Evening star., 1960-06-25
Broader Act Urged
For Home Repairs
City Heads Ask
Inclusion of
Job Sulesmen
BY MIRIAM GUTENBERG
Star stan Writer

Star stan Writer
The Senate District Commit
tee today got the District Com
strong Endorsement
of legislation designed to curb
practices in Wash
ington's home improvement in
dustry.
In a letter to Chairman Bible
of the committee, Commissioner
Robert E. Mclaughlin presented
a broadened version of the
pending legislation. The Com
miSsioners' offered amendments
would include home improve
ment statesmen as we'll as the
contractors.
The inclusion of the sales
men was considered a sig
nificant addition because The
Stars "Homeowner Beware
Series" exposing unethical prac-
tices in the home improvement
business showed that high
pressure statesmen. without any
contractor behind them, solicit
contracts from homeowners
with extravagant guarantees
and exorbitant prices and then
peddle the contracts to what
ever contractor will buy them.
Commissioner Mclaughlin
wrote Senator Bible that re-
cent articles in the press have
focused attention on practices
in the home improvement busi-
ness which heretofore had not
come to the notice of the Com
misSionerS."
Need Is Outlined
/ These practices, apparently
engaged in by relatively few
OF the persons in the home
improvement business" Com
missioner Mclaughlin wrote.
nevertheless seem to indicate
a need for the licensing and
bonding of persons engaging
in this kind of business, in
order to protect the owners or
occupants of private dwellings
from being disadvantaged by
those persons in the home i'm
provement business who en-
gage in the practices described
IN the newspaper story"
Commissioner MCLAUGHLIN
explained that under existing
law the Commissioners can
adopt regulations for the Ii
cenSing Of persons in the home
improvement business. But he
said existing law does not au-
thorize the Commissioners to
require that persons licensed
by the Commissioners should
be bonded or covered by in
surance to protect home owners
against financial loss.
1T is necessary, therefore"
the Commissioner said, "if full
protection is to be given the
public that provision be made
for the bonding of persons en-
gagged in the home improve
ment business and the cover
age of their activities by the
appropriate kinds of insurance.
He said the Commissioners
also were concerned by another
home-owner problem-the fl
ing of mechanics liens by sub
contractors who have not been
paid by home improvement
contractors. In such situations,
the Commissioners complained,
the homcowner who has paid
the prime contractor for the
performance of work finds him
self confronted with making
a second payment 10 satisfy a
mechanics lien. This problem
too, he said, could be met by
the pending legislation.
Bonds Are Urged
n addition to including
statesmen, the Commissioners
proposed amendments broad
ening the Commissioners au-
thority to require bonds and
leaving it up to the Commits
sioners and their discretion to
determine who should be
; covered.
Commissioner Mclaughlin
explained that in view of the
'multitudinous aspects" of what
has come to be known as the
home improvement business, it
is necessary for the Commits
sioners to define exactly who
they are talking about in
order to deal adequately with
the evils that have arisen.