Something nasty in the attic

March 10, 2008 9:58 AM

SilentHillFilter - what would the previous owners of our house want with a large, half-empty bottle of chloroform?

Investigating our attic a few months back, my husband discovered a large (two litre), half-empty bottle of chloroform in a dusty corner. (He looked, but there weren't any dead bodies.) The bottle is fairly new and is labelled 'chloroform BP trichloromethane' and 'restricted to professional users'.

We know a doctor lived at the address before, so presumably it's his. But what would he want with an enormous bottle of chloroform? The only suggestions we have is "racy" parties. Any one got any better ideas?

posted by low_horrible_immoral to health (21 comments total)

Apart from its use as an inhaled anesthetic, it can be used for an amateurish kind of dry cleaning.
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:11 AM on March 10

I'd be curious to know if what's in the bottle actually is chloroform. It could have been emptied of its original contents and something completely innocent added. The problem is that I have no idea how you could test it without risking injury.
posted by cerebus19 at 10:18 AM on March 10

Ditto the use as a cleaner. It's an excellent solvent for greases and other oils. It's excellence is marred only by the fact that it's a possible carcinogen and causes skin burns.

Look in the Yellow Pages for Waste Disposal or call to see if your municipality has a hazardous waste drop off. You really don't want it around your house.
posted by bonehead at 10:21 AM on March 10

Did you check the contents? Which I don't actually recommend, but... It could just be a reused bottle. Maybe he used it in a halloween costume.

It would be a pretty weird, old-school choice, but it is an intoxicant that has been used recreationally.

It's an effective solvent for a variety of herbal extractions. That was the first thing I thought of, just because I saw it listed in some old Dr. Atomic comic about hash oil I read a real long time ago in college.

It can be used as a solvent "glue" for bonding acrylic plastics, according to Wikipedia.

I've known science types to make weird uses of things. Maybe he used it to degrease his home-machined model train parts. One of my chemistry profs told me about a colleague who strung a deionized water hose out the window so he could rinse his car after washing it and not bother drying it.

I'd dispose of it properly as toxic waste. I worked with chloroform as a student and it's nasty.
posted by nanojath at 10:22 AM on March 10 [1 favorite]

Wikipedia says chloroform is commonly used industrially as a solvent.
posted by burnmp3s at 10:22 AM on March 10

Since you found it in the attic, maybe they were using it to kill mice? (Fill tall bucket with sunflower seeds, arrange so mice jump in but can't climb out, drop in chloroform-soaked towel the next morning, cover).

It doesn't seem like the most efficient way to get rid of mice, but sometimes you just work with the tools you have on hand.
posted by mikepop at 10:23 AM on March 10

Butterfly collection?
posted by cowbellemoo at 10:23 AM on March 10

I used chloroform in high school once to extract caffeine from various beverages and then evaporated it to measure caffeine levels in stuff. So maybe he's using it to extract organics from solution. Or suits.
posted by GuyZero at 10:25 AM on March 10

The problem is that I have no idea how you could test it without risking injury.

Just give it a sniff. If it smells sweet (from vague memory long ago) then it's not water :-) You need a lot more than a sniff to risk injury, unless it's mislabeled and is actually something a lot more dangerous than chloroform. Like cyanide.

As to other reasons someone might want it, glue-sniffing? Some people really enjoy huffing that stuff.
posted by -harlequin- at 10:26 AM on March 10

Butterfly collection?

That's quite possible too. Grandma was a lepidoptrist; she used chlorofom in her kill jars.
posted by bonehead at 10:33 AM on March 10

You may not want to sniff that:

Phosgene can be generated from chloroform.

Phosgene can be generated from chloroform. Chloroform stabilized with alcohol should be purchased, and the chemical should be treated as time-sensitive. An industrial hygienist should be contacted before using a container of chloroform that is six months old or older.

Discussion of Activities:

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles were using a three-year-old bottle of chloroform. They noticed that the people working with the chloroform were becoming quite ill. Subsequent analysis showed concentrations of 15,000 ppm of phosgene in the head space of the bottle and a 1.1% concentration of phosgene in the bulk solution. Exposure to 20 ppm for 1-2 minutes can cause severe lung injury and 570 ppm for 1 minute can cause death. The chloroform was stored properly and was stabilized with amylene. (Note: Chloroform comes in three basic varieties: a) no stabilizer present, b) stabilized with amylene, and c) stabilized with an alcohol such as ethanol.)

A search of the literature has shown that the generation of phosgene from chloroform was a well-known phenomenon 50-100 years ago when chloroform was used as an anesthetic. Evidently, the generation of phosgene from chloroform has since been forgotten since there are no warnings on material safety data sheets for chloroform, including chloroform that has not been stabilized.
posted by Comrade_robot at 10:47 AM on March 10

It can be used to extract various compounds from various things. Stains, from fabric, for one example, but probably also essential oils. It can also be used to fuse acrylic.
posted by Good Brain at 10:50 AM on March 10

Seriously, don't stick your nose in there and sniff it.
posted by nanojath at 10:56 AM on March 10 [2 favorites]

Hmm, I did not know about phosgene generation from long periods of storage. Might want to ignore my contribution. It was based on less vintage chloroform.
posted by -harlequin- at 10:57 AM on March 10

To make it entirely clear, don't open the jar, if possible. It's a contact toxin, like all halocarbons, as well as an inhalation risk. It goes through skin and most glove materials like they aren't there (latex, for example has a pass-through time of less than a second for chloroform). The compound by itself is not super poisonous, but some things aren't worth messing with. Chloroform spills are particularly difficult and nasty to deal with.

Best just dispose of the sealed jar. Taping the lid would not be a bad idea.
posted by bonehead at 11:23 AM on March 10

I didn't suggest it because you didn't ask, but definitely get rid of the bottle. You should not just put it in the trash; take it somewhere that accepts hazardous waste, like your local hospital or university. Chloroform can be toxic in a lot of different ways.
posted by ikkyu2 at 11:54 AM on March 10

Ohh! I love this game!

Didn't they put it on boxing gloves back in the day... Maybe he was a gambling man? Or he caught his no good son lashin' it so he hid it up there and kicked him out because it was the last straw!
Yeah... it was probably for the mice.

Was it up high or down low? Did it seem tucked away safely or stashed? (Is it supposed to be kept away from light??)
Can you find out anything about him...?
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 12:34 PM on March 10

Not to sound snarky, but I had a friend who used chloroform in his kidnapping sex fantasies. His girlfriend was fine with it. Not that it's either smart or worth trying, but maybe the good doctor was into BDSM role-playing?
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 1:26 PM on March 10

my family used to use it to kill bugs.
posted by jannw at 3:14 PM on March 10

Since we're guessing...

I know that my great-grandfather used to put unwanted kittens to sleep with chloroform. Makes more sense in situations that involve owning barn cats.
posted by muddgirl at 5:47 PM on March 10

Great suggestions, thanks! Not quite as sinister as I'd hoped. ;-)

Don't worry, we are going to get rid of it - my putting that into action prompted me to ask this question while we still have the bottle. And I'm preggers, so I'm definitely not sniffing it. Hubby had a whiff a while back however and said it smelt 'right'.

Hard to flag the right answer because they all sound possible (maybe not the boxing gloves thing ;-)). The solvent thing definitely sounds the most viable!
posted by low_horrible_immoral at 3:51 AM on March 11