and i still ain’t right…


Chlorine gas is extremely toxic and deadly. So toxic and deadly, in fact, that it was used by the Germans in WWI as a chemical weapon. However, you don’t have to read a history book to “experience” it, you can make some in your shower today! C’mon, don’t be scared – I did.

Last night, I told Sharaun I’d clean the bathroom and shower if she’d do the dishes. Seemingly happy with this lopsided trade (I’d take dishes any day), she agreed and I set about plugging my iPod into the little portable speakers Pat got me as a gift to provide me with some music to clean by. I took care of the bathroom first, since it’s little more than a small closet with a toilet. Hit that with some 409 and bleach-based toilet bowl cleaner, to sparking results. Then it was onto the shower, where I decided to make a first pass at the soap scum with my old shower-cleaning standby – Lime-A-Way. If you’ve never used Lime-A-Way before, let me tell you that it’s some amazing stuff. Not to turn this into a product testimonial or anything, but my results with Lime-A-Way have been nothing short of fantastic – it making light work of even the most caked-on soap/water stains. So, I squeezed a good amount of Lime Away on the shower walls, let it drip down, and took a small hand brush to the whole thing. The scum came off with gentle rubbing, leaving the walls smooth and gleaming. Next, I used more Lime Away on the floor to remove soap scum and grime there – again with excellent results. Repeat with the glass shower doors and now all the major surfaces were taken care of.

After that, it was down to the minutiae: Where the shower walls join the floor, the grout lines tend to get extra dirty and mildewy, so I decided my best course of action there would be to trace them with a squirt of some bleach-based gel cleaner (intended to cling under a toilet bowl rim) and let it sit for a few minutes before taking an old toothbrush to them. But, before I did this, I remembered that it’s not a good idea to mix household cleaners, lest one create some noxious fumes through some unintended chemical reaction. So, I dutifully rinsed the entire shower several times with water poured from my little cleaning bucket. As a final pass, I turned on the shower itself and manually ratcheted the head around to douse off any residuals from the Lime Away bath. Thinking myself safe, I squirted a line of bleach-gel around the bottom outline of the shower and left it to simmer. I should mention that, earlier in my cleaning process, I had opened the window above the shower and turned on the exhaust fan in the bathroom, just to avoid the fumes from the Lime-A-Way alone (in retrospect, I think this was the best idea I had all night). Upon returning to the shower, I crouched down and began my toothbrush-scrubbing pass at the grout. Soon enough though, I my nose began to run. Soon, I started finding it difficult to get a decent lungful of air.

About that time, I did in fact realize that there was some chemical agent in the air which was causing me to experience these things. However, hoping it was just the “strong scent of cleanliness,” I decided that, rather than abandon the area, I’d instead pop my head up to the window and inhale a deep breath of fresh outside air before diving back down, breath held like a freediver, to finish what little scrubbing was left. I did this maybe three times before I was done brushing the grout (which, I might add, turned out spectacular), and as I finished I noticed that it was still difficult to get a “decent” breath and that my nostrils were somewhat irritated. The “smell” in the air was an acrid, burny smell reminiscent of the community pool at the Y where my brother and I took swimming lessons. I should have known, and, in reality, kinda did, that whatever traces were left of the Lime Away were reacting with the bleach in the gel – this was obvious. You can call me stupid, that’s to be expected, because I knew very well that something was amiss – yet I continued to labor just the extra few minutes to finish the job.

The next day I told Pat about my experience on the way to lunch. “You’re an idiot,” he bluntly messaged. “Yeah, I know,” I replied. “You should do some research on what exactly you did to yourself, just to know how badly you’re now damaged,” he said. And so, that’s how I ended up spending 15min post-lunch scouring the internets for some reference to the caustic results of mixing Lime-A-Way with bleach. What I learned was that, while Lime Away does not contain ammonia (which, in combination with bleach, produces chlorine gas), the combination of it and bleach is not recommended. Initially, I couldn’t find any explicit advisories against mixing the two, although I did manage to locate a couple references – which I found to be comical, and thus worthy of inclusion here – to the negative effects of combining the them.

This one, from a university’s “safety report” of on-campus injuries and/or incidents:

Dept.
Student Union

Date of Injury
10/27/2002

Description of the Incident
Employee was cleaning the well of a food warmer. The employee mixed bleach, Lime-Away and water, and the mixture released fumes which the employee inhaled. The employee had shortness of breath, cough and irritation to throat/chest.

Root Cause Explanation
Bleach and Lime-Away are incompatible chemicals and should not have been mixed.

And this one, taken from the blog of a fast-food joint manager:

I sighed. “Okay, Clueless Boy. I’m just going to ask one thing from you. I need you to fill the mop bucket for me with Bleach and hot water. Then you can go.” I continue my hurried cleaning. The water is running in the background. Then I smell this acrid scent. What is that? I start coughing. I look over at Clueless Boy. There is this cloud emanating from the mop bucket, along with the horrible smell that is making my eyes water. What is going on?

Then I see the Lime Away in his hand. Lime Away and Bleach do not mix well. There are warnings on the labels. There are big signs all over the wall near the mop sink that say “Don’t mix Lime Away and Bleach. It is bad.” Do you know why there were big signs all over the wall?

Because Clueless Boy was the second employee who tried to kill me. You would have thought he would have listened when I was talking to a coworker about the near death experience I had encountered the night before. Maybe he would have figured it out when I had the discussion with the staff that night about the dangers of Lime Away and Bleach.

You really would have thought he would have grasped the concept when I had asked him to make the signs to post on the wall, though.

Later during the day, Pat suggested that I Google “bleach and acid,” thinking he’d perhaps hit upon the nature of my self-inflicted gassing. Sure enough, there are scary internet warnings all over the place about the dangers of mixing phosphoric acid with chlorine bleach. Since Lime Away = phosphoric acid, this is exactly what I had done in my very own shower the night before. You can even read the “Do not mix with chlorinated detergents or sanitizers” warning on the Materials Safety Data Sheet for Lime-A-Way. It’s even on the bottle of Lime-A-Way itself.

During the day Tuesday, I experienced a variety of nastiness which I attributed to my exposure, including a headache, tight chest, dizziness, weird pressure changes in my ears, and upset stomach / heartburn. I’m not entirely sure if any of these things had a whit to do with my self-gassing, but considering the litany of symptoms which can arise from low-level exposure, I think I got off rather lucky either way:

Exposure to low levels of pure chlorine gas is irritating to the respiratory tract, eyes, and skin. Exposure can cause sore or swollen throat, coughing, choking, sneezing, pneumonia, chest tightness and pain, headache, dizziness, watery eyes, blurred vision, nausea, vomiting, vomiting blood, severe abdominal pain, skin blisters and irritation, difficulty breathing, and pain or burning in the stomach, nose, eyes, ears, lips, or tongue.

8pm now and I’m done blogging (and I still ain’t right!). Goodnight.


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19 Replies to “and i still ain’t right…”

  1. I use lime away in my bathrooms, and in April the week of Easter I cleaned the bathrooom my husband uses, I sprayed alot of it and had to cover my face because I was chocking on it.

    That night I started coughing and clearing my throat all night, this was Wed night. By Friday I had totally lost my voice and was so sick I had to call of my Easter party.

    I almost died from using this product, and I still do not have my voice back.

    I would not recommend this product to anyone.

  2. a little goes a long way

    I uses this stuff everyday at work, its an acid so if you breath it in it will burn “learned that in chemistry class”. DON’T BREATH IT IN. I have never had any long term or short term effects from this product in the last 4 years. If you live somewhere with hard water this product is a must have. It has an instant reaction on hard water stains.
    As with any cleaner i recommend you take all safety pro cations when using a product “gloves, glasses, face mask”. If you don’t do this, then it is your own fault, so don’t write about it on a message board

    p.s. don’t mix any cleaners under any circumstance unless you know what you are doing

    1. I know you posted over 10 years ago, you seem to have some useful information, so I’m asking on the off chance that you see this message. Can you elaborate on how you avoid breathing the Lime Away fumes? I can smell it even when keeping my face as far as possible from the area I am cleaning. What type of face mask are you using?

  3. Wow..I was searching the effects of mixing bleach with Lime Away when I stumbled on your blog. I was trying to get the ring out of my toilet and didn’t even bother to read the Lime Away label on the bottle until I was standing there waiting for it to soak in when I saw in big letters DO NOT MIX WITH BLEACH. crap..so I flushed the toilet and closed the door and now I can’t finish cleaning the bathroom for god knows how long!

    But thanks for your post! I didn’t realize how bad mixing the two actually are.

  4. So, how long did it take you to feel normal again? I did roughly the same thing yesterday, and I feel lousy… Did you end up seeking medical attention or did it just go away on it’s own after a while?

  5. WOW !! This is EXACTLY what I did over a week ago except I did not rinse the Lime-A-Way out of the shower before dousing it in bleach based cleaning product. I STILL can’t breath right =( The good news… my bathroom is spotless!

  6. fu** i just did it on like 20 min so i looked it up & ur blog came up ……i got shortness of breath right now just finished trowing up …..not coughing no more ………… should i go 2 the E.R?

  7. Oh boy, I did the same thing this morning (11:30am) and now I am feeling horrible 10:40pm, I’ve been like this since I cleaned the showers! Before I did this search I decided to read the label of the lime a-way, a little too late for that!. Runny nose, coughing, sneezing, irritation in my throat. My dumb A&*s did not even rise before adding the bleach to the shower. I think the only thing I did right was open all the windows. The shower does look sparkling clean though.

  8. Just about 2 weeks ago, I cleaned the toilet with a typical bleach toilet cleaner, flushed it down first and then sprayed Lime Away to get rid of the ring. I breathed a little of the fumes and I remember it irritated me and I felt a little nauseous. I grabbed some fresh air from the window and finished cleaning.
    The next day I come down with an upper respiratory infection. It’s that time of year so I don’t relate it to the cleaning but its not going away. My throat feels tight and I can’t get rid of the congestion. Saw my Dr. but she just handed me antibiotics that are not helping. Can’t figure out if it’s damage I’ve done of just an infection?

  9. Omg i never knew. i mixed these (bleach, water and LimeAway) earlier this evening cleaning my shower and now ive started a rough cough, sore throat, wheezing terribly, have chest and stomach tightness, difficulty with deep breaths, heartburn, feeling nauseated. Feeling worse as time passes and possibly a headache coming on.
    I have no insurance so i am struggling with weather to go to ER or wait it out.

  10. I just did this about an hour ago.. I was cleaning my bathroom. THANK GOD I had the window open but I had to step out my bathroom. DO NOT MIX LIMAWAY W BLEACH, I REPEAT!!!! I could not breathe. I was chocking, coughing, my eyes were burning & my nose was runny. I feel better but now my throat hurts from the coughing. Never again. I feel dumb 🙂

  11. I really don’t want to sound crass, but damn… don’t let your cleaners mix. I learned this in elementary school. It could mean the difference in your life and your families livelihood.

    TY to the person who posted this, everyone should know!

    Peace, Love, and Rock & Roll

    1. Well. The person asked if they could mix with water. Give them the answer to the question asked. Because yes, infact you are suppose to mix lime away with water or you could really f*k you up. And simple as this the answer should be obvious if you have to still clean whatever it is you are cleaning with lime away off with water afterwards or it is still active. It is an acid. It will eat away and eat away. But yes water is recommended unless you know what you are doing and doesn’t sound like it. Wish you the best. And always Google your MSDS sheets on any chemical if you don’t know about it. Or even if you do. If it’s something you keep I the house I’d make printouts incase of emergency. Have a blessed day

  12. I used lime-a-way for thirty years as a cleaning lady oh how I wish I would have paid attention.Im still trying to find help??Eight years ago! All started with falling off ladder it was two feet. I stepped into a bucket of water and worked as if I had on a ice skate and down I went. Out went the ladder! Broke my elbow!That’s when the symptoms started dizziness, vomiting I even lost my hair.I’ve been diagnosed with a mystery balance issue ? Lost Vision in one eye and my skin feels like it’s not part of my body anymore my caution is to all of you only use vinegar Doctors have said that its not possible oh yes it is…..

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