Public Health Acts Amendment Act 1907

66 Cleansing and disinfecting of premises

(1) If the medical officer, or any other legally qualified medical practitioner certifies that the cleansing and disinfecting-of any. house, or part of a house, and of any articles therein likely to retain infection, or the destruction of those articles would tend to prevent or check any dangerous infectious disease the local authority shall serve notice on the master, or, where the house or part is unoccupied, on the owner of the house or part, that the house or part, and any such articles therein, will be cleansed and disinfected or (as regards the articles) destroyed, by the local authority unless he informs the local authority within twenty-four hours from the receipt of the notice that he will cleanse and disinfect the house or part and any such articles, or destroy the articles to the satisfaction of the medical officer or of any other legally qualified medical practitioner within a time fixed in the notice.

(2) If either—

(a) Within twenty-four hours from the receipt of the notice the person on whom the notice is served does not inform the local authority as aforesaid ; or

(b) Having so informed the local authority, he fails to have the house or part thereof and any such articles disinfected, or the articles destroyed as aforesaid, within the time fixed in. the notice ; or

(c) The master or owner without any such notice gives his consent;

the house or part and articles shall be cleansed and disinfected, or the articles destroyed by the officers and at the cost of the local authority under the superintendence of the medical officer.

(3) For the purpose of carrying into effect this section the local authority may enter by day on any premises.

(4) When the local authority have disinfected any house, part of a house, or article, under the provisions of this section, they shall compensate the master or owner of the house, or part of a house, or the owner of the article, for any unnecessary damage thereby caused to the house, part of a house, or article; and when the local authority destroy any article under this section they shall compensate the owner thereof, and the amount of any such compensation shall be recoverable in a summary manner.

(5) The expression "master" means the person in occupation of or having the charge, management, or control of the house or part of a house, and where the house is wholly let out in separate tenements, or is a lodging-house wholly let to lodgers, includes the person receiving the rent payable by the tenants or lodgers either on his own account, or as the agent of another person; and the expression "by day" means during the period between six o'clock in the morning and the succeeding nine o'clock in the evening.