I fiddled with the toilet in my apartment. The setup has not been in good repair for some time.
I was not wearing gloves. My hands became smeared with not only the
grease of the wax ring but also a lot of decaying fecal matter from the same area.
Even though I scrubbed up well, I am very worried about illnesses I might have contracted from this exposure.
Note that I scraped my knuckle -- slightly but enough to draw some blood -- during this process, and also that the skin around my nails is quite ragged.
I have been the only person to use this toilet for the past two years. The wax ring, however, was already deteriorated and no doubt had been failing and allowing fecal and other matter to enter and fester long before I came along.
The material I encountered was greasy and moist. It only had a faint fecal odor, but it was plainly made up of more than only wax and mildew. It makes sense that any matter deposited in the toilet would have been able to seep into that space.
None of the instruction sites I had visited warned of such an infiltration, though one did have a photograph of some fungal growth on a wax ring.
I currently plan to contact the Department of Public Health in the morning. It will probably be difficult to get them to understand the state of the matter I encountered (neither exposed directly to air nor actually submerged in water) and other aspects of the nature of it, as they most likely will not be familiar with the anatomy of toilets.
I came to this forum by way of a thread that mentioned, "One scratch of the finger replacing a wax ring on a toilet could lead to hepatitis . . . ."
Please share with me any information, advice, and insight you have.
There's no need, though, to comment on my stupidity. I feel ridiculous enough already.
Thank you very much for your help.
I was not wearing gloves. My hands became smeared with not only the
grease of the wax ring but also a lot of decaying fecal matter from the same area.
Even though I scrubbed up well, I am very worried about illnesses I might have contracted from this exposure.
Note that I scraped my knuckle -- slightly but enough to draw some blood -- during this process, and also that the skin around my nails is quite ragged.
I have been the only person to use this toilet for the past two years. The wax ring, however, was already deteriorated and no doubt had been failing and allowing fecal and other matter to enter and fester long before I came along.
The material I encountered was greasy and moist. It only had a faint fecal odor, but it was plainly made up of more than only wax and mildew. It makes sense that any matter deposited in the toilet would have been able to seep into that space.
None of the instruction sites I had visited warned of such an infiltration, though one did have a photograph of some fungal growth on a wax ring.
I currently plan to contact the Department of Public Health in the morning. It will probably be difficult to get them to understand the state of the matter I encountered (neither exposed directly to air nor actually submerged in water) and other aspects of the nature of it, as they most likely will not be familiar with the anatomy of toilets.
I came to this forum by way of a thread that mentioned, "One scratch of the finger replacing a wax ring on a toilet could lead to hepatitis . . . ."
Please share with me any information, advice, and insight you have.
There's no need, though, to comment on my stupidity. I feel ridiculous enough already.
Thank you very much for your help.