A Feather Problem

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 38, 15 March 1940, Page 45

A Feather Problem

Dear Aunt Daisy, Could you please help me with my feather problem? I bought some feathers for a bed; washed them, and hung them in bags on the line until they were quite dry. Afterwards, I put them in the ticking, but they still have a very strong smell. I have left the mattress in the sun for several days, but it does not seem to make any difference. Perhaps some of your listeners have had the same trouble, and have overcome the difficulty. — " Listener" (Wellington). Here, in another letter, is the answer: Dear Aunt Daisy, I may be able to help your Daisy Link who is in trouble over the feather bed. A few years ago I purchased feathers, supposedly baked, for the purpose of making a feather mattress for my son’s bed. I used a well-soaped linen ticking. It may have been due to the brilliant sun-heat streaming on to my wee boy’s bed, but soon something, I know not what, caused a most offensive smell, which worried me terribly. I thought of all " possible" remedies, such as washing or baking the feathers, which ordeal I dreaded, as it means feathers flying everywhere. However, I was fortunate enough to have the use of a vacuum cleaner, which was lent to me; and on the pad inside the cleaner had been sprinkled a strong disinfectant crystal. Then I cut a few stitches of a seam in the mattress, sufficient to allow the nozzle of the cleaner to be inserted; its action had previously been reversed, thereby blowing the disinfectant odour into the mattress. I left it running for about half an hour, to give the feathers a thorough cleansing, and I was never bothered by any offensive smell from the mattress again. I had no cleaner myself at the time, but it proved to me one of the very valuable uses to which one could be put. I am sure any person would help the "link" over the difficulty, providing they had a cleaner and lived handy enough. It certainly presented a clean trouble-free way to overcome what could have been a very difficult, unpleasant purifying process.- " Ruth" (Spreydon). Many thanks, Ruth. Will the "Listener" who had the trouble write again soon and tell us if her difficulties are now overcome?