OK, I know it sounds weird, but something’s going on that I’m curious about.
A few houses down from mine is a house that is now empty becuse it’s occupent just recently died. Evidently the house is now being cleaned up to sell or rent. Today as I was driving by I noticed (and then slowed down so I could count) there were 20 empty bottles of bleach in the recycle bin.
What would require 20 gallons of bleach to fix/clean/destroy?
If the neighborhood rumor mill is correct, the occupent died of lung cancer. She was a youngish woman, around her 40s, I’d guess.
Any Theorys? Any home improvement ideas I’m missing out on?
Place was really dirty, with lots of tile/ceramic/other bleach-appropriate surfaces.
Cleaned by a bit of a neat freak.
Possibility of some kind of contagious illness (so sterizile the place).
Smells, bleach can help get those out (mold, mildew, smoke, etc).
Water stains in some wood surfaces can be bleached out - for example maybe the kitchen had a huge butcher-block counter with severe stains. This and sanding helped me refinish my folks’ kitchen counters.
Is there a big wooden deck, wooden fencing or wooden siding? I’m not sure about every types of wood but you can use bleach and water to give a nice grey tint to redwood.
Admittedly 20 gallons is a helluva lot of bleach, maybe a combination of these things would need 'em all for a big home.
Maybe the homowner was saving/ collecting bleach bottles for a cub scout project and died before they got a chance to use them. I’ve had that many bleach bottles in my house at one time and it had nothing to do with cleaning.
I suspect they were used to wash mildew off basement walls or the exterior of the house. It would have to be a large suface to need that many. I wouldn’t buy that house.
When I was in HS the father of a friend hired a few of us to clean out a newly purchased house out in the NJ suburbs. We spent much of the day hauling out hundreds, maybe even a thousand or more, empty bleach bottles piled in the corners of the backyard. The bottles at the bottom, I recall, were so old and weatherworn they cracked like tortilla chips.
So what was up with all the bleach? Well, I was told that the previous owner employed what I’ve since dubbed “the poor man’s swimming pool chlorination system.” Whenever the built-in pool got cloudy, he’d head to the supermarket, buy a few gallons of bleach, empty them in the pool and chuck the bottles behind the bushes.
Alot of people use bleach full strength, when it can be diluted for a variety of tasks.
My wasteful neighbor used about four gallons on a 15x15 deck - a rather modest size structure. Cleaning the house and basement walls could easily burn 10-20 bottles if you’re a knucklehead.
Obviously, there is no shortage of knuckleheads or bleach.
Bleach is pretty effective at killing mold and mildew, and one of the few things a regular Joe can use to do this. It’s dangerous from an exposure or collateral damage (oh, damn, my carpets!) but it’s a lot easier than elbow grease. 10-20 bottles is pretty heavyhanded, though (maybe they’re just storing the bleach there?) and possibly toxic.
Shibb’s household hint for getting rid of mildew in your shower:
keep your showers/tubs as dry as possible. A cheap squeegee used after showering does wonders.
Use a spray bottle with a 1/2 or 1/3 bleach solution and spray on when the shower is dry.