RE: Re: Mycotoxins and Ammonia-Jeff May

[Guest guest]

-On Behalf Of Jeff May

Any comments? >>>>

Smiles--of course I have comments. Well only one really and that is to

thank you for taking the time to join this thread and to give us such

excellent advise on using ammonia safely. I liked your suggestion about

using alcohol (am assuming the rubbing alcohol around 70 to 90%) for

fumigating a rug. And the warning after using the ammonia in an enclosed

room to open the windows from the outside rather than going into the room.

Jeff don't you have a new book recently published titled: My Office Is

Killing Me! : The Sick Building Survival Guide. I need to get a copy for my

library and be able to share with some friends when they need help in their

workplace. Is this only for offices or other commercial buildings and

hopefully schools?

Rosie

>>>>>Here's a thought for those of you enamored with using laundry ammonia

to rid

the environment of mycotoxins. I have no idea if this will work but based on

your e-mails, some of you might find this helpful. It could obviously be

dangerous (contact with the eyes can cause blindness and exposure to laundry

or gaseous ammonia is extremely irritating!) and I am only mentioning it

because some of you are already " brave " enough to use strong ammonia

solutions.

Years ago there was a story about a wood finisher who found out on Friday

that he didn't stain the oak in a new French bank dark enough and the bank

was to open the following Monday. He placed dishes of ammonia out in the

bank and the gas diffused into the wood and darkened it; then he aired the

bank out and by Monday, the bank was ready to open.

Such " fumigation " with ammonia can probably also be used to get rid of the

vomit smell from butyric acid in contaminated ceiling tiles.

Who knows, since it is so alkaline, it might work with some allergens and

mycotoxins. It might be worth testing in one " toxic " room. Just remember

that ammonia gas might darken some woods and change the color of some dyes.

The nice thing is that pure ammonia is a gas and eventually must dissipate

completely.

The ammonia you buy in a store is a solution of ammonia gas dissolved in

water. When you leave the dish open, some of the gas evaporates into the

air. Just fumigating a room (sealed of course) with a gas is a lot easier

than washing everything down with a solution, and the process might be just

as effective.

You could even fumigate a single piece of furniture by placing it in a

plastic enclosure along with a dish of ammonia. I used this type of

" fumigation " method successfully to rid a rug of pests: I just found a

covered plastic trash barrel large enough to contain the loosely coiled rug

(standing up on edge around an empty plastic bucket at the bottom). I then

placed some alcohol in the bucket at the center and left the loosely-covered

assembly in a garage for a few days. Some of the alcohol evaporated onto the

barrel and the vapor saturated the rug. Alcohol is toxic to all living

things, so voila. Then I just aired the rug out well. Since no liquid

alcohol entered the rug, there were no stains or color changes. (You can't

" fumigate " a space with alcohol because the air/vapor mixture is explosive.)

Obviously, you will have to take significant personal protection steps to

enter a room full of ammonia fumes and I would avoid this if possible; try

to set up the room so that you do not have to enter when it is time to air

the space out (i.e. set it up so that you can open the windows from the

outside). Ammonia gas is very irritating to the skin and lungs. You must not

get pure laundry ammonia on the skin or breathe in the fumes.

C. May>>>>>>>>>>>>>>