<sf> wrote in message ...
> On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 12:25:27 GMT, "JoeSpareBedroom"
> > wrote:
>
>>"Peter Lampione" > wrote in message
y.net...
>>> Nancy2 wrote:
>>>> Peter Lampione wrote:
>>>>> A few months ago, while I was away on a trip, my mother-in-law, trying
>>>>> to be helpful, cleaned our grimy oven with oven cleaner. The problem
>>>>> is, our oven is a self-cleaning model.
>>>>> I have read that, if chemical oven cleaners are used in self-cleaning
>>>>> ovens, the ovens will be damaged if a self-cleaning cycle is started.
>>>>>
>>>>> What can I do? I have obviously tried to wipe the oven clean of the
>>>>> chemical stuff, but of course, some of it will have remained
>>>>> somewhere -
>>>>> it is a nasty powdery stuff. Can I still use the self-cleaning
>>>>> feature
>>>>> of the oven?
>>>>>
>>>>> This was a few months ago, as I said, and we have used the oven in the
>>>>> meantime without ill effects.
>>>>>
>>>>> I thank you for any advice!
>>>>>
>>>>> Peter
>>>>
>>>> Did you have the oven cleaner lying around (if so, why?), or did
>>>> helpful MIL go out and buy some?
>>>
>>> She brought her own as soon as she noticed how dirty the oven was!
>>> (well, it wasn't that dirty, but my criterion for ovens had generally
>>> been to just clean up the spills, and do the detail work no more than
>>> once a year - and the oven was 6 months old or so).
>>
>>
>>Is her name Marie, and is your husband's name Raymond??? 
>>
> My favorite set of "inlaws"! LOLOL She was trying to be nice. Let's
> give her a break.
I think old folks are not looked at closely enough sometimes for signs of
incompetence. When my son was maybe 3, my wife and I went out to a movie,
leaving son with mother in law. When we came home around 11-ish, the house
smelled like downwind from a chemical factory in New Jersey. While watching
TV with son, MIL had put a kettle on the stove to make tea, and forgotten
about it. She'd probably only put a tablespoon of water in it to begin with,
because "waste not want not", which she took to extremes. This was a
Farberware kettle with a bottom as thick as their cookware, but she somehow
managed to melt some of it, so there were globs of metal stuck to the
electric stove burner.
Of course, the inside of the kettle was a mess, too, so she got the bright
idea to pour in an inch of Pine Sol, and simmer it for a couple of hours.
The product's label says "Use with ventilation", not "Fill house with Pine
Sol steam and tell kids to breathe deeply". I rushed our son outside while
my wife opened windows. I called the hospital and my doctor. MIL tried to
tell me I was being overly cautious. Gee - ya think? When I headed toward
the outside trash can with the kettle, which had weird stains inside, she
tried to stop me, saying she would have no problem using the kettle. I took
it down in the basement, got out the drill, and made a bunch of holes in the
bottom. I figured the rest of the family would be served tea from this
polluted kettle at the next gathering at her house. No way.
My wife said "Just take her home". I said "No - you do it. If I do it, I'll
drop her in a neighborhood where even the cops don't go alone". I mean, the
old bat tried to kill my son.
Helpful? Bullshit.