KILLED by dirty dishes?!?

This is fiction, right? Please?

you should go to the hardware store and buy some of those dust masks, just to be safe...

there are defenitly types of mould and fungus that are very dangerous to inhale.
also, i seriously doubt dishwashing soap and hot water are going to help here, i think you might need to be thinking in the direction of flamethowers and containment teams as well as buying new dishes.

don't be one of those sad snopes stories that are marked "confirmed."

[Edited on Jan 18, 2005 by Snottlebocket]

Although this sounds downright scary, I don't think you are likely to die. I had a similar experience not too long ago (I inhaled all sorts of mold/dust/crap while cleaning out my basement), but nothing happened to me.

After reading everyone else's comments, though, I agree that a dust mask might not be a bad idea.

[Edited on Jan 18, 2005 by radiofrank]

probably not, if it were true, I would be dead by now.


when I first gained my independance, I would load all my dirty dishes into the back of my truck and just go through the car wash a couple times, that way you can kill two birds with one stone......clean ride, clean dishes......SCORE!!!!

Thats gross

A girl sent me some nudes of her on her bed. I showed my roomie and he was like , "Damn! She's hot! but.. hold on a sec'... look at those stack of dirty dishes and plates in the background!"

You're toast.



But seriously, we had a similar question regarding our disgusting shower when Ring was over at our place for a party, and he said that the potential for deadly mold to arise in a household situation is very very low. He handles this kind of thing for a living, so he oughta know - you might want to drop him a line.

lol so that's what you did on you so called sick day? poor you. Just throw them out and buy new dishes.

Certain types of mold/spores can be toxic to humans, but there's no way to know for sure without at least seeing them, if not running lab tests, etc.

Bleach kills mold, so if you don't want to throw out the dishes, use a bleach solution to clean and disinfect them before washing them normally. Soak them, don't use water pressure, and gently rinse off any other soap/detergent so there is no reaction with the bleach.

Need I say that leaving dirty dishes in the sink for three months is a really, really bad idea? They attract roaches and mice at the very least, and stink, etc etc.

dump bleach on it

this is why paper plates rule

That's probably what I would do.

Wow. I mean, just, wow. Holy fuck. I suddenly don't feel like such a slob anymore.
What have you been eating off of for the last three months?

[Edited on Jan 18, 2005 by KilgoreATrout]

http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/landuse/vol19_2/persad.pdf

Go somewhere cheap like Target and buy new dishes. But, I don't think you will die. And, don't put toxic chemicals on anything you plan to eat out of. That's just bad advice.

I'm going to remember this thread the next time we're having company over and kitschy is freaking out that we haven't vacuumed in the last few days.

[Edited on Jan 18, 2005 by Idjiit]

I don't know about dishes but I know you can get horrible lung infections by smoking moldy weed. Not from experience, of course.

But that would indicate to me that you should at least take it seriously enough to try not to breathe it in.

i'm with delusion. go buy new ones.

but not before donning a tyvek suit and dust mask to get rid of the nasty ones.

and please let me know the next time yr dishes pile up. i'm more than happy to wash them, by hand. it helps my nervous energy.

If you're talking about bleach, it's not bad advice. Bleach isn't very toxic compared to the number of germs it can kill, and it can be ingested in small amounts with no harm. In tsunami-hit areas they're giving people bleach to stir into their water before they drink it. A little bleach is much better than live pathogens.

Besides, if you rinse them off afterwords, you're fine.

I had almost an identical thing happen the last few weeks of college, I was really busy, and normally ate in my room, and I had a little shelf outside that when I was finished (of half-finished in a lot of cases) my food, Id just dump the dishes there for 'later removal' fast forward to like a month and a half later, when I tried to clean them, they didn't stink at all until I moved or poked open the crust of dried mold, but I'm fine now, at the moment though, I held my breath while cleaning and when I inhaled, I think I ran to the bathroom to vomit from the putresence. Good luck

use some bleach

Call in sick to work tomorrow