The 1950s : A house to call our own

In 1950, Queensland was the first state to sign contracts to import pre-fabricated houses made to Queensland designs. Contracts were finalised with French, Swedish, Dutch and Italian building firms. Finally it seemed, Queenslanders would have access to better housing.

Importing 'pre-fab' houses meant the Commission could tackle the shelter shortage head on. The concept of large housing estates had been born.

Land was cleared throughout Brisbane and regional Queensland. Roads were constructed and services established.

By the end of the 1950s, the Commission had constructed nearly 23,000 houses across the State – over half were sold and the others rented.

Inevitably, the first frenzied decade of public housing construction in Queensland came with challenges. The bareness and uniformity of new housing estates was not particularly appealing and attracted notoriety.

The Sunday Mail published photographs in 1950 of a line of outdoor toilets, 'thunderboxes' as they were nicknamed, along the back fences of a string of similar looking houses.

Another blow came in 1958 when a European termite was discovered in some of the imported timber 'pre-fab' houses. The risk of allowing the bug to spread throughout Queensland and Australia was too great. The Commission relocated thousands of families to fumigate their houses.

In total, 2,643 houses were fumigated. Families had to be relocated into temporary accommodation while their homes were wrapped in canvas and filled with deadly methyl bromide.

Eradicating the termite problem took 17 months to complete and cost almost £350,000 ($700,000) in a year when the average weekly rent was around £3 ($6).