  Gravitational waves from binary neutron star post-merger remnants have the
potential to uncover the physics of the hot nuclear equation of state. These
gravitational-wave signals are high frequency ($\sim$ kHz) and short lived
($\mathcal{O}(10\,\mathrm{ms})$), which introduces potential problems for
data-analysis algorithms due to the presence of non-stationary and non-Gaussian
noise artefacts in gravitational-wave observatories. We quantify the degree to
which these noise features in LIGO data may affect our confidence in
identifying post-merger gravitational-wave signals. We show that the
combination of vetoing data with non-stationary glitches and the application of
the Allen $\chi^2$ veto (usually reserved for long-lived lower-frequency
gravitational-wave signals), allows one to confidently detect post-merger
signals with signal-to-noise ratio $\rho\gtrsim8$. We discuss the need to
incorporate the data-quality checks and vetos into realistic post-merger
gravitational-wave searches, and describe how one can incorporate them to
calculate realistic false-alarm and false-dismissal rates.
