before the 1920s, the wages for women working as seamstresses or servers was often too low for them to afford their own room, so often women shared a room with another woman. due to the sectors where rooming house residents lived, they often had to move, either due to seeking new jobs, because of seasonal work or due to layoffs, which meant that the tenants in a rooming house would change throughout a year. as such, rooming house residents tended to have only one or two bags or a single trunk of possessions. another change between the 19th century and the turn of the 20th century was the separation of rooming houses according to religion (catholic, protestant), ethnic origin (irish) or occupation (mechanics, cooks); while this was common in the 19th century, it became less common in the early 20th century. in rooming houses in the 20th century, homosexual couples of men or women could live together if they appeared to be friends sharing a room and unmarried heterosexual couples could share a room without disapproval. with the removal of the meal service of boarding houses, rooming houses needed to be near diners and other inexpensive food businesses. rooming houses attracted criticism: in "1916, walter krumwilde, a protestant minister, saw the rooming house or boardinghouse system [as] "spreading its web like a spider, stretching out its arms like an octopus to catch the unwary soul."