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53
seven hundred and fifty articles of bedding and clothing were
removed for disinfection by super-heated steam at the Wandle Valley
Isolation Hospital.
Seventeen rooms were sprayed with an insecticide to exterminate
vermin. In every case the mouldings are removed
temporarily in order to get at the insects and their larvae.
An unusual nuisance from insects was experienced on the
Council's new Meopham Road Housing Estate. A tiny beetle
known as lyctus caniculatus, also as warehouse and larder beetles,
invaded a large number of houses. Spraying the interior of rooms
with insecticide appeared to have little effect, as they swarmed in
from the exterior walls, but a liberal spraying of the walls externally
and internally with paraffin, oil of winter green and oil of camphor
effected a clearance of the pest. Nineteen houses were treated this
way. It is believed they were brought to the estate in crates,
packages, etc., from the builders' merchants' warehouses.
Ponds and ditches were sprayed with paraffin twice, and some
three times, during the spring and summer to keep down the
breeding of mosquitoes to a certain extent.
Petroleum (Consolidation) Act, 1928.
Licences have been granted to 72 persons in the district to
store petroleum spirit on their premises, and to 3 persons to store
carbide of calcium. The permissable quantity of spirit which
might be stored totals 88,340 gallons. Carbide of calcium, 15 cwt.
3 qrs. 16 lbs. Ninety per cent. of the petroleum spirit is stored
underground in steel tanks surrounded with concrete.
Shops Acts.
A number of complaints were received, generally from
competing tradesmen, of contraventions of the Shops (Hours of
Closing) Act, 1928-1930, and Shops (Early Closing) Acts, 1912 and
1913. Observations were kept and the offenders cautioned. One
case was reported to the Council and an official warning was given.
I am,
Your obedient servant,
CHARLES G. RABBETTS,
Senior Sanitary Inspector.