Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Home Chemistry and parents/friends/other people - the dangers of stupidity

Home Chemistry and parents/friends/other people - the dangers of stupidity

Quantum - 22-2-2006 at 16:09

I was inspired to make this post because I caught my sister picking up my DMSO bottle - by the neck with only her fingertips! She was holding it like someone would hold a dead animal. I had just unwrapped the bottle and had it on the floor and was coming back from my garage to get it.

So how do you keep idiots from handling your chemicals and glassware? Normally you just warn them of the dangers when they don't know what they are doing but this does not always work if they refuse to listen...

innervision - 22-2-2006 at 21:56

I'd stick with telling them that whatever they do with your reagents/equipment; you'll do to them. Theoretically it should work like a charm... realistically though, I don't know. Give it a shot.

BromicAcid - 22-2-2006 at 22:01

DMSO with bare hands, your problem would have been solved if you had some DMSO still on the neck of the bottle. I mean, if you get that industrial grade DMSO on your hands you get the rankest taste in your mouth and things start to smell funny, that should be deterant enough for anyone, like putting cyanne pepper on a couch so a dog doesn't chew on it. Though rampid chemophobia could set in and lead to the loss of your lab or chemicals as people in your household begin to fear you more and more. It is afterall a thin line we walk.

The_Davster - 22-2-2006 at 22:13

People used to pick up my stuff and look at it, then I told the people who were prone to do that that I had made nitroglycerin.

It's been a long while since I worked with HEs, and they know that, but the idea that what they are picking up could be explosive is enough to keep them from messing with it.

sparkgap - 22-2-2006 at 22:28

I merely tell people that unless they wear gloves and a mask, they'd become very sick from handling my stuff.

...but then again, my folks are slightly more intelligent than the majority...

sparky (^_^)

Swany - 23-2-2006 at 06:35

Since it is winter, and subsequently the lab is well below zero in both farenheit and celcieus, this forces me to use the kitchen some for my projects, and you will find white powders drying on filter papers in various warm spots in the house as well. People basically leave my stuff alone.

To deter friends, I tell them everything is extremely explosive, usually showing them some organic peroxide or nitric acid ester on cement, and letting them hit it. I imagine they never knew that 1/10th of a gram could be so loud...

NERV - 23-2-2006 at 08:02

Normally my family is smart enough not to touch my lab I have made it extremely clear to them on many occasions that my things are fairly dangerous. Plus I keep all of my equipment and chemicals locked in my room with a heavy padlock so that there are no slip ups.

Although there was the one time that my mom through a bottle with around 80ml of bromine that I had stored in the freezer into the trash wile I was away :mad:

DeAdFX - 23-2-2006 at 20:54

I usually tell my parents what I am doing. Even if it is burning a small pyrotechnic mixture that I have done a trillion times. They were into science back in their days so they understand the dangers/excitement of chemistry

sorry about the double post I was going to start a new paragraph but had the submit button selected instead haha.

I personally think that using fear as a way to ward of people is boarderline k3wlish. These days people have no mind of their own and they repeat stuff ignorantly like fo shizzle my nizzle and that stupid white trash/chave/wigger/rap/britney spears crap.

[Edited on 24-2-2006 by DeAdFX]

chochu3 - 24-2-2006 at 12:14

I use to tell my family my chems were very dangerous, then when I got older and had a job I would say it my stuff don't touch unless you are going to buy me some more. My problem was they would always throw away my chemicals. One time I was away and they threw away 500 ml of sassafras oil and 5 liters of concentrated sulfuric acid. When I was younger I believe 11 or so my mother found a sealed tight jar full of mercury and opened it and it fell all over my floor. Luckly that was in the garage. Beside these incidents I never really had any trouble, besides my stuff getting thrown away.

one more thing, I had tried freezing 30 ml of sassafras oil for the safrole and shit it took me 6 months till it finally froze. After coming back home for the summer from Texas A&M I found that it was thrown away. Shit I was pissed and that will probably be the last time I have sassafras oil to since it is restricted to much now.

[Edited on 24-2-2006 by chochu3]

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MadHatter - 24-2-2006 at 21:01

Never had a problem with my parents over this. For my shithead brother and any other
person, I made it clear. Break my shit - I break your neck !

joeflsts - 25-2-2006 at 07:49

Quote:

Originally posted by MadHatter
Never had a problem with my parents over this. For my shithead brother and any other
person, I made it clear. Break my shit - I break your neck !

I was fortunate... Dad supported my interest until he died and Mom was a school teacher which gave me access to glassware and chemicals most kids could only dream about. When I think back I'm not sure if I was more interested in my reactions or hiding from Mom in the basement so I could smoke her cigerettes.

Joe

I am a fish - 5-3-2006 at 01:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Quantum
...I caught my sister picking up my DMSO bottle - by the neck with only her fingertips...

If only such stupidity was restricted to amateurs...

I know of someone who worked as a lab technician in a school. During a cleanout of its stockrooms, the school needed to dispose of some chemicals, including a large amount of mercury. To do this, they hired – presumably at great expense – a waste disposal "professional". Given UK health and safety regulations, this man probably spent most of his time satisfying the demands of health and safety bureaucrats. Despite this, he thought that the best way to move the bottle of mercury to his van was to pick it up by the neck. Now mercury is so heavy that lead floats on it, and needless to say, the bottle fell apart, spilling its contents throughout the van. He then proceeded to clean up the mercury, by using his bare hands to scoop it into another container.

IrC - 5-3-2006 at 03:44

The best way to go is to tell people everything is radioactive. Nobody touches it then, they don't even want to be in the room. Of course, it helps that just about everything I have IS radioactive and everyone knows it. I still get a laugh when someone was playing with a bottle of oil with a huge chunk of metal in it, and then freaked when they read the U-238 label on it. They put it carefully down and have never been back in the room! So maybe this wont work for others?

UniversalSolvent - 2-6-2006 at 16:36

Quote:

Originally posted by IrC
The best way to go is to tell people everything is radioactive. Nobody touches it then, they don't even want to be in the room. Of course, it helps that just about everything I have IS radioactive and everyone knows it. I still get a laugh when someone was playing with a bottle of oil with a huge chunk of metal in it, and then freaked when they read the U-238 label on it. They put it carefully down and have never been back in the room! So maybe this wont work for others?

Eh. If you have the money, buy a small chunk of U-238 or two strips of it from United Nuclear. That'll keep people away.

YT2095 - 28-6-2006 at 02:07

like NERV, I also keep all my Chems safely locked away in a cuboard, and the Lab itself is also lockable from both the inside or outside, being in here is by Invitation only, that includes my wife!
I don`t lock up my High Voltage aparatus, but when I leave all is discharged and left in a state of short circuit.
I have a 1 year old daughter, that will one day learn about these things too, I ensure that she will get to that age!

[Edited on 28-6-2006 by YT2095]

Jdurg - 28-6-2006 at 14:06

I have all my chemicals/elements kept inside a cabinet in my bedroom. I typically only keep small amounts around since I have no need for 100 grams of many things. (I do have a great deal of sodium metal, but that's because when I bought it a while back I was in the process of buying the dense heavy metals, so when I saw a few ounces for sale for only about 20 bucks I bought a few ounces. I forgot how NOT dense sodium is).

The particulary dangerous items (like the heavy alkali metals and the halogens) are sealed in glass ampoules. Sadly, financial troubles have forced me to still live at home at 25 years old and trying to find a place to live where I don't have to worry about my collection breaking any rules is tough. My parents have no interest in my collection so they never bother touching it. (Though my father was interested in seeing my uranium and thorium samples).

NitratedKittens - 15-4-2015 at 13:14

Twice, my mum has done this, first picking up a beaker that contained potassium hydroxide solution and narrowly escaping chemical burns , and then picking up a 2 liter bottle of 9% hydrogen peroxide

Texium - 15-4-2015 at 16:11

Luckily for me, I am an only child and my parents are smart and cautious, while also generally not chemophobic. They let me use the garage freely for chemistry, as long as "the chemicals stay away from the car." They take some interest in what I do, and enjoy it when I will occasionally do little demonstrations for them. I would definitely have to be much more careful about storing my chemicals and glassware if I had younger sibling(s) though. I keep my reagents in an unlocked cabinet in the garage, and glassware stored on open shelves in my bathroom and bedroom.

Magpie - 16-4-2015 at 08:29

Quote: Originally posted by zts16

I keep my reagents in an unlocked cabinet in the garage, and glassware stored on open shelves in my bathroom and bedroom.

Home Depot sells some nice cabinets (Do-Able) that I use for my reagents, glassware, and other equipment. If you have room in your garage they would work well. I have two that are closets taking very little floor space. Then I have one that is wall mounted and one with drawers placed right below it. They are all full now.

DutchChemistryBox - 16-4-2015 at 10:35

Quote: Originally posted by Swany

Since it is winter, and subsequently the lab is well below zero in both farenheit and celcieus, this forces me to use the kitchen some for my projects, and you will find white powders drying on filter papers in various warm spots in the house as well. People basically leave my stuff alone.

To deter friends, I tell them everything is extremely explosive, usually showing them some organic peroxide or nitric acid ester on cement, and letting them hit it. I imagine they never knew that 1/10th of a gram could be so loud...

Quote: Originally posted by NERV

Normally my family is smart enough not to touch my lab I have made it extremely clear to them on many occasions that my things are fairly dangerous. Plus I keep all of my equipment and chemicals locked in my room with a heavy padlock so that there are no slip ups.

Although there was the one time that my mom through a bottle with around 80ml of bromine that I had stored in the freezer into the trash wile I was away :mad:

Quote: Originally posted by Jdurg

I have all my chemicals/elements kept inside a cabinet in my bedroom. I typically only keep small amounts around since I have no need for 100 grams of many things. (I do have a great deal of sodium metal, but that's because when I bought it a while back I was in the process of buying the dense heavy metals, so when I saw a few ounces for sale for only about 20 bucks I bought a few ounces. I forgot how NOT dense sodium is).

The particulary dangerous items (like the heavy alkali metals and the halogens) are sealed in glass ampoules. Sadly, financial troubles have forced me to still live at home at 25 years old and trying to find a place to live where I don't have to worry about my collection breaking any rules is tough. My parents have no interest in my collection so they never bother touching it. (Though my father was interested in seeing my uranium and thorium samples).

Sorry if I ruin this thread. But you guys are talking about "the dangers of stupidity", and then you post things like this?

Maybe it is me, but in my eyes, this is far from responsible.

macckone - 16-4-2015 at 20:05

I am going to second keeping things locked up. I have a 7 year old who absolutely refuses to listen (genetic psychological issues not bad parenting) and a cat. Locked doors and storage containers are all that work.

szuko03 - 20-4-2015 at 10:23

It just seems like a lot of people on this site are and I hate to word it like this inexperienced and young. Because of the reasons DCB stated. Putting things in places where individuals, parents or anytone for that matter, can touch or endanger themselves is extremely unwise. Even just drying things around the house. And I know you can say that "its not that bad" whatever but I am literally buying a bolt down safe for a garage with a lock in it even though I'm almost 30 and only live with my 60+ old parents who fully understand my passion for chemistry. But my point is and its what I told my mother, if I dont take all of these "ridiculous" precautions no one else will. If I want to be the chemist I am I assume all responsibility for safety which means going above and beyond.

If you guys continue to take short cuts and assume everything will be ok, it wont be. And I am not trying to be insulting but I think everyone is guilty of not realizing the real dangers when they are young. Never do chemistry in your bed room, never store chemicals in your bed room or do chemistry without a fume hood and a well vented area NOT A RESIDENCE. Just ask anyone whose ever had a lead contamination or a runaway reaction that created Nitric Oxide or some other poisonous gas, it is not something you want to sleep with or expose your family to.

I would say do not start building a lab until you have informed your parents. Keep a log of all the chemicals in your locked area, and yes lock them up thats what professionals would do. And give all the information to the owners of the residence if its your parents do them the favor of telling them of what you are keeping in THEIR house. Just because they are kind enough to let you run the risks of doing chemistry doesnt mean you act like you own the house. I am surprised at some of the risks you guys take as far as keeping stuff out in the open.

Loptr - 20-4-2015 at 10:51

I imagine the younger ones are somewhat limited by the resources available to them. Also, when you are young, you to tend to be more optimistic. You don't necessarily think what would happen if what I am attempting to do doesn't go according to plan.

What happens if this catches fire and a family member isn't able to get out in time...

[Edited on 20-4-2015 by Loptr]

szuko03 - 20-4-2015 at 13:40

That is true I think we are all "invincible" when we are young its only when we get a little older and mature and out live our friends even though we are only 24 is about when you realize how fragile life is. Also there are many many fates worse then death and unfortunately those are more likely. I like to say its surprisingly hard to kill a human they live past getting shot in the face 10 times etc but an 18 year olds arm can be blasted off and they dont grow back.

My only point is someday you will learn, you just gotta hope its an easy thing to learn. Nitrated kittens I certainly hope you learned to not keep your stuff where your mom could accidentally blind herself. I dont know what I would do if my passion actually hurt a loved one I probably couldnt live with myself. It would create some huge identity crisis especially if it was a family member or my fiancee after all how can one call himself a chemist if he created a hazardous situation with his chemicals.

I know we are all young hindered by what we can get and a lack of true experience. I guess that is one of the bad things of the internet I had to wait until I could get a credit card before ordering we had one computer my parents kept me on a short leash it was hard putting gasoline in a can and lighting it on fire let alone ordering chemicals from the internet in strengths that my parents could hurt themselves. It is unfortunate that we can forgive childhood indiscretions as just that the universe however isnt forgiving.

macckone - 23-4-2015 at 08:15

One other piece of advise is to keep MSDS sheets and if someone starts trying to mess with something have them read the MSDS sheet. Cats won't read it but at least it gives them something to shred in another room if they accidentally get into the lab area.

aga - 23-4-2015 at 13:59

Being young is amazing. I dimly remember when i was.

Fact is that if you're living with your parents, you Must respect the fact that it is their home (nest) that they made as a place to safely raise You and your siblings (eggs).

Introducing unnecessary dangers, such as making TNT or HCN in your bedroom is seriously biting the hand that feeds you, and betrays a trust that your parents Assume exists.

All potentially dangerous chemicals should be beyond the reach of all but the most determined 12 year old with 8 hours to spare, which is plain common sense.

Dangerous chemicals should Never be present in a Home setting. Never Ever, in any amount.

For Americans there is a company called Arrow that make a cheap steel flat-pack Shed which is 3m x 2m.

Sounds small (it is) yet mine has a lab with a fume hood in one corner and a hell of a lot more besides.

Earn/beg/steal a couple of hundred bucks and buy one - you can Lock it too.

szuko03 - 24-4-2015 at 13:00

I just get worried because maybe its by luck but I never endangered my family but I also was in college when I started truly experimenting (I dont consider taking apart fireworks at 15 experimenting) so I knew kind of what to avoid.

I just dont want to see someone seriously mess up their life because they thought they were being "cool" the only cool thing is learning, if you are not learning something from doing it then its not worth it. If your synthesizing something be sure to try to find the electron movement and diagrams and stuff, thats the fun part its like a puzzle. If your making fireworks do some redox equations to show what your doing.

Part of it is worry and part of it is jealously. When I was 14-19 I had to do theory and "play pretend" by doing the equations and just imagining what it would be like to synthesize or have a home lab. I would have been amazing in my undergraduate classes if I did it, I aced the labs but I could only imagine how easy it would have been if I was lucky like some of you. I really just want to see someone come out better then me because of his access to this website that I did not have. Good luck to you all and use the knowledge for good. Chemistry is really the only discipline that comes with a choice, will you use it for good or evil.

Amos - 24-4-2015 at 16:36

I've got two younger siblings that are far ahead of their age in intelligence and maturity; my family shows a lot of respect for my lab equipment and they're very accommodating of it in general. Most of my family, especially my younger brother, are quite happy to watch some of the reactions I do or see the end products. The cat knows what's up, too.

Texium - 24-4-2015 at 16:57

It's true that I keep my chemicals unlocked. I have a complete MSDS binder stored in the same cabinet though, and I have all of the reagents stored in an orderly fashion with chemicals that would react stored far apart from each other. Everything's labeled with NFPA labels that also contain the most important safety and storage information for each reagent. As I said previously, my parents don't mess with my stuff, my pets don't go in the garage, and there's nobody else living at my house. Otherwise, I'd go to the trouble of locking it up.

100PercentChemistry - 26-3-2016 at 12:57

Since I couldn't find an extra pair of gloves my dad wanted me to work without them :/
I was using Sulfuric acid and another time Magnesium dioxide which stains. Luckily I found my gloves.

chemrox - 27-3-2016 at 12:49

Spring for some industrial space. Your supply sources will expand geometrically.

Cou - 27-3-2016 at 14:05

Quote: Originally posted by chemrox

Spring for some industrial space. Your supply sources will expand geometrically.

$3000 a week in the rural.

macckone - 27-3-2016 at 20:28

Cou, that rate isn't rural. That is suburban. In Albuquerque you can get industrial space for under $1 per sq ft. In a texas metro area it is higher. But get in the actual country and it drops to half that or less. I mean unless you need 6000 sq ft in a rural area.

JJay - 27-3-2016 at 20:46

I keep things locked up and don't show people what I am doing. Of course, this occasionally leads to people rudely bursting in expecting to find a meth lab when I'm just doing a boring titration or distillation.

Daffodile - 28-3-2016 at 06:48

My family isn't stupid, but they do a good job of acting like it. Here are some notable examples:

- My annoying little brother wanted to make some quick bucks, so he took some glass from my bench, wrapped it in his PE strip (gym clothes), and demanded a ransom the next day, or else he would break it. I said he'd need to buy a new PE strip after he returned my stuff. He was like "wat", confused, so we went to his secret locker to see the glass hostage. It was was distillation stuff, dirty from distilling Sulfuric Acid, and it had done a fair job of dissolving his PE strip. Needless to say, he basically begged me to take it back. NOTE: I knew what he had took because it was missing from my bench when I went down to clean up a few hours after the distillation.

- I had this Sodium Hydroxide solution sitting around, just before an experiment (The beaker was labelled 'A' or something). I went upstairs to get some paper towels or filter paper or whatever, and when I came down I saw my mom tasting it. I was like "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING" and she put it down really fast as if she was never even touching it. (NOTE: She has a PHD and stuff and she's survived all these lab explosions and labs going to hell/etc and she thinks that she's invincible.) She's like, "Oh, just looking around". A few hours later, she was like "My mouth and feet hurt really bad. Could any of your chemistry stuff have gotten into the house or something?". I was like nope. Where drops of the solution had spilled on her it was now angry red spots near her feet. I suggested that she doesn't drink unlabelled containers of chemicals, and I got grounded in an instant.

- For some reason my family is really scared of Alkali metals, I don't know why. I came home with these 2 vials of Lithium, probably10g total, and someone found them in my backpack. An hour later there were 4 policemen in the living room. Another time, I spent a few hours making sodium by electrolysis. I'm really bad at it, so I only had a small bead of the stuff. My brother saw me filling a bucket with water in the driveway, saw my sodium in a paper towel in my hand, and put the pieces together. He ran outside and yelled to neighbors (summertime, lots of people outside) that I had explosives and was going to be doing 'illegal'. Nobody was within 50 feet of me.

- So this will be my final example of witnessed stupidity. I'm in this AP chemistry class at school, its pretty great. So something weird I've noticed is that most of the other kids are really good at getting marks (like 96 - 98% usually) on the memory based tests, but they don't seem to handle open ended or more original questions as well. Anyway. We had our first lab coming up, and I didn't really think that their lack of in-the-moment thinking would affect anything. I'm glad no SM members were there to witness it.

It was really simple, it involved Dehydrating, rehydrating, and reacting Copper Sulfate with an Iron nail, and our group finished in 20ish minutes. However ~40min later, groups and people were still freaking out. It was sort of like that moment in a movie, when the hero kills the robot master, and all the robot minions are left helpless and retarded. Kids were frozen like old computers, or shaking and blinking like chemistry was a foreign language. In the wake of all this, test tubes were breaking and stuff was getting spilled, and SURPRISE, nothing was working (even though it was so simple). Anyway, it got done, but it took quite a bit of this.

Fast forward a week or so, and we received our lab reports back. Most kids had kept up their averages with 8 or 9/10s. I got a 4, since I didn't underline the title, or draw boxes around my graphs. Like 1 mark was taken off for every line missing. I really had no words, since most people in the class had copied off me. I feel like there's a moral to this one, but I missed it.

[Edited on 28-3-2016 by Daffodile]

arkoma - 28-3-2016 at 11:09

Quote: Originally posted by JJay

I keep things locked up and don't show people what I am doing. Of course, this occasionally leads to people rudely bursting in expecting to find a meth lab when I'm just doing a boring titration or distillation.

Had that happen. The Fire Chief, bless his heart, after two minutes looking around said, "Nothing to see here, ordinary household chemicals."

DraconicAcid - 28-3-2016 at 11:19

I remember waaay back when I was in junior high, we made barium sulphate in the school lab, as a demonstration of a precipitation. The teacher, knowing my love of chemistry, allowed me to keep it (there was probably about 10 or 20 milligrams- it was a very small scale). I had it in an open vial in my bedroom, and a friend who was visiting picked it up and turned it upside down to look at it. He did the same thing months later with a shotgun shell from which I had removed the pellets but not the powder.