Any colour as long as it's red or green.

I have spent the last couple of weeks reading contemporary accounts, not just of the Whitechapel murders, but the culture of the East End. My overriding impression is stink -- bloaters, liver and onions, unwashed bodies, combined with bed bugs' peculiar sweet musty smell
The warm and sunny days would introduce the season for taking the kitchen chairs outside the street doors and leaving them there until late at night to obtain a respite from the 'red army', as the bed bugs were called.
It mattered not how clean or careful we were, these horrors would invade the home, bringing misery and discomfort to all. For this reason the majority of
flats were 'decorated' by distempering. Our landlord's contribution to solving the problem was to allow us to choose any colour we liked so long as it was red or green...