Cleansing Hardware Of Dead Pig Odors? 693
Chagatai writes "My company is one of America's largest beef and pork producers. Recently I took a trip to see a new computer room that had been built at one of our abbatoirs. While the new environment is nice and sanitary, the old computer room had air intakes that were adjacent to the rendering portion of the plant, and everything smells in an almost unholy way. Management is curious if there are any cleaning agents or means of deodorizing this equipment before moving it into the nice, new office. The only products I could find would clean the outside of the hardware, but the internals would still possess the lovely aroma of boiled dead pig parts. Of course, this is a race against time, as I am sure someone will inevitably squirt Pine-Sol into the system to try to make things better. Does anyone have any recommendations to remove the effluvium of post-mortem porcine matter from our machines?"
Not pigs, but cigarettes (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the early 90s, my dad bought me My First Computer. It was an Macintosh IIcx which was a big, beige rectangle box. Had neat stuff like NuBus and about 12 SIMM slots. I lived in Europe at the time, and the computer was purchased from a graphic design house where *EVERYONE* chain-smoked at their desks. The machine had the most disgusting tar-like filth on *EVERYTHING* inside the chassis. The upstairs of my house reeked of cigarettes.
I literally chipped away tar, vacuumed it, put Bounce sheets over the power supply fan, to no avail. The machine still sits in my closet to this day, and having given it my best efforts over 10 years ago- it still smells of stale cigarettes.
Because of the small nooks and openings in your average computer, I honestly don't think you'll be able to do much about the smell. Unless there are some new commercial/industrial agents that can do the job, you might be SOL. Guess it's time for 3M to create a solvent version of Fluorinert [google.com].
Febreze!! (Score:5, Interesting)
It really works on dead things.
I got this tip from a ratcatcher called Sid, who cleaned out a dead raccoon from our crawl space. It worked.
I just used it to nullify the odour of a deer mouse that crawled into my truck's AC and helpfully died.
Go Febreze!
OdoBan (Score:2, Interesting)
I have a licensed animal shelter at my house, so I know more about strange smells than you can imagine.
Throw them away and meet your meat (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.meetyourmeat.com/
Ultrasonic Cleaning (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:ozone (Score:2, Interesting)
This is what is used to neutralize odors from fire recoverys.
We had a fire across the hall from us and if we actually owned anything worth a shit, they would have paid to have it set in an ozone room for a weekend. We had archive boxes of files put in there, and it worked fairly well, but the files still had some odor. I attribute that to the fact they were not removed and seperated to allow the ozone to reach all sides equally.
We didn't try the machines because they were soot damaged, but I'm sure it would at least cut the odor down if not eliminate it. You have to be careful though, from what I understand....too much ozone will make the plastic brittle.
Disaster Recovery (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:To suggest this is almost criminally stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not pigs, but cigarettes (Score:2, Interesting)
Not pigs, but cigarettes (Score:3, Interesting)
I tried:
Washing with soap
Washing with TSP (20 years ago it was the real stuff
Baking Soda in small containers on all shelves
Charcoal ( Charcoal Briquets broken into small chunks and scattered on the shelves
Then as I was bemoaning the fact that I would have to purchase a new freezer, a Salesperson in the local Montgomery Ward Store said "Newspaper", (She lost the sale but gained my everlasting adoration); it absorbs the odor. Wad it up, but not tightly, fill the freezer, and change it every few days.
Within a week to 10 days, the odor was gone. The stupid freezer is still in operation, probably keeping my electric bill higher than it needs to be.
But, it is odor free!
Newsprint may have changed in the past 20 years, but it worked once (for me).
Ozium is a commercial air freshner, odor killer. It has worked in cigarette/cigar smoke impregnated rooms with limited success for me recently (Real Estate Sales).
Good Luck!
Mythbusters (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever seen the TV show mythbusters [discovery.com]? It's like snopes [snopes.com] for TV. Anyway, they took the myth about the Corvette that smelled so bad that no one could clean it or sell it. They took two dead pigs and sealed them up in a Vette and sealed the whole thing up in a shipping container for a few weeks. Then tried to clean it.
They got a professional crew in, guys that clean out ambulances, crime scenes, etc. The car still reeked at the end of the show, and wound up getting sold for the engine & transmission.
You may be stuck with the stench. OK, random bad jokes : give them to PETA/ADL/vegan society. Give them to Cowboy Neal, no one will notice them over his stench.
Re:To suggest this is almost criminally stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Rubbing Alcohol and LCDs... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Discoloration (Score:1, Interesting)
2) there is some awesome window washing fluid that professional winshield installers use. You spray it on, and it foams up. This works well.
3) Bleach. Lots of bleach.
3b) low concentration of lye and water. Be very careful, and wear goggles, respirator, and a latex body condom.
Re:To suggest this is almost criminally stupid (Score:1, Interesting)
I agree that rubbing alcohol can save most cheap electronic components, especially if someone's wonderful significant other accidentally dropped your garage door opener in the washing machine, but on servers that's quite a different matter. Rubbing alcohol is almost a third water.
clean the power supplies and replace if necessary (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Mythbusters (Score:5, Interesting)
Just a clarification. The professionals gave them some tips and some training on how to clean a vehicle but the professionals weren't the ones cleaning the car. The boss of the professional cleaning company mostly seemed to stand fairly far back, say that he's smelled worse smells, and chuckle at the Mythbusters. The hosts of the show later said that the professional guy said that his crew would take a few days taking the thing apart and cleaning every crevice, then put it back together. I got the feeling that this would not be cheap to do.
Re:To suggest this is almost criminally stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
To save on the amount of alcohol you have to use, you can actually wash the machines with hot soapy water first, then rinse it off with regular water. Then pour the alcohol over it. The water does the job of cleaning. The purpose of the alcohol is to remove any remaining water so it can dry (by evaporation) quickly.
write it off as a loss (Score:2, Interesting)
Result: no amount of cleaning, commercial solvents, enzymes, etc., was able to remove the smell. They ended up selling the thing for scrap for around $1000. The new owner was going to pull the engine, tires, and various other components. All metal and plastic compents that had been exposed to the stench retained the smell.
I'd personally buy all new, transfer the data, wipe the drives, and find some way of disposing of the equipment; the smell isn't going to go away.
Ozone (Score:5, Interesting)
Things you can't clean by washing can be put in a tent with an ozone (O3) generator. Ozone is what you smell after a lightning storm: the clean rain smell. Concentrated, it smells sort of like bleach, but sharper.
It's both toxic and cleaning because (as I recall) Ozone happily oxidizes anything it contacts, preferring to be regular O2 + a free radical oxygen atom. The free Oxygen can bond with a molecule of stank and modify it to something less stanky, or it can, say, attach to a molecule in a cell wall and kill the cell.
It's like an efficiently burning fire in slow motion. I think oxidation is part of what makes your skin age; as you age, the damage created by environmental oxidation is repaired less and less by your body, until you just wither away. That's the idea behind taking certain vitamins that are supposed to block the damaging effects of free radicals in your body.
Of course, when you have something that stinks, you'd prefer it be destroyed by oxidation.
Unfortunately, plastics are among the hardest things to clean because they can absorb odors and its very hard to suck the stink back out. Stink isn't just something on the surface you can wipe off in most cases.
Spraying perfume just adds a new smell on top, which might not outlast the stink itself. I think Fabreze is a corn based chemical that works along the same principle as ozone. However, it leaves a residue on hard surfaces; it's designed for fabrics.
Sometimes when you have, say, a guy who dies alone in a house and his body fluids drain through the floor, or, in a moment of anguish, someone decides to end it all using a shotgun, you have a situation where you just need to throw things away.
Gnarly.
Ozone (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not pigs, but cigarettes (Score:3, Interesting)
Some random pieces will come out fschk'ed though
Re:One of America's largest beef and pork producer (Score:4, Interesting)
Since when is that the criterion for a post adding to the discussion? You must think Ask Slashdot is a free consulting service we are running here. The discussions are for the benefit of everyone who participates, not just the OP, and posts that don't contain solutions are still allowed.
Several months ago a PHB posted an Ask Slashdot article asking for someone to write a shell script for his company. He was promptly excoriated by hundreds of unemployed geeks for being a cheap bastard. (Although his Ask Slashdot article was a success because someone did post a three-line shell script that met his stated requirements.) I don't remember any demands for downmoderations on posts with no shell scripts in them, or suggestions that people "just say nothing at all then" if they didn't have a shell script to post.
If someone from a corporate pig farm asks how to get the pig stink off his computers, posts about corporate pig farms in general should be expected and are entirely on topic for the discussion. The OP opened the door, and there's a lot to say about them. They crush family owned farms which can't compete with the vast economies of scale- which can only be achieved legally thanks to extensive lobbying and political corruption. The farms enjoy exemptions to environmental laws that still apply to everybody else. They regularly cause environmental disasters every time there is a flood. The stench they generate destroys real estate prices for miles downwind. People have lost everything when these farms get built near their homes. And unlike nuclear plants, jails, waste incinerators, or sewage treatment plants, NIMBY is entirely justified here since corporate pig farms do not serve the public interest at all. We aren't allowed to talk about this?
Frankly, 600 posts about rubbing alcohol does not make a very interesting discussion.
Re:One word: Ebay-Pig in a blanket. (Score:3, Interesting)
Cleansing Hardware Of Dead Pig Odors (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Odor absorbtion (Score:3, Interesting)
They tested this on MythBusters (Score:2, Interesting)
dry cleaning (Score:1, Interesting)
Mmmmm. Bacon. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ozone! (Score:3, Interesting)
This subthread [slashdot.org] disagrees with you.
May I point you to... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's all I'm going to say. I've worked with all the solvents you've mentioned, in larger quantities than any human being should rightly come in contact with (chemicals plant) and I've got to tell you: They All Suck.
I lost a gf because I was so irritatable after being exposed to IPA (Iso Propyl Alcohol) that I simply couldn't stand to see her. I'd come home, she'd be on the couch, have dinner ready, wearing something provocative... and the only thing that would pop into my head was "God damnit she's here again".
CNS symptoms are nasty for solvent exposure to IPA. I can't even imagine what would have happend if, as you suggest, I had drunk it.
Once I got laid off from that job and no longer was exposed to the fumes, my personality came back to normal. The ex-gf and I are still friends, but she's still doesn't believe me entirely that it was the fumes (tho she's comin around now and then).
Stay away from that crap and remember: Even Alcohols good, Odd Alcohols Kill.
Re:Not pigs, but cigarettes (Score:3, Interesting)
For it's stepup power supply, it uses a 117L7GT vacuum tube. I've always gotten a kick out of using 1950's vacuum tube equipment to erase EPROMs.
But it's not the kind of thing you operate in a sealed room.
Drinking isopropanol not recommended (Score:3, Interesting)
Using it as a topical antiseptic relies on the principle that it's not enough to damage you significantly, but it's more than sufficient to kill any (non-viral) microbes it touches. Because you apply it directly as needed, the concentration at the site is going to be very high, while the amount that you intake systemically will be very low. You wouldn't particularly want to drink iodine, saturated salt water, or hydrogen peroxide, but applying one of those to a wound remains a viable way to clean up.
Mal-2
MOD PARENT *WAY* UP (Score:3, Interesting)
I didn't ask if they make sure the police know about the body/evidence before removing... tempting for a gag, but not something I want to try from a phone that's either tracable or in a public place these days. Of course, since they do specialize in cleanups for crime scenes such as for murders, you probably want to make sure that the server room geeks have showered before asking for "persistant odor abatement." =)
Again... yes, those folks are real, please don't bother them unless you have a job. They also sell T-Shirts with the "Crime Scene Cleaners" logo on them-- looks like a great gift for your favorite black hat.
Why bother? (Score:3, Interesting)
On a side note, who is the idiot who designed/signed off on the ventilation system for the old location? Possibly the one too cheap to replace the computers?
Re:Not pigs, but cigarettes (Score:2, Interesting)
Those should be replaced anyway since all the accumulated aerosolized pork would be interfering (clogging) any filtered pressure-balance mechanisms in the drives.
Cooling fans coated in grease tend to attract a lot of dust and will need some good manual cleaning (remove the dust, and the grease). Changing environmental conditions might also cause any accumulated fats to solidify...
Re:Not pigs, but cigarettes (Score:2, Interesting)
O3 isn't just nasty. It'll chew anything chewable on
the mobo and the cable insulation. Not to mention what it'll do to the oil lube in the fan bearings etc. etc.
Easier to just dump it down with the rats in the server room and ask for a new box isn't it?
Only Solution - Activated Charcoal (Score:4, Interesting)
The only solution is to get those organic molecules out of the materials and that is not going to be easy. Here are the things I would try:
1) Heat. This increases the diffusion rate of the offending molecules from the plastics. Make sure you vent the oven to get the organic vapor out or they will just re-absorb as the unit cools.
2) Activated Carbon. Activated carbon has a great affinity for organic molecules. You may want to put each PC in a cloth bag and bury it in activated carbon for a while. Test with one first to make sure the carbon fines don't short-circuit anyhting. Get activated carbon from a scientific supply.
3) Heat and Charcoal - probably the best solution would be a conmbination of the two above solutions. I would put each PC in a cloth bag and bury the bag in a bed of activated charcoal. Bake everything on low heat for several hours (120 - 150 F). Use just a warm oven because high heat reduces the effectiveness of the activated charcoal. You can re-charge activated charcoal between uses by heating it at 350-400 F in the oven to drive the organics out of it. That will stink.