June 5, 2016

It's no use crying over spilt milk!

Friday a week ago started out like any other Friday - off to the Supermarket to be there when the doors opened. I bought everything in super quick time, including three cartons of milk. As always, they were packed in the soft Esky bag to keep them cool while I went to another store, where I bought more groceries, again in really quick time. At this rate, I was going to have all the shopping done in just over an hour, and have a whole day to do lots of stitching! 


BUT when I arrived back at the car to put the next load in, to my horror there was something white all over the back of the car. My first thought was milk, but when I checked in the Esky, the three cartons were standing up nicely, so it couldn’t be them. I searched everything else – stain remover, dishwashing liquid, etc but none of them were leaking. So back to the milk in the Esky. I picked up one to inspect it and it was totally fine. Ditto for the next one. When I lifted the next one, it nearly hit the roof of the car because it was totally empty. There in the carton was a huge gaping hole! Obviously it had been damaged in going through the checkout. That was the moment  I realized my big long day was fast disappearing down the plug hole!


 I finished the shopping, drove home, unpacked everything, all dripping with milk, washed half a dozen ‘green’ bags and the towels used to mop up the mess and then hosed down the two eskies which couldn’t go in the washing machine.


Now it was time to tackle the Subaru. I spread some carpet cleaning powder over the carpet in the car, which was a disaster! A couple of little brown spots previously there, suddenly became hand-size dark brown stains. I am thinking the powder must have been out of date and certainly wasn’t working as it should! I let it dry a bit to see if it would do any better, and then tried to vacuum up as much as possible. By this time the carpet was looking shocking. Thankfully I had a can of carpet shampoo, so decided to give that a go. That worked a lot better and it all didn’t look too bad after a good vacuum.


Subaru’s have all sorts of nooks and crannies in the back with five or six lift-up areas for storage. I didn’t think milk would have seeped through the cracks, but gave them a bit of a wipe-over anyway. All in all, it wasn’t too bad and only took me about three hours to do everything.


Sunday we came to get in the car to go to Church … and oh, the smell!!!!!! A quick spray of room freshener so we could survive to get to Church, home again, a change of clothes and it was time to start again to find the source. This time I removed the crank-handle, spanners etc and was horrified to find milk everywhere underneath them. I checked the spare wheel well and it looked OK as much as I could see and feel. This time, I surely had removed it all.

Unfortunately, a quick check next day found an even worse smell. So hubby and I struggled together to get the spare wheel out, to make the discovery of about a cup of bad milk in there - another clean up session and this time I left all the windows and doors open to try to remove the odour.


 Six days after the spill and it is Thursday, the day hubby goes off to the University. I did a quick check of the car to see his favourite cushion was in place and thought I would put all the car windows up for him seeing they were still open, … but they wouldn’t work. Oops, a couple of days earlier, I had discovered that the internal car lights had been on for a few(??) hours because the car doors were all open. I mustn’t have discovered them quickly enough because the battery was now flat and wouldn’t start the car! Thankfully we have a camping fridge battery so we were able to use the jumper leads and got the car going.


Fast forward another four or five days into the next week, and it was time to give the house a good vacuum. We have two nice smelly things in the vacuum cleaner so that you get a pleasant citrussy perfume through the house. I can assure you that the odour that was coming out was neither citrussy nor pleasant. Closer inspection of the innards was required. 
 

You guessed it – inside was a wet bag with putrid milk – so much for thinking the car carpet was dry enough when I vacuumed it! That wet bag had leaked into the cleaner and milk had congealed on all the vanes, on the bits sticking out and the filter, with a little pool in the bottom. Thankfully it doesn’t seem to have affected any of the working parts. So another half an hour to clean up that mess.

And the story is still not finished. If we leave the car shut for a couple of days, we’re still nearly overcome with the smell!!!

So, next time someone says, “It's no use crying over spilt milk”, you know what to tell them!

Val 
PS    I hope you enjoy my photos which have absolutely nothing to do with spilt milk!!!

24 comments:

Barb said...

Oh Val how yukky! Life is just like that sometimes isn't it? Hope you get some soothing stitching done this week.

Dotty's Daughter said...

Oh , that happened to me years ago!!! In the end I got the bicarbonate carpet freshener , here in the uk is is called "shake and vac"( well 3 containers that is and poured it everywhere the milk had ventured , it absorbed any left over moisture and at least smelt a bit fresher . I kept doing this, hoovering it out every few days , replacing it and after about 10 days it was ok, you could use bicarbonate with a few drop of a essential oil of your preference if you prefer. Oh I always take a lidded cool box now to prevent ANY reoccurrences too. A nasty lesson learnt on my part. Hope you eventually got some beautiful sewing done.xx

Nanna Chel said...

Val, what a mess you have had to clean up. Spilt milk just seems to get into all the nooks and crannies. I hope you eventually get rid of the smell. Your photos are just lovely.

Anonymous said...

Hi Val oh dear ,what a disaster for you,i have had a similiar thing happen and it took ages for the smell to go i think my spill had gotten into the seat foam,so i know what you mean about the smell.
I enjoyed your pics,hope you have a lovely evening :)

sunny said...

Yuk! That smell will be with you for awhile. So sorry about your non-sewing day.

Little Penpen said...

OH MY GOODNESS! I would certainly cry!! What a mess, but I did enjoy your pic's. I love the little cupcakes!

Sandra said...

What a week you had.

Margie said...

Sorry about the spilled milk, I could almost smell it while reading. I have a question, is there a pattern for the cupcake pincushions? they are so cute and would make clever gifts.

Needled Mom said...

Oh dear....that iis horrible. There is little worse than spilled milk to clean up.

Aďka said...

Nádherná zástera, muffiny, všetko je krásne prepracované....
Very beautiful!!!
Aďka

Carolyn said...

Oh GOD!!!! Sorry but I am laughing.... It sounds like something I myself would do!

gracie said...

Oh my! How about taking the car to a dealership for a professional cleaning? I do hope that it will soon be okay.

grammajudyb said...

Oh my! that is a lesson learned for all of us. I guess a plastic cooler is a good idea for transporting milk or any liquid or cool stuff. Yuckky!

Not1knowsme said...

Val, I'm so sorry for the milk incident. Here are two tips given to me by a pro moving company friend of mine that I have had great success with myself.

If the area is still wet using ground coffee in containers - they move things with some odors that you wouldn't believe and they have to make sure that their trucks remain fresh and clean smelling.

I've done fabric swaps, and received some from swappers who smoke, oh my did it reek. I'm allergic to cigarette smoke so I'd take ground coffee, place it in an open container, put it and the fabric and place both in a plastic bag I could seal (hardly something you can do with your car) and sit it on a shelf for a few days. Open it up and the odor is gone, then you can if you like dump the coffee out and vacuum it up. This method has worked for me for more years than I care to confess.

If the area is dry, using charcoal grill briquets is something I've done myself when a skunk sprayed in our garage, thankfully not attached to the house. It has a high absorbency rate and they are relatively inexpensive. If you're worried they might stain an area lie them on newspaper, close the doors and windows and leave them a day or two. Tuck them under seats, every place you can as well as where the milk was. Wiping with pure lemon juice, which will kill the strong smells of garlic and onion, will also get the odor on its way to being ousted.

I wish you all the best. Thank you so much for the wonderful designs you're blessing us with. I'm enjoying them very much and love your color pathways.

Ila in Portland, ME USA

Carla Fiedler said...

Oh, Val! So sorry you went through that smelly experience! The photos of your beautiful work give witness to your positive attitude! Nice touch!

Anonymous said...

What a nightmare! It's amazing how much trouble one container of milk could cause. I don't know if I would have been as gracious as you have been.

Trudy said...

Val,

Sounds like it is time to pay someone to detail your car and get back to real work - quilting!!! :) I worked in a facility where that happened to one of the company cars and, oh my goodness, the smell was overwhelming. I feel your pain - thanks for the story and yes, I did laugh. Sorry.

Jocelyn is Canadian Needle Nana said...

Great ideas from Ila there...hope to remember them for the next time I have a similar situation. So sorry you had to go through that...cars are notorious for clinging onto smells and sour milk is just about the worst. All your little projects are sweet.

Sharon said...

Oh Val, you poor thing... We had the same thing happen to us quite a few years ago, a little variation on your story though - it was cream as well as milk at the beginning of a hot Melbourne summer... We drove with the windows down for quite a few months... I hope all is restored to normal in your life now... Take care x

Susan said...

How terrible! It sounds worse than the time my daughter threw up in the car, which was also smelly and terrible to clean!

Jenny said...

What a disaster. Spilt milk is so difficult to clean up in the car.

Unknown said...

I rather liked the creativity of your craft while reading, "no use crying over spilt milk." It was a good read Val.

Glenda said...

Hi Val I have done the very same thing, from the milk leaking out to the milk n the vacuum LOL. It was months before the car stopped smelling if windows were left up and it was hot!!! I did have a good laugh and also
did enjoy all the photos LOL. Cheers Glenda

Gina E. said...

Oh Val, it went from bad to worse! I agree with two of the other comments here, and would have taken the car to a professional car cleaner/detailer regardless of the cost! Your story reminds me of the time we were driving on outback NSW country roads one night and ran over a dead kangaroo. Stopped at the next servo and spent half an hour hosing underneath the car but the smell remained for months...ugh!