this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2024
81 points (93.5% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35309 readers
849 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Let's say I hypothetically had some mice pee in some plastic components that cannot be properly cleaned in any realistic way. Is it possible to heat it up to "cook off" the mouse pee nastiness without actually melting the plastic?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Since you mention this is a vehicle, I think the ozone generator approach is probably easiest.

I've had vehicles with similar issues, and open windows + time really did it. An ozone generator is the faster version of what I've done.

Just don't let it go crazy, as ozone attacks pretty much most materials in a car. So maybe throw a generator in it, let it run for a couple hours (put a small fan in the car to really circulate it up under the dash), then air out the car well.

The idea is the urine is probably more reactive to the ozone than anything else, so get it reacting. Then stop and clear the air before it has too much time/concentration to start on the plastics.

If urine is in the carpet, use the enzyme with an upholstery cleaner (similar to a carpet cleaner) - then you'll be pulling the nasty out with vacuum.

Enzymatic cleaner is amazingly effective. Used it in a camper that had mouse nests everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

So I had a similar issue in the past that I used an ozone generator for... all of my upholstery just unglued itself. So this is one of the solutions that has been suggested among "just torch the thing and collect the hefty insurance on" that I am trying not to do lol... but enzymatics have been suggested elsewhere and apparently have come a long way. That's definitely my next try.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

ozone is an oxidizing agent. it destroys smells by oxidizing the proteins and such that create the smell.

Unfortunately, this also means that any plastics or adhesives used will generally be broken down too. (the degradation in plastic is similar in effect to UV exposure, where the adhesives just... as you mentioned... becomes 'unglued')

Enzymatic cleansers will likely be a better solution. Though, I've used ozone generators to remove some truly.... unique... smells; when I was working for a college cleaning dormitories. but it really is a nuclear option.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Have a recommendation for a good enzymatic?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Go to a pet store, get the stuff for pet urine. I used one on a badly mouse-pee impregnated camper. (I mean BAD, had to rip out some of the interior). The cleaner worked on everything else, including wood that had absorbed years of mouse pee.

If you use the ozone generator, maybe do it in small doses, just under the dash. Today's plastics don't age from oxygen exposure like 1970s cars did, so it'll probably hold up a lot better.

I remember 2 year old cars in the 70s with degrading plastics (cracked, out gassing coating the interior glass, etc.). Cars since the 90s have much improved plastics.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Are all the enzymatic basically the same then?

Anyone have an idea of how to aerosolize the enzyme into the ventilation? I have a small air compressor, can I make a contraption with that?