Flood carpets being sold in Christchurch

Press, 21 April 1984, Page 1

Flood carpets being sold in Christchurch

Carpets which were damaged in the Southland floods in January, are being sold in Christchurch.

Although sewage flowed through many Invercargill houses, the Health Department is not concerned about the health aspects of the carpets being sold. The manager of Casswood

Textiles, Ltd, Mr Ken Cassidy, said yesterday that he had bought 500 carpets from an insurance company. He declined to name the company but said that each piece of carpet was cleaned thoroughly before being passed on by the insurers. The carpets had come from houses which had replacement insurance coverage, said Mr Cassidy. Most of the salvageable carpets had been relaid in homes that had not been insured adequately to allow for their replacement. About 60 per cent of the carpets involved in the disaster had to be dumped. Mr W. A. Gottermeyer, of Carpet Shampooing, Chch, Ltd, is concerned that the resold carpets could be a health hazard.

A carpet he recently cleaned had released a “cloud of dust,” although it was only six months old. He was told that it had come from Invercargill. The only way the carpet could have contained so much dirt was if it had been covered in silt during a flood, said Mr Gottermeyer.

Newer carpets had several backing layers and no amount of cleaning could get rid of dirt trapped between each layer. Mr Gottermeyer was concerned that bacteria could thrive between the layers. “One scratch, one open sore and it could be quite a disaster to the person or

child contaminated,” he said.

Although he was not aware of flood damaged carpets being sold in Chnstchurch, the Medical Officer of Health, Dr W. A. Malpress, did not think any such carpets would pose a health problem. He said that any carpets to be resold would be thoroughly cleaned. “They would hardly be covered with mud, decaying matter, or human faeces,” said Dr Malpress. Bacteria lodged between layers of backing material on the flooded carpets would make them no different from other carpets. He said that all carpets were full of organisms.

People walked on carpets after being outside, picking up bacteria, and kittens and puppies were prone to defecating on carpets, said Dr Malpress.