help save the lives of me and my family(AKA Chemistry 101)

[workinwifdakids]

FIRST, I would print *this* PDF brochure about chlorine gas from the federal government's Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, and show it to your lovely wife. If she doesn't believe you, maybe the dotgov will carry more weight.

SECOND, I would have her click THIS link, which shows 168,000 web references about how doing what your lovely wife is doing IS THE PREFERRED METHOD OF SUICIDE IN JAPAN.

That's right, your wife is replicating the exact method used to KILL YOURSELF. So, throw away everything in your entire house, and buy her new organic non-chemical laundry detergent, non-ammonia glass cleaner, and a sponge. If she balks, wait until she's right in the middle of cleaning and call the fire department for possible chlorine gas exposure.

[HTRN]

I know nothing.

If you doubt the truth of this, just ask my wife.

You value ze opinion of ze wimminz?!

What the hell kind of man are you?


HTRN

[Bullspit]

My wife is a chemist. She says "Don't do this!"

How about all the suicides in Japan recently? They mixed up a bunch of cleaners and killed themselves with the gas.

[Dedicated_Dad]

...I wanna see what DD's wife is brewing tonight.

Um, No.

You don't. Really.

Caused an uproar with this one - she's back to denying she mixed anything.

I'm sure all of you non-city dwellers know how to find the drain-field on a rural property, right? Look for the stripes of lush, green, taller grass.

Mine is also easily spotted - it's 4 dead brown stripes in the otherwise green yard.

She literally goes through at least a gallon of bleach per week, just on the usual stuff, and 2+ bottles of "the works" depending on what she's cleaning. We have a lot of iron in our water, and "the works" at $1 per bottle at the dollar store is a great bargain, but not if it kills us.

This particular fiasco was her cleaning the white tile in the pool room - kids visiting for thanksgiving had tracked some dirt around (walking on wet tile with street shoes) so....

I'd have simply gotten the hose, wet it down, and used the squeegee to sweep it all into the pool - thus letting the filter earn its keep and solving the problem. Some bleach water might have been OK too - I use bleach for sanitizer in the pool so no problem there.

No - she dumped a quart of a mixture of oxalic and sulfamic acids into her plastic bucket, tossed in some water and an undetermined quantity of clorox, and went to town.

My eyes and sinuses are still burning, my throat is raw, and my chest is gurgling like an aquarium.

She had to stop wearing her wedding band - the holes in the underside where the diamonds are mounted are a perfect place for these concoctions to congregate, and they were literally eating her skin away.

Gloves? Pshaw. That's just STUPID - after all, they couldn't sell the stuff if it was dangerous. It's not the chemicals eating up her skin - it's the ring - made of 18k gold and diamonds. That the otherwise-matching solid-18k engagement ring doesn't do the same is irrelevant.

?If you won't wear gloves, then at least take off the ring before you start playing chemistry-set? Too much hassle.

I've tried explaining that the reason bleach feels slippery on your skin is that it is literally dissolving your skin - the slippery you feel is oxidized proteins and collagen.

Further proof that I am an idiot.

If this happens again, I'm going to have to take some drastic measure. I threatened this after the ti-d-bowl and bleach fiasco - that one required evacuating the house for a while - but...

There's really little I can do. I could put the chemicals in a metal cabinet and padlock it, but she'd just go buy more.

Say a prayer...

DD

[BobbyK]

I'd request the MSDS sheets for all the cleaning products in the house... If that doesn't work, I can hook you up with a reputable supplier of hazmat gear.

I honestly don't even want to think about what the gasses that reaction produces might be doing to your knee.

[Erik]

I googled around a bit for gas warning devices, thinking you could at least get an early and audible warning. There are devices that warn for chlorine gas, but they look pretty expensive.
A more lowtech approach is the old classic "canary in a coal mine". Get a bird for every room in the house, if a few of them do a parrot impression the point should be pretty obvious.

[Cybrludite]

Yeah, well, until you achieve phosgene gas in your garage, you are just a piker.

That's, what, brake cleaner and a hot plate, right?

[MelodyByrne]

See if you can't get her to commit to just a few cleaners, i.e. ammonia, vinegar, baking soda, simple green and comet. Not much you can't do with the above. Also, the only two of those cleaners you can't combine with each other would be the ammonia and comet. Simple green is famously non-reactive and makes a good all-purpose cleaner.

As for the bleach, bleach in liquid form doesn't clean any better than plain ammonia, and the smell of ammonia disappears more quickly. The only place for chlorine bleach is in a load of whites.

[HTRN]

Bleach does have another use though.

It does a wonderful job on the grease buildup in the pipes..


HTRN

[Aglifter]

If she insists on using bleach as a sterilizer, suggest clorox clean up -- it's a pre-mixed soap/bleach, which would be fine, provided she uses it by itself.

+1 for simple green/other "natural" cleaners, esp. if you have a septic system.

Also, tell her a biochemist*, and the clorox bottle, says she needs to keep the level of bleach low to properly sterilize - too much, and you won't effectively sterilize a surface.

Why on earth is she randomly mixing cleansers??? (Of course they sell stuff that's dangerous, that's what makes it effective...)

Would putting some of her concoctions in a glass jar w. a metal lid help? (Cl gas will eat up a lid remarkably fast)

*OK, so it was years ago, and I didn't go get a PhD -- it's a white lie to prevent death..