My less than helpful garbage men have gone from bad to worse lately. They leave one small bag behind or they leave the can in the middle of the street or they make a TON of unnecessary noise early in the mornings.
But they’ve taken the cake this week in leaving actual bags of trash for me and my neighbors in some sort of stupid passive aggressive bullshit. This bag of trash, the insane heat we’re having MELTED and liquified such that when I went to move them, one spilled insanely disgusting junk EVERYWHERE. Lacking a hose, I dumped buckets of water mixed with oxiclean to dissipate the disaster in the street.
I threw out the old pair of shoes they spewed over and even the $2 gardening gloves.
After tons of scrubbing with scrubs and strong soap, the stench remains on my hands (lightly, but its’ still there).
Aside from decapitating the garbage men, what are my options for my hands?
I don’t know if this would work, but if I was in your place I would try covering my hands with baking soda and then wiping it off. Baking soda can absorb smells, so maybe it could from the skin. Although baking soda can fizz up when exposed to water, so I’m not sure if that’d be okay to put on your hands and wash off. If not baking soda, then I would just keep washing my hands through out the day, and eventually the smell will dissipate. Putting scented lotion might also help, or might make things worse depending on the lotion and the garbage smell.
That sucks about your garbage men, I hope you get the problems worked out.
This sounds odd, but it’s worth a shot. Rub your hands with/on some stainless steel.
I do this all the time to remove garlic/onion smell from my hands. Alliums contain lots of sulphurous compounds, as does icky garbage. The sulphur bonds with the metal (my understanding of the science is sketchy) making it water soluble. You can even buy soap-shaped bars of stainless steel for this very purpose. But why would you, when your kitchen likely has plenty - your sink, your tap, a spoon.
I would clip my nails even shorter than they are (and boil the nail clipper afterwards :)), scrub my hands with a nail brush and hot (really hot) water and soap, then a bleach solution. This worked for a dog poop bag failure a couple of months ago. I might throw in some rubbing alcohol too.
I have pretty tough skin so I was okay with it, but you should be careful with the bleach.
To get the skunk smell off a dog, the best solution is 1qt hydrogen peroxide, 1/4 cup baking soda and 1tsp of liquid dish soap. You’d think that the more de-greasing power, the better. But no, they say Softsoap and Ivory Liquid are best. Or liquid hand soap. Dawn is the worst.
Wash your dog thoroughly in the solution (er, well this is what the directions say!) and let the solution sit for about 5 minutes before rinsing off.
Anyway, it works pretty good on skunk smell. Perhaps it will be handy (pun!) for trash smell.
If you can handle bleach, soak your hands in a mild bleach solution replacing with new solution every ten minutes until the smell is gone.
If you can’t, use the same procedure but with dish soap.
Though, when I get onion smell on my hands the only thing that works is a long shower. Doesn’t matter how much I wash my hands, I need to get a shower before the smell is gone.
Stainless steel ‘soap’ or rub your hands on your s/s sink.
Only germophobes go for bleach, hot water and the like. To remove germs from your hands, the old “hum the alphabet song while washing” will provide enough time to get rid of the germs. The stainless steel will get rid of the smell, as suggested by araminty.
I think they’re new guys because my old guys were fun and nice (they’d honk at me if I was walking to the car in heels but also wouldn’t bust my ass for having extra bags, etc). Whoever these bastards are, they’re gonna get a talkin-to next week.
Gojo, that orange pumic stuff, worked great for me in the past but no dice tonight.
What ended up working was a combo of straight white vinegar AND vigorous rubbing of stainless steel.
