That’s become the normal here: grocery stores and department stores have been that way for weeks (credit/debit/gift cards or exact change only), and yesterday I noticed a drive-thru coffee shop had a sign notifying customers they weren’t accepting cash, period.
Is that why I’ve seen a bunch of credit card only signs lately?? Geez, if bank lobby coin sorters and Coin*Stars opened back up we could solve this shortage quickly…
Here in the Houston area, shortages (that I’ve noticed) currently seem to be some canned goods, disinfectant and rubbing alcohol, as mentioned elsewhere.
As a side note, my nearest Wal-Mart has seriously pissed me off in recent days; it was only after filling a cart that I discovered they had suddenly gone credit/debit only; would it kill ya to put some kind of notice at the entrance? Then the self-checkout card terminals for some reason refused to accept the card I normally use. I later confirmed with the card issuer that there’s no problem on their end, and the card works elsewhere.
I can comprehend that maybe a retailer might want to avoid having employees handling filthy lucre, and I’m aware of this weird cash shortage, but refusing even exact change at an automated terminal? I’m trying to put cash back in the system, fer cryin’ out loud.
Then there was the pallet of Mexican hand sanitizer they put out that I bought a few bottles of for my place of work, and that a) turned out to have a horrific smell, when I took a whiff; and b) a couple weeks later ended up on the FDA’s banned list for having been made in a factory where other brands made at the same facility contained methanol rather than ethanol. Luckily I found this out before putting them into use.
(Suburbs of Boston) About the only thing I see shortages of these days are Lysol and Clorox brand wipes and sprays.
But trigger spray bottles of equivalents started showing up 3 or 4 weeks ago.
I had looked at the EPA “N” List, which was a list of things that it was thought would work against Covid.
Now Lysol’s aerosol spray actually been tested against Covid and approved.
There are other products that have basically the same ingredient, sometimes in a slightly different concentration or mollecular structure.
For example, Lysol wipes have
Alkyl (50% C14, 40% C12, 10% C16) dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride in a 0.26% concentration
Odoban Disinfectant (trigger bottle) Spray has the same exact ingredient in a 0.30% concentration. This is what started showing up a few weeks ago in my supermarket.
Clorox wipes are similar, they have two slightly different molecules.
Lysol aerosol spray has
Alkyl (50% C14, 40% C12, 10% C16) dimethyl benzyl ammonium saccharinate
The EPA calls these chemicals “Quaternary ammonium” and I guess they’re also known in the chemistry and janitorial communitahs as Quats.
If you take a stroll down the cleaning aisle and look at the labels on everything in the disinfectant section, decent chance you’ll find something you can use.
Excellent tip, thanks. I picked up a bottle of Odoban a few months ago, and now I know what I’m going to refill my Clorox pump n clean dispenser with once it’s empty.
Started to experience shortages with prescribed medications this month.
One required a total switch to a generic version. Another was located at a distant pharmacy.
Pharmacist was unable to explain other than to say it was a supplier issue. No idea how long this will continue either.
I actually found Germ-X at Walgreens yesterday! They had a big display with different sized bottles, and so I picked up a quart refill. Its nice to see it back on the shelves.
Now if disinfectant wipes would make a comeback, I’d be a happy man.
So yesterday was the big shop for the month. I found wipes!! Generic, but still.
Prices are getting crazy, but it was seniors 10% off, so that helped.
The weird thing was laundry detergent. A kind I like was on sale, but there was only 1 jug. The young man was there stocking and I asked if he had more on his cart. He started going thru every box. A lot of boxes. I said can’t you just find a case, 'cause I’ll buy them all. He said “lady, we don’t get full cases of half our stuff anymore. We get boxes with some of this and some of that all mixed. We never know what will be in a box. Distribution wants to get a little of everything to every store, so they just break up cases and put random stuff in boxes.”
No beef consomme for weeks now, but I managed to snag the last 4 onion soups. I use the broth for bases. Yes, I could make my own, but it’s been over 110F for over a month here and I ain’t turning on no damn oven.
For the first time I’ve seen since February Sam’s Club had wipes online this week. Not a brand I’ve ever heard of but it was $7 or $8 for 216 so I ordered a set.
I found a 4pk of soft-pack wipes (2 80ct and 2 72ct) at Costco about a week ago for $10. Snagged my 1 allowed box (they are still limiting quantities).
I finally got around to going to Home Depot for a badly needed furnace filter replacement. Especially now in this heat, where I have the furnace fan always on low-speed and switching to high-speed when the A/C cuts in. I use 3M microparticle allergen filters (I don’t have allergies but they’re really effective filters). I had this bad feeling on the way over that there might be a shortage, as indeed there was. The guy at HD said it had been going on for some time and he didn’t know why, but I suspect that 3M has diverted a lot of those resources to making N50 masks and other PPE. Fortunately, though individual filters weren’t available, I was able to get a 4-pack in the right size, which was probably just as well.
I still can’t find 12 packs of sugar free Red Bull. I found literally one 12 pack at Publix today which makes me wonder where they were hiding it.
It’s odd that I can still find eyeglass wipes. One would think that people would have figured out they are coated with what’s basically hand sanitizer, if an expensive and inefficient form of it. I’m pretty well stocked up by now in preparation for if people ever realize this. So I’m not going to need any more for awhile. Thankfully, a several month supply merely takes up the top of my toilet.
Pro tip: avoid the ones from Mexico. That seems to be the common denominator for the ones contaminated by methanol. Which makes sense - Mexico has a problem with their drinking alcohol being contaminated. It’s killed several US tourists. So retooling then to produce sanitizer doesn’t resolve the contamination issue.
And, in fact, I’d bought a bottle of the “never heard of it before” hand sanitizer when it showed up in my local grocery store back in May. Thankfully, we’d not ever used it, as we got an automated phone call the other day warning that that brand/item was being recalled due to contamination. Into the trash it went.
I go to our farmer’s market. There are a couple of distilleries there who have converted some of their output to hand sanitizer. They basically take the alcohol that would be in their products and add some aloe.
If there are distilleries in your area, you might look for it there.
We were out of water for a while, but now it’s pretty much in stock, though I didn’t know we sold reversed osmosed water.
That’s exactly my problem. Caffeine free Coke and Dr Pepper are not on the shelves. I find it strange we have an aluminum can shortage, but that’s what the Internet says.
Why not put the less popular items in plastic bottles? I think that would require retooling production lines.
We’ve been getting some for soap scum et al, but not much for mildew.
It is for diluting. It will work for surfaces, but you don’t want it at full strength. It’s not out-of-the-bottle ready for surfaces, which is why it’s labeled for the uninformed masses.
Odd, we seem to have plenty of that.
For me, I can’t find any canned whole green beans, though plenty of cut ones. Don’t know what that is about. Also, purple hull peas are missing in action, though I suspect that’s more weather related. They had a similar out last year which was due to too much rainfall, and I think this year had been equally wet.
Here in Canada, there is a list of Health Canada approved hand sanitizers that can be searched by the NPN or DIN number on the bottle. It’s been very handy for checking my hoard of otherwise-unknown sanitizers, though recently I’ve been able to get an adequate supply of Purell. Not sure how useful that list would be for products in the US. There may be a similar list pertinent to the US but all I could find is an FDA list of known unacceptable products. There is also a similar list for Canada. In most cases the problem is the presence of either methanol or ethyl acetate, or both.
In Ontario, Canada, there is a shortage of recreational sit-on-top kayaks. The bad part of it is that some new paddlers have had to be rescued after blowing out into Great Lakes Ontario and Erie.
The good part of it is that there are many people getting out onto the water and having a wonderful time, including meeting up with others whom they have met through the net, e.g. Facebook private group “Kayaking and Canoeing in Ontario.” I’ve been involved in paddling for over half a century, with leadership roles in several of disciplines’ primary umbrella bodies and clubs, but I have never seen anything like this before in the paddling world.
Prescription medications. Specifically Coumadin and Duragesic patches. Pharmacist had no explanation as to why their supplier did not have them.
Just watching the news today and pressure treated lumber is pretty much sold out. So many people figured they would build or repair their decks this summer and the supply chain was already light after the shutdown back in March/April.