Boys and girls, gather 'round while I tell you a tale so shocking it will surely induce a severe case of toilet-cleaning-ophobia in one and all. Listen well, and learn from this tale so that hopefully the misfortune that I experienced shan't befall you aswell.
'Twas a dark night, and the moon was full (actually it wasn't, it was half full cos it was last night), anyhoo, in the grips of pregnancy insomnia, I shuffled around the apartment, hoping for some menial task to tire me out enough so I could get to sleep. I settled on cleaning the bathroom. I sprayed the shower clean stuff in the bath, and rinsed it away to leave a nice shine... still wide awake. Sprayed shower clean stuff in the sink, wiped away the toothpaste stains, cleaned the mirror...still awake. 'I know,' says I, 'I'll scrub the loo'. Now before you go thinking our bathroom is a filthy cesspit, I feel compelled to point out it was actually pretty clean already, so that's probably why cleaning the sink and bath wasn't all that taxing. Cleaning the toilet was also going to be fairly straight forward - pour in cleaner, wait a few mins, brush, flush, done - or so I thought.
I grabbed the Parazone and started applying it under the rim, and that's where the trouble started. See, there wasn't a whole lot of Parazone left, so I only got about halfway around the bowl when it ran out. Rather than have a half-clean toilet, I remembered that there was a bottle of Harpic in the cupboard, so I fetched it and applied it to the rest of the bowl, overlapping where the Parazone coverage was a bit patchy. Anyhoo, I stood back and let the cleaning commence, only it wasn't cleaning that commenced, it was a rather unpleasant chemical reaction. Firstly the places where Parazone and Harpic touched started foaming, now I'm not an expert on toilet cleaning products by any stretch of the imagination, but it struck me that this wasn't quite right. My suspicions were further confirmed by the acrid smell that was now rising from the loo. Our bathroom doesn't have windows, so the fumes got very intense very quickly. I reached over, flushed and legged it out of the bathroom and onto my balcony for some fresh air.
After much coughing and spluttering and wheezing, I figured I had enough clean air in my lungs to check the bathroom and survey any damage that might have been done. Upon opening the door however, it quickly became apparent that I'd need some sort of breathing apparatus to survive longer than ten seconds in the bathroom, the smell appeared to be getting worse! I considered my next move, and decided it was time to alert my long-suffering husband, who, after working a 7 day week, was tucked up in bed sound asleep and none the wiser to my impromptu chemistry jamboree in the loo. So in I went and shook him awake. After explaining to him that, no, I wasn't in labour, I told him what had happened in the bathroom and he assured me everything would be fine, and that the smell would go away. I doubted that assessment for several reasons; firstly he was very very sleepy and I'm not sure if he actually realised what I was talking about, secondly he hadn't actually been in the bathroom so didn't know how bad it was, and thirdly I suspected that he was telling me what I wanted to hear so that I'd go away and let him sleep. I contemplated calling the fire brigade, not that I was sure if they could actually do anything, but for some reason the thought popped into my head. I thought it might be wise, however, to go in and re-assess the situation before I got the emergency services involved.
Now in the absence of a respirator or some other similar piece of equipment, I figured that the best thing I could do was soak a facecloth, fold it over and hold it over my mouth and nose. Once more into the breech I went, with my trusty wet facecloth. I opened the lid and peered into the commode only to see that there was still quite a bit of Harpic and Parazone (henceforth to be known as Harpazone) clinging to the sides of the bowl. I could only assume that this was due to their thick, limescale removing, germ killing formulation, which they're always going on about in the adverts. There was only one thing for it, I would have to scrub it off with the toilet brush. I must admit that the prospect of this frightened me, because I'd clearly created some sort of toxic chemical here, and although it hadn't damaged the porcelain, it was quite obviously caustic (the foaming and fumes had clued me into this) and our toilet brush is plastic. I wasn't too sure how the toilet brush was going to react when it came into contact with the mixture, and I was fairly sure that burning plastic fumes would do little to alleviate the situation. After offering up a little prayer to the gods of sanitary ware, I plunged the toilet brush into the bowl and got scrubbing. Luckily, the mixture seemed to have been sufficiently diluted so as not to start melting the brush, and soon enough the sides were clear. I gave it one more flush for luck, and ran back outside, turning the extractor fan on as I went.
At this stage, thankfully, the worst was over, however it was about 6am before the bathroom was fit for human habitation again. In the intervening time, I had opened every window in the apartment, and was sitting out on the balcony calmly awaiting death, who I figured would be along sooner or later because I'd inhaled some of the toxic fumes. It was actually quite nice sitting on my balcony and watching the sun come up, drinking a cup of tea and reading a book. Luckily, death seemed to have gotten enough amusement from my plight to feel pity for me and spare me for another day. One of the worst parts about the whole thing was that there were four solid hours where I couldn't use the loo, and being nearly 9 months pregnant, this was a serious issue. At least I got through it, although my lungs and kidneys still aren't the better for it.
Interestingly enough, I was chatting to my friend this morning, and he was able to tell me what it was I'd created in my toilet - Chlorine Gas!!! Apparently it's been used as a chemical weapon and can be lethal! I think my toilet cleaning days are well and truly over, it seems that I can't be left alone to do the most menial of household tasks without creating a potentially deadly hazard. On the plus side though, the jax is absolutely immaculate, I haven't seen it this clean ever, like you could comfortably eat a meal out of it. I think on reflection though, I'd sooner have the loo slightly less pristine and still retain a set of fully functioning lungs.
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