OIL DELIVERY OVERFILLED MY TANK

A lawyer.

tomato juice works on skunk spray, so... ?

TOMATO JUICE does not WORK ON SKUNK SPRAY. hAVE YOU EVER HAD SKUNK SPRAY YOUR DOG? tHE ONLY THING THAT WORKS IS TO SEND THE DOG AWAY FOR A VACATION FOR ABOUT 4 WEEKS, THEN TAKE HIM TO A CAR WASH.

yes, actually.
can't recall if we used the juice or not, or if it was at all effective...

I dont know where that old wives tale came from. There are some enzymatic sprays that work a little better than tomato juice . Overall, TIME is the best detergent.

Now, what about my smelly house? Im afraid to burn candles and Im getting sick of this lemont **** that Mrs F is spraying around.

Maybe I should move out and take Spendis advice.

degreaser.

break down the oils and mop up with soapy water.

gonna be hard to get rid of the smell over the winter though.

You can hire Ozone machines that will reduce most odor problems.

I've heard of em being used to reduce odour from house fires.

Yikes! I'd be afraid to burn candles or anything else. Scary.

Pet stores sell all kinds of products that are supposed to cancel out odors. I think I would look there first.

I'd call the oil company, and I might call the insurance company for suggestions, too.

thanks to CITGO, farmerman solved his chestnut roasting dilemma

The scent sprays are worse than useless. They might mask the smell but it's still there and you are breathing it. That's bad.

I had a cat ( a grown kitten) fell in a heating oil tank. We washed it and washed it but it just went downhill. The vet shaved it. He said it would have died.

It looked like a big rat.

Call your insurance company or the oil company and let them deal with it. There are lots of highly effective solutions out there the general public doesn't have access to. Or call a Restoration Company, you know, the ones that go in and mop up after floods.

Farmerman - this exact same thing happened to us -only worse- because we didn't even have an oil tank. We'd bought our house from the people who owned the gas company in town and they'd converted the heat in the house (it was a hundred year old New England farmhouse) from oil to gas - removed the tank in the basement and capped the outside fill pipes.

Well, we lived there for 9 year - redid the whole thing - I mean rebuilt the chimney stripped the woodwork down to the original wood - built a side porch - I'd landscaped the whole thing - it was my dream house.

I came home from work one night and walked in the kitchen and smelt this horrible smell. I called the furnace guy who was a friend of mine - he came over and went down into the basement and said, 'Rebecca - someone's dumped a load of oil in your cellar' - and I mean he was wading through oil up to his ankles - the oil company had been supposed to deliver 500 gallons next door - and the guy came to our house - used a tool to pry off the cap to the pipe and pumped 500 gallons of oil into our basement.

We never spent another night in the house. I have chemical allergies - I can't wear perfumes, I can't go in tire stores or those cheap shoe stores without getting a headache and my son has eczema and asthma. We were both in agony after a half an hour -our lips were swelling and tingling...our eyes were tearing- it was unbearable.

And sad - because I loved that house - but I couldn't risk my childrens' health so we moved into a rented house and the oil company who made and admitted the mistake bought the house at market value and sold it.

The sale process took about six months - and despite their incredibly complicated industrial clean up and their installation of these huge fans to try to air the place out - it never really got better. I'd visit the house and walk in hoping against hope that something had worked so that we could move back in, but the scent was in the carpets - it had saturated our furniture -mattresses-etc. And everytime I spent twenty minutes in the house - I got a headache - my eyes started tearing again...etc.

If you or your children don't have allergies - maybe it'll be okay- because it sounds like a much smaller spill than happened at our house - but I wouldn't know how to tell you to try to get the smell out because we were told that there really wasn't an efficient way - except time...too bad it's winter and you can't really leave the windows open to air it all out.
Good luck

I bitched because I had a sore on my foot. Then I met a man with no feet. Damn Aidan, thats terrible.
My spill is just one of those where about 5 gallons made it onto the back of the tank and onto the floor. We are dealing with it and the next step is some surfactant to mop up the residues. The oil company is involved and has sent some techs over to help out.
Fortunately noone has allergies and weve pretty much been acclimated to it. Shaving my cat will be last resort. Im learning to like the Orange Smell from these Citrus detergents

Yeah - be careful with the cat - i...not to scare you, but the other part of this was that my beautiful german shepherd was in the house all day with the oil while I was at work and my kids were at school.

While we stayed in a hotel the first few nights until we could find a furnished house to rent, she went to a kennel. Two days later - the guy called and said that she couldn't get up on her back legs- he called the vet who called me and said that she was by now paralyzed from the neck down and had to be put down.

I didn't get an autopsy - but the vet said simply it was some sort of 'neurological incident'. I don't know if inhaling those toxins all day triggered the incident of it was just coincidence - but I'll always wonder.

I'm glad it's worked out for you- you don't really realize how much a home means until you're displaced. I'm glad you won't have to be - especially at Christmas- that'd suck bigtime. Happy for you guys that won't be the case.

*edited to say - did you have the cat or was that spendius? If you don't have a cat - disregard this post

After the techs are finished, fry up a few pounds of bacon, put a turkey in the oven, sautee garlic and onions, microwave a few boxes of popcorn.

or make a curry, when i make curried shrimp the smell lasts for days

There is a little trick I used when I drove OTR as a truck driver.

IF your basement can be closed, and kept closed for a few days, there is a real easy method to use, its one truck drivers use to eliminate odors from their trailers.

Go buy a 5 pound can of coffee, the cheap stuff.
Sprinkle it around your entire basement and close the basement doors.
Leave them closed foar a day or two, then open them.
Get a broom and sweep up the coffee.

Your basement will smell like coffee, but that smell will dissipate rapidly when you open the basement doors.

Well, you could also spray white vinegar in your basement.

Do this two or three days.

Leave a saucer with a sponge imbibed with white vinegar.

The odor will subside quickly..

we are having the area sopped up with kitty litter and speedi dry. Then Im gonna do the coffee grounds thing. I bought a big can of some warehouse brand of coffee