District councils are required to keep a register of the common lodging-houses in their district. No person is allowed to keep a common lodging-house unless he is registered, and a house may not be registered until it has been inspected and approved for the purpose by an officer of the council. Further, the council may refuse to register a keeper unless they are satisfied of his character and of his fitness for the position. The council are empowered to make by-laws for fixing the number of lodgers and separating the sexes therein, promoting cleanliness and ventilation, giving of notices and taking precautions in case of any infectious disease, and generally for the well-ordering of such houses. The keepers of common lodging-houses are required to limewash their walls and ceilings in the months of April and October in every year, and if paupers or vagrants are received to lodge, they may be required to report as to the persons who have resorted thereto. They must give notice of any infectious disease to the medical officer of health and to the poor-law relieving officer, and they must give free access for inspection. There is no definition of the expression "common lodging-house" in the Public Health Acts, and at one time the courts decided that shelters for the destitute kept by charitable persons were not common lodging-houses. That idea is now exploded, and the acts apply to charitable institutions which receive persons of the class ordinarily received into common lodging-houses. Houses let in lodgings. By-laws may also be made relating to houses let in lodgings which are not common lodging-houses. These by-laws are in practice limited to those inhabited by the poorer classes, although the act imposes no such restriction. Nuisances.