These rugs are fine, as long as the people in the lab don't have latex
allergies, as I do.  when the guys would come to collect the rugs for
cleaning and lay out the clean ones, I had to go "on break".  (In a way I
was sorry to see them go!) The guys stirred up so much latex moving the rugs
around, and shaking the new ones out so they would lay flat, that I would
react for days.  Can't work around glove snappers either, thank goodness for
Nitrile!  Finally the boss lady just gave up.  We now have our floors
stripped by our (excellent) housekeeping staff twice weekly and there is wax
EVER applied to our floors.  It works really well, our floors don't look bad
at all, no one slips, and I am well again!
Wanda Shotsberger
(HT ASCP)

-----Original Message-----
From: Gayle Callis [mailto:uvsgc@msu.oscs.montana.edu]
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2000 2:49 AM
To: histonet@pathology.swmed.edu
Subject: slippery floors


We put down rugs, industrial style, with rubber backing.  They aren't
pretty, but they do catch all the paraffin.  This was done after a visiting
professor, walked into my lab, slipped at the doorway (paraffin carryover
AND he was not wearing heels! those were banned eons ago, glamour has its
place but you can't tell people to NOT wear hard soled shoes, or in
Montana, cowboy boots).   To finish the story, he caught himself on an open
door, the knob, before his head hit the floor, on his back!  It could have
been a severe concussion and potential skull fracture (concrete floors!)

It was a lawsuit in the making.  The office staff (heel wearing crowd!)
were the biggest complainers about slick floors, but the 'Labbies' had
learned to walk on the floors, and didn't really notice that much but it
was still a "legal beagle" hazard.  In fact, it should be written into the
safety manual what type of shoes CAN be worn in a laboratory.

Rugs are not that much work to keep clean, vacuuming works surprisingly
well, with an occasional rug steam cleaning. They are really ugly, a
marbled tweed type color and not a solid color minimizes viewing gunk
collected on rug surface, but they do work.

Slip slidin' away, no more, no more!


Gayle Callis
Veterinary Molecular Biology
Montana State University
Bozeman MT 59717-3610
406 994-4705
406 994-4303