Bajhang, November 24 As many as 16 Dalit families have been sharing a single house in Udayapur of Chhabisa Pathibhara Rural Municipality-6, Bajhang. According to Dinesh Damai, who is a member of one of the families living in the house, the thatched house accommodating as many as 79 persons of 16 families has 15 rooms and five doors. Regarding the plight of those families sharing the house, Amita Damai, another resident, blamed poverty and poor economic status of the families concerned. “If what I’ve heard is anything to go by, the land where the house now stands was given in charity to us by a so-called upper caste family. As there were no other plots, the landless families didn’t have anywhere to go and they started living in the same house,” said Damai, adding, “There is no land even to build a latrine.” Nawaraj Damai lamented the circumstances in which they had to live in the dilapidated house with many other families. “The rooms are very small and it’s congested here. On top of it, fear of a possible collapse of the house always bugs me,” he said. Another resident of the house, Dinesh Damai said he remembered the families sharing the house since his early childhood. “There were fewer families in the past, however, with people getting married and forming new families number of people sharing the house also increased gradually,” he said. “As we are poverty stricken and cannot afford to buy land to build separate houses for ourselves, we are forced to share the same house with other families,” he said, adding that quarrels in the house was a common affair. Binod Pande of FIYAN Nepal, a human rights organisation, said he had never seen such a scenario where that many families lived under the same roof. “The families, if they were to live separately, would make a village. This is the first time I have seen so many families living in a single house,” he said, adding that most of the women and children living in the house were undernourished. Regarding their occupation, all the 16 Dalit families earn their livelihood by working for their masters. “We’ve been eking out a living by sewing clothes for people of high class. We get some corn during harvest season in exchange for our service,” said Ishara Damai. Meanwhile, the families are having hard time managing garbage. They also face problem of drinking water. They are compelled to travel a long distance to fetch drinking water. Udayapur is about a day’s bus-ride from the district headquarters, Chainpur.