1) The stories of accidents from using the "wrong" container for a
dangerous chemical are numerous. From my own experiences,
we had a neighbor who couldn't swallow pieces of food much larger
than a pea because when she was a child she drank a lye solution
that was stored in a pop bottle.
Personally, as a high school student I stored battery acid in a rubbing
alcohol container in the basement. My father ran out of the rubbing
alcohol that he splashed on his face after shaving and he went to the
basement and found my bottle. Fortunately, this didn't cause any
permanent problems but it certainly woke him up. He vented a
tremendous amount of anger in my direction.

2) Regarding you grout which is now stained blue: I would suggest
experimenting with some bleach, which is a better starting point than
scraping with a screwdriver. Follow the standard advice to experiment
first with just a drop or two of bleach on one part of the stain to see
what color you will get after the bleach has oxidized the stain. You
can get a variety of colors ranging from white to yellow to orange
depending upon the particular chemicals which are being bleached.
You may also experiment with a mild water-based abrasive such as
Soft Scrub®. Some versions of these products have a bit of bleach
already in them, but you may want to boost it by using the Soft Scrub®
in conjunction with regular bleach.
If that doesn't work, I'd suggest using fine sandpaper rather than a
screwdriver to remove some of the grout.


Good luck.

======================

meirman wrote in message ...
In alt.home.repair on Mon, 20 Dec 2004 03:11:29 GMT "Gideon"
posted:


Greg wrote in message ...
If the Tilex spray bottles are poor, why would you want to put bleach
in them?

You buy a new bottle of Tylex, refill with bleach until it breaks ... repeat.

========

Clorox® makes a number of disinfecting sprays which contain common
bleach (plus scent). Why not buy 1 container and when it is empty, refilling
with the most inexpensive bleach that you can purchase? We've done
this and the containers and spray mechanisms last an extremely long time.
You also now have your home-brewed mixture in an appopriately labeled
container, which is a big safety issue.

I agree with you.

When I lived near a college, a girl came down to see me one day and
said she had swallowed bleach and could I help her.

I looked in both of my poison booklets and neither mentioned bleach.
I called the poison control hotline and her book didn't mention bleach
either. She had to ask the doctor about it. He said there was no
problem**. But years later a chemist friend Xeroxed a page that went
over the dangers of drinking bleach. (I guess the difference was that
the girl in my building drank very little.)

One of her roommates had put bleach in a milk carton (possibly an
opaque milk carton). Another came home and found it on the kitchen
table and put it in the refrigerator. The third came home, took it
out of the refrigerator, and drank some, thinking it was milk. (Skim
milk isn't very white. It's more like white and clear. Maybe that
helped to confuse her.)

I mark my sprayers "Poison" when they contain poison, even though I
live alone. (Although I didn't mark the sprayer that contained 409,
and now I don't know which it is!)

I recommend unscented bleach - you really don't want to fool you noise
when breathing the fumes.

Good point.


BTW, I left a zip-lock bag with a leaking Epson color printer Blue
cartridge in it on the floor of my bathroom.

Now some of the grout is blue.

Should I use a cleaner first?
bleach first?

Will they just spread the stain and make it go deeper?

Should I use a screwdriver to scrape away the top half millimeter of
grout first?

Any advice?

As others have said, this is not for soap scum removal - just for the
disinfecting typically performed by bleach products.

Now if you are doing a very large disinfecting job such as killing mold on the
side of a building, then buy the appropriate sprayer for the end of a garden
hose (Clorox® makes this item also) and purchase "bleach" in bulk by getting
swimming pool "shock" treatment (Calcium Hypochlorite). Just mix the
hypochlorite with water to a ratio which is approximately equal to the ratio
for the product that you are duplicating.

BTW, I've mentioned this before I think, but some brands of bleach
these days contain Sodium Hyposulfite, not Hypochorite. I have a
guess why but I'm not sure. I don't know the difference in
effectiveness, but to kill the moss on my fence, I went to the trouble
to find hypochlorite. Where I put on enough, it did a good job.

Obviously, you must observe appropriate bleach safety. If you are ignoring
the nasty smell of the fumes, then you are probably damaging your nasal
passages and your lungs. Also, remember that after it dries, bleach is
still bleach. When the dried bleach get moistened again, then it
"reactivates"
and behaves as bleach once again - burning skin, changing the colors of
fabrics, etc. Finally, be extremely careful to avoid using other cleaning
products in conjuction with bleach solutions. Careless mixing can produce
gases such as chlorine, chloramine and phosgene.

Shades of WWI. Do any of you remember Sen. Everett Dirkson? The
reason he talked so funny is that he was gassed in WWI.


Meirman

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