Who Wears The Risk?
Newcastle Herald
Wednesday October 14, 1998
CORLETTE at Port Stephens, a neat two-bedroom home and shortly after midday yesterday two men emerged from a carpet-cleaning van and rolled up to the front door.
They cleaned the carpet, then they sealed it with Scotchgard, then they presented their bill for $424.
What happened next should remind us that right and wrong are not always clearly defined.
It all began at about 8.30pm on Wednesday September 23 when a young woman employed as a telemarketer phoned the number of the Corlette home.
She was trying to sell the services of Newcastle Budget Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning at Belmont and she'd made the call that I suppose all telemarketers hang out for.
Yes, the homeowner wanted the carpet in every room cleaned. Yes, she would like it Scotchgarded.
The price was not a problem, $424, and the job was booked in for about lunchtime yesterday.
On Monday an office worker at Newcastle Budget Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning phoned to confirm the time and at 12.15 yesterday the business owner, who told me that David would do as his name, and an assistant pulled up out the front.
At the house at the time was a carer from the Uniting Church's Hunter Retirement Living Community Care, Gael Sanderson, who was helping the occupant get lunch.
The 78-year-old homeowner has dementia, advanced dementia according to her sister and Ms Sanderson, and Ms Sanderson queried the arrangements as the carpet cleaners started work.
It had all been approved, the carpet cleaners said, showing various papers. The homeowner had also apparently signed a form as the men arrived.
An hour later the job was done and David asked for payment.
The homeowner went off happily to get her purse but apparently forgot her purpose before she found it, and when Ms Sanderson saw the amount, $424, she phoned the homeowner's sister and brother-in-law.
The brother-in-law arrived and disputed the authority for the work, David the carpet cleaner was most unhappy and said so, and the carer left for her next appointment.
It was a problem.
Who pays or who loses?
The homeowner simply does not have that sort of money, according to the sister, who has power of attorney for the homeowner.
The elderly woman appeared to understand the arrangements and the commitment, says David the carpet cleaner. The carer should have told him the homeowner suffered from dementia, he says.
The carer says she hesitated when she was shown the relevant paperwork because it was not really her business. It was the amount, $424, that prompted her to phone the sister.
As it stands now David says he `will sue him (the brother-in-law) or her (the homeowner) for the money'.
The sister and brother-in-law are seeking legal advice.
The homeowner is oblivious to the fuss and quite happy to agree to any proposition put forward by a telemarketer or to sign any form.
So who wears the risk?
Newcastle Budget Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning insists that it had no inkling the homeowner was mentally ill, and indeed the carer, Ms Sanderson, confirms that the homeowner's dementia is not immediately evident.
Still, who pays? The homeowner or her family or the carpet cleaners?
Does the fact that the carpet cleaners contacted her have any bearing on the answer?
Does the fact that the homeowner is `capable of holding a conversation and making a booking', as David says, mean that she should be bound by the booking?
What happened at Corlette yesterday will become more common as increasing numbers of telemarketers ring the phones of an ageing population.
© 1998 Newcastle Herald
