Cleaning up pepper spray

[Andrew Rothman]

I had a 4-oz can of pepper spray, in a Rip-Off belt pouch, in a lidded compartment in the center console of my car, along with a lot of other "stuff" -- napkins, plastic cel phone belt clip, box of Cor-Bon ammo, etc.

I was putting something else in and kind of shoved everything to the back.

When I stopped the car 15 minutes later, I smelled a solvent smell (smelled like Freon, as a matter of fact). I thought my air conditioner was dying.

I came back to the car later that day, and smelled the solvent smell even stronger.

Well, I eventually looked in the compartment, and found...

• napkins and stuff stuck to the plastic
• the cel phone clip, half melted away (!)
• The Cor-Bons, which had been nested in a styrofoam block, now in a big solid glob with sticky white goo holding them together
• a burst (used) lithium 123 battery (from my SureFire)

Strangely, what I didn't experience was a strong pepper smell. Once I figured what happened, I licked my finger and tasted the inside wall. There was an itty bitty taste of spicy, but not much.

I suspect that the can was inverted, so that the "straw" was sucking from the bottom of the can, while all of the pepper had settled to the top.

The strange thing is that the can of pepper spray has a recessed button. Something must have stuck in it just right.

Anyhow, that compartment has a foam bottom.

Howinheck do I get that clean? Or do I have to rip it out and start over?

(It's a 2000 Mercury Sable, so if anyone knows how they go together, I'd love to hear.)

Lessons:

• Keep that pepper spray in a hard case, or by itelf!
• Shake well before using!

 

[Omni04]

well i have no experience cleaning it, but what have you tried? I would suggest bleach and then maybe some armor-all to protect it.

Hope it doesn't destroy your car!

 

[brickeyee]

Try some liquid dish detergent first. Capsaicin is very soluble on oil and you need a detergent to try and remove it. Bleach is not very useful at suspending things in water, only chemically oxidizing them.

 

[Preacherman]

Lots and lots and lots of Febreze...

 

[Nickotym]

What I wonder is if the solvent melted the styrofoam or if the battery shorted and overheated causing the styromfoam and plastic to melt and the can of peppersrpay to vent out some of its contents?

 

[Ivy Mike]

styrofoam and gasoline or diesel can be mixed to make a napalm-like substance.

Be VERY careful cleaning it out. A degreaser might be in order.
If you have a service manual of some sort (Chilton, Haynes, etc) it should tell you how to remove the glovebox.

I'd take it out and clean it more thoroughly.

-edit- I should probably elaborate a bit.
the mention of the napalm-type substance was only to remind the guy with the goopy glove box to use caution when trying to clean up the mess. Having jellied OC spray on your body isn't going to be a pleasurable expierience.

 

[blacksuit]

I don't know how to clean it but I do have a question... why in the hell would you taste it?

 

[Joejojoba111]

Buy a box of dryer sheets and use them to wipe the compartment out, and leave a sheet in the compartment to absorb the odor. Since the sheets will lose their smell and need to be changed, keep a box of them in the car somewhere.

 

[PUMC_TomG]

I just used a paper towel this morning to clean up some "overspray" from some "lighthearted exposure training" at work.

Hopefully nobody rubs their eyes after working around the printer.

 

[Andrew Rothman]

I don't know how to clean it but I do have a question... why in the hell would you taste it?

I wasn't quite sure what had happened. The pepper taste confirmed that the OC can cut loose.

 

[Mongo the Mutterer]

Got a suggestion. Prestone makes an interior cleaner with a red brush on the lid.

I swear by the stuff.. Actually cleaned MELTED crayons from a plastic inside door pull.

I'm real anal about what I put on my vehicles ... Meguirs all the way, but this Prestone stuff works.

 

[Ivy Mike]

ooh, another thought...
pull the glove box from vehicle (if possible) and stick it in a large plastic bag.
Place bag into a freezer for a few hours.

Once its frozen, you may be able to just scrape the hardened mass into the trash.

 

[danny]

That stuff is corrosive! I had a spray can of it in my gunsafe which developed a leak and it took all the paint off of the shelf it was on and rusted the heck out of the metal. Fortunately none got on any guns.

 

[Archie]

Official Training says..

Water, Air and time are what removes Pepper Spray from people.

Supposedly, it's water soluable. Air will move it off, in time.

So I would use a disposable shop rag with plain old water on it. Then leave the glove box open and drive around with the windows open for a couple days.

You could loan the car to your mother-in-law, I suppose....

 

[hso]

You might try a plastic scraper to remove the bulk of the material. Follow that with a scotchbrite pad in a little Simple Green. If the solvent smell persists get a bottle of activated charcoal from the druggest or online and dump the whole thing in the console and close it up for a week. Vac out and hope.

 

[scout26]

Or your could just sell it and get a new one.......

 

[Andrew Rothman]

Water, Air and time are what removes Pepper Spray from people.

Supposedly, it's water soluable. Air will move it off, in time.

So I would use a disposable shop rag with plain old water on it. Then leave the glove box open and drive around with the windows open for a couple days.

You could loan the car to your mother-in-law, I suppose....

I actually like my mother-in-law. I know -- weird.

It's that center console between the front seats, not the glove box. And the foam bottom appears to be glued in.

I'm guessing it's gonna be some tearing, scraping and re-gluing.

The real bummer is that I changed an $18 box of Cor-Bon into about $2 worth of practice ammo. I'm pretty sure it'll work fine, but I'm not taking any chances.