the main worry of the farmers,! according to an analysis of the re-j quests for infoimation being received by the federal housing administration. administra-tion. Painting comes next in both lists and frequently is coupled with roofs in the inquiries from city dwellers. Home owners and farmers are by no means the only ones seeking modernization information from the FHA. Owners of apartment houses mvi deeply interested, according to the mail analysis, as well as owners of sma'l stores and shops. Some of the shop owners, however, can also be classed as home owners, as they own the building and live over the shop. Builders, lumber men and manufacturers manu-facturers of special building supplies also are keeping in close touch with the modernization program of the! FHA. Most active of them all, ap- parently , are the owners of small f lumber mills in Texas. That state Leads the list in volume of inquiries of all kinds, with a large proportion of all the Texas lumber mills represented. repre-sented. Pensylvania comes second and New York third among the states. Nearly every phase of modernization moderniza-tion is mentioned in the flood of mail pouring in on the FHA. Even termites, ter-mites, or "white ants," figure in the inquiries since protection against this pest is a problem in some sections of the country. 1 Bath rooms, heating systems and! plumbing generally are the subjects! of some inquiries, while large nam- hers of home owners plan to build additional rooms to their houses to provide permanent (quarters for those taken in during the "doubling up" process of recent years. "Father and mother are living with us now," several writers state, ""and wo need an extra room for them." Farmers also are interested in many things in addition to wells. They inquire about the possibility of modernization loans for fences, gates, garages, poultry houses, smoke houses and similar small buildings. Lightning and fire protection, insulation, insula-tion, reconstruction of faulty chimneys, chim-neys, stronger foundations, installation installa-tion of plumbing, wiring and other improvements are in the list. Those farmers needing new wells plso inquired about such items as windmills, pumps, tanks, cisterns, piping, troughs and other things required re-quired to get the greatest use from the wells they hope to dig with the proceeds of their modernization loans. All these improvements are eligible elig-ible under the regulations governing modernization loans, according to FHA officials, and the inquirers should be able to get the loans they desire from the banks or other lending lend-ing institutions in their own communities, com-munities, provided these institutions approve. |