kolling@decwrl.DEC.COM (Karen Kolling) (02/03/86)
I brought home a couple of samples of Karastan nylon carpet this weekend to see what they looked like in the room I plan to have carpeted. About an hour later I walked into the room and practically keeled over (slight exaggeration, but not much) from a chemical smell the samples (about 3 square feet total) were giving off. The store says this is normal, that all new carpeting smells for awhile from the adhesive, except for rugs like orientals and so forth which don't use adhesive, and that the smell goes away after awhile. This makes me very nervous about buying any machine-made carpeting, since I'm not sure this smell will go away; maybe it's one of those things that some lucky people like myself are sensitive to and other people don't notice. (A few years ago there was a brief, unhappy time when some manufacturers were finishing fabrics with formaldehyde, but that's another story.) Any info anyone?