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+--- Thread: The Day my house went Cillit Bang! (/thread-3541.html)
The Day my house went Cillit Bang! - DrMonkey - Aug 1, 2006
I saw this in the mail today and thought I'd post it here!
Ronald Cox hoped cleaning up the glue he spilled on the kitchen floor would be a relatively simple job.
His local hardware store recommended Cillit Bang, the allpurpose cleaner which - according to the TV commercials - has almost miraculous powers.
But after 75- year- old Mr Cox applied it to his floor tiles, he found the product wasn't quite having the desired effect.
So to finish off the task, he used an eggcup full of petrol on the stains. This turned out to be a mistake.
For the cocktail of fluids gave off vapours which were then ignited by the pilot light in his living room boiler.
The ensuing explosion ripped through the semi-detached property, blowing out the front bay window, bringing down part of the kitchen ceiling and causing structural damage to an inside wall.
The offending cleaning product
Astonishingly, Mr Cox, still in the kitchen, was unhurt by the explosion. Indeed, because he is partially deaf, he wasn't even aware of the magnitude of the blast until neighbour Dave Micheson rushed around and extinguished a fire it had started in the living room.
Mr Micheson said: 'We just heard an almighty bang.'
He found Mr Cox standing shocked but unhurt in the kitchen.
'I just ran into the house and put out the fire and made sure everything was safe,' said Mr Micheson. 'I couldn't believe it when he was just standhe
ing there, especially when I saw the window.' He described Mr Cox's condition as 'shocked, very shocked'.
He called the fire brigade and officers were swiftly on the scene to check that the house was safe. Mr Cox, who suffers from angina, was given oxygen at the scene before being taken to hospital as a precaution.
Following Friday's drama he has now returned home to survey the damage to the property in Scunthorpe, which has lived in since the 1930s and coowns with his brother.
'I am pleased there was nobody in the living room,' the pensioner said yesterday. Vowing never to use fuel again as a cleaner, he added: 'I only had a cup full of petrol.'
Mr Micheson added: 'Ron was very, very lucky.' He said he and other neighbours are helping him take measurements for a new window.
Humberside fire and rescue group manager Stuart Spence said: 'The explosion has totally devastated his house - he is a very lucky man to survive this. The advice is very simple - the place for petrol is outside in motor vehicles.
'There are many products available which can do the jobs perfectly - nobody should ever try to use petrol as a cleaner.'
It was Mr Cox's second narrow escape during his lifetime. In 1974, he was caught up in the notorious Flixborough disaster.
He was working as a bus driver close to the scene of the chemical plant explosion, which killed 28 workers. His bus was flung across the road by the blast but he escaped without serious injury.
Source
RE: The Day my house went Cillit Bang! - Scotland - Aug 1, 2006
lol Cilit Bang went CILIT BANG
RE: The Day my house went Cillit Bang! - Nuclear Fish - Aug 1, 2006
Cillit Bang and the dirt is gone!
Sorry, couldn't resist...