Insulation firm fallout
A Christchurch insulation company that promotes neo-nazi themes has been reported to police and removed from a popular review website following the terrorist attack at two Christchurch mosques on Friday.
Beneficial Insulation, which was incorporated in 2010, features a number of nazi-related themes in its name and branding.
Stuff has also sighted an angry email that Beneficial Insulation owner Phil Arps sent to a customer. The email was signed off with a false Adolf Hitler quote and featured Rightwing extremist views.
The company’s white extremist branding and Arps’ racist views, which he promotes online, sparked a public outcry in the wake of the Christchurch mass shooting, which left 50 people dead. Another 34 are still in hospital.
Beneficial Insulation’s logo is a sunwheel, or black sun, which has been used by neo-nazi groups. The firm also charges $14.88 per metre for insulation – ‘‘14.88’’ being a hate symbol popular with white extremists.
The company’s website URL, BIIG.co.nz, is an acronym for the company’s full name, Beneficial Insulation Installs Guaranteed. BIIg was the name of a barracks at the Auschwitz concentration camp, which was operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust.
The company’s staff wear camouflage print uniform.
Over the weekend the Insulation Association removed Beneficial Insulation from its website when it became aware of the company.
Builderscrack.co.nz, a tradie review website, also removed Beneficial Insulation from its site and reported the company to police.
A Builderscrack spokesman said as soon as it was made aware of Beneficial Insulation on Saturday via Twitter the firm’s public profile was removed and its account deactivated.
Builderscrack called police about the company on Monday morning.
Builderscrack was also advising homeowners who had been in contact with Beneficial Insulation of the situation. ‘‘There is no place for this in our society.’’
The whole Builderscrack team in Christchurch was ‘‘incredibly saddened’’ by Friday’s attack, the spokesman said.
NZ Police said on Saturday it could not comment on whether individuals or companies were, or had been, subject to police attention or an investigation.
Beneficial Insulation’s website has been taken down and, after Stuff published a story about the company on Saturday, its Facebook page was removed.
Arps, who was previously made bankrupt in 2001, sent Stuff a series statements on Saturday that did not address questions put to him.
He has since stopped responding to further requests for comment.
Arps appeared in a Stuff story in February 2018 after raw sewage started flowing onto his property.
Christchurch resident Tony Rider said he experienced Arps’ racist views first hand when he used Beneficial Insulation to install insulation at his home last year.
Rider said Beneficial Insulation was recommended to him but the company did not complete the job in the first instance and it sent an invoice that had discrepancies.
While the shoddy work was remedied and the invoice discrepancies were cleared up, it was Arps’ racist language in an email that really left Rider feeling angry.
One aggressive email from Arps featured extremist language and ended with a quote commonly believed to be from Hitler; however, there appears to be no evidence of the Nazi Party leader saying or writing it.
‘‘He [Arps] is openly advertising his business alongside white supremacy ideals,’’ Rider said.
Rider said that, while Arps was entitled to his beliefs, he did not support his views or his business. ‘‘If I’d known he was like that I wouldn’t have given him my business.’’