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72
(3) The methods employed for ensuring that the belongings of
tenants are free from vermin before removal to Council houses.
The contents of the homes of all persons removing from
clearance areas, and where necessary from other houses, to the
Council's dwellings are treated with hydrogen cyanide (Zyklon B)
in the brick-built fumigation chamber erected at the Disinfecting
Station in 1934. The internal measurements of the chamber are
26 feet long, 14 feet 3 inches high and 10 feet wide and the chamber
is, therefore, large enough to accommodate any type of furniture
van. Gas is introduced into the chamber without danger to the
operators who need not wear protective gas masks. Three vanloads,
comprising the possessions of three to nine families, can be
treated in the chamber daily and the process necessitates a delay in
the delivery of tenants' belongings of only three hours. The gas
chamber method of cyanide fumigation is quicker, cheaper, safer
and more effective than the alternative method of treating goods in
sealed furniture vans.
In transferring families from clearance areas to the Council's
flats the Housing Committee hire furniture vans and labour by the
day. The loaded vans are taken to the Disinfecting Station and
placed in the fumigation chamber, treated with hydrogen cyanide,
freed from gas and, after thorough testing to ensure that no trace
of gas remains, the belongings are delivered to the new homes.
Soft goods and articles which might possibly retain gas are put into
a room in the new flat, the window of which is left open, and the
door of the room is sealed until the next day. Beds and bedding
are collected separately in the Public Health Department's vans and
dealt with in the steam disinfecting apparatus.
The small number (6) of slight infestations of the Council's
flats erected since 1934, following the cyanide gas method of
disinfestation, indicates that this method is not only effective but
is of permanent value and results in considerable saving of expense,
trouble and inconvenience. The successful use of the cyanide gas
chamber has led to the building of an additional chamber of smaller
dimensions (6 feet 8 inches long, 6 feet 4 inches high and 6 feet
10 inches wide) for use in dealing with small quantities of furniture
and other articles and in particular for dealing with bedsteads which
cannot be dealt with efficiently by other methods.
Enquiries are constantly being received from public health
officials and others interested in the question of vermin disinfestation
in this country and abroad as to the construction and method of
operating the Hackney cyanide gas chambers. Similar chambers