I hate this neighbor

[Der Cute]

I live in kind of a dorm/efficiency situation. I have a room to myself, I share a bathroom with one person. There is a bathroom in the main hall that anyone can use.

I go out today and all I can smell is BLEACH. OMG burn nose ow bleach. Going past the door of the bathroom anyone can use, I see a sign : Out of Order, Do Not Use Toilet. And bleach fumes like crazy.
So I leave, come back in an hour. Bleachy fumes still there, sign still there. I poke my head in to see if it's something I might be able to fix. Nope, log clogging it, plunger sitting there, looks like it's been attempted. Ok. Crap. No fan to help the bleach fumes!

After that I called the building manager/apt manager AND the maintenance crew. One of the people who live here uses that shower for herself, doesn't use the bathroom she's assigned to. She's also not very high functioning, so I don't think she'd call the boss. I did.

But I'm STILL smelling the bleach. Going into the laundry room to start a load...WHOOOF. Yep. There was a bowl with a mop head and bleach. Heavy duty bleach. I rinsed both of those out, tried to get the fumes gone...my lungs hurt.

Of course, I can't tell D, the neighbor that More Bleach Does Not Mean Kill More Germs. It Just Means Fumes. She'd...get physical. I'm still doing my laundry, I still smell the fumes from the shared bathroom, *hack*. I could open the front door to the bldg but..bleh. I'll call the manager in the morning.

D's a bitch.

[dragon_wings]

Aww man, I feel you on that. Bleach fumes makes me so sick its ridiculous. I don't know of anything to suggest. Except, does the bathroom have a window? If so opening that might help.

[Seshat]

my lungs hurt.

Some bleaches, when mixed with ammonia, will create one of the variants of chlorine gas. Ammonia is present in urine. Urine, unsurprisingly, is present in toilets.


Chlorine gas was used as one of the killing gasses in World War I.


The reaction is:

2(parts)NaOCl + 2NH3 --> 2NaONH3 + Cl2

NcOCl is Sodium Hypochlorite, the most common bleach. NH3 is ammonia. I forget what the NaONH3 is called, but it's Sodium/Oxygen/Ammonia. The Cl2 is pure Chlorine gas, in the form of a Cl-Cl molecule.


There are other nasty reactions that Chlorine bleaches can cause when mixed with Ammonia, depending on which has more, the temperature and pressure it's mixed at (eg, whether you're in northern Canada or the Florida Keys), and so forth.


Anyway: if D is so special needs that she/he can't be trusted around household chemicals, he/she MUST be in a carer situation. I suggest you contact Adult Protective Services for your area, and get this incident logged. And if you're living in wariness or fear because he/she would 'get physical', then D really, really should be in a carer situation! That's just not right.

The fact that you're up and posting and so forth means that you haven't taken much damage, if any. You might just hurt from the smell of bleach, rather than Chlorine gas. BUT it is possible that you got a whiff of Cl2. If so, you should get what help is available, and definitely get this logged too. (Cl2 damage can have permanent effects, you may need compensation down the track.)

[Der Cute]

Oh, guys, she and I (I hate saying this though) are the two most high-functioning people in this building. If I did an armchair diagnosis on her, I'd say OCD and bitchiness. Possibly depression or other "dark feeling" mental stuff.

Me, I"m plain bi-polar and epilepsy. The others besides she and I? 3 schizophrenics, at least 1 of them paranoid schizophrenia, one a med-low- functioning dev. disabled woman.

I really don't think she mixed ammonia and bleach - that WAS one of my thoughts when I got the whiff of the bleach. When I stuck my head in the bathroom, the toilet water was clear, just with a solid turd in it. (tells me no yellow- good sign of no urine = no bad gases)
She just OD'd cleaning stuff, really. It's possible the bathroom floor had a bit of spill on it, and she had mopped it. And the poor mop was so bleached..eh. The fumes did dissipate after a few hours, but DAMN.

I actually did call that issue to the manager- both "hey fix toilet" and "ow the bleach fumes".

There is a history between she and I. (adn I just think she's a person who likes control)

One of the stories:
She was in the kitchen. I arrived into the kitchen. She was cooking. I said, "Hi there, how's it going today?" (a general hello). She said, "Don't talk to me I don't do small talk." Ok...but..I was thinking..did that offend you in some way - am I not supposed to say anything to you? (I did not know anyone in here and wondered if this would be a specific request from her - do not talk I cannot interact at all)
So after she tells me "Dont talk" I ask, "uh, did I do something..wrong?"
She then yells at me, " I SAID DON'T TALK TO ME I DON'T DO NO SMALL TALK." Jeez.

So I left, did my own stuff. Get a call from the manager of the building saying, "Uh, didn't you know that these residents are ...sensitive...have problems?" I said yes, I did. He tells me that she complained about me speaking to her.

Yeah. I don't like her.

[PhiSigGirl1988]

The actual reaction for sodium hypochlorite and ammonia is this:

NaOCl + NH3 --> NH2Cl + NaOH. NaONH3 doesn't actually exist. NH2Cl (chloramine) can be released as gas if concentrated enough and will smell like chlorine. It can still be toxic in high quantities.

[Mishi]

@Der Cute, next time that there's a problem like that with the toilet, get some just boiled water and carefully tip it into the toilet bowl. Leave it for a few moments, flush, then clean as usual.

[Der Cute]

Mishi - does that dissolve Le Turd?

And no, there is NO fan in that room

[Mishi]

Sure does, I was really surprised! Nan had a cranky gut after her back surgery and it meant that I could clean up the bathroom quickly so that she didn't feel embarassed.