Miami-Dade OnLine.com
Volume 1: HOME AND GARDEN SECTION
*WARNINGS! We cannot confirm every warning message we receive.  For the safety of the community, we pass along the following with our own warning, that we cannot verify the accuracy of the information.

*ABDUCTIONS (E-Mail forwarded message) : There are several new scams to abduct women. In one, a man comes up to a woman in a Mall or Shopping Center and asks if  she likes Pizza. When she says she does, he offers her $100.00 to shoot a commercial for Pizza, but they need to go outside where the lighting is better. When the woman goes out of the mall she is abducted and assaulted.  

Another ploy is a very nicely dressed man asks a woman if she would be in a Public Service Announcement to discourage drug use. The man explains that they don't want professional actors or celebrities they want the average mother to do this. Once she leaves the mall she is a victim.

The third ploy, and the most successful, a very frantic man comes running in and asks a woman to please help him, his baby is not breathing. She runs out of the mall following him and also becomes a victim.

These have been happening in well lit parking areas, in daylight as well as night time, all over the country. The abductor usually uses a van to abduct the woman. The third one, I think, is the scariest. You might resist, pizza or becoming a commercial celebrity...but who would be able to resist a frantic father asking for help for his child?

*PET DANGER: We cannot confirm every warning message we receive.  For the safety of the community, we pass along the following with our own warning, that we cannot verify the accuracy of the information.

Pet killing sponges with AGENT ORANGE  (E-Mail forwarded message) : Those yellow sponges with the green plastic fibers on the back for scrubbing pots-"Pot Scrubbers"-should be kept far away from our birds, fish, reptiles, cats and dogs, hamsters and whatever.  Proctor & Gamble, in its continuing search to make America look clean and smell great, has a new "improved" version of the sponge on the market that kills odor causing fungi that get in the sponge after a few uses. They make a big deal out of this innovation on the outside packaging.

A friend of mine used one of these sponges to clean the glass on a 200 gallon aquarium. The abrasive backs are good for removing algae and smut that collect on the inside of the tank. He refilled the tank and after the water had time to condition and rid itself of chlorine, he reintroduced his tropical fish collection of some 30 fish. Within five hours of putting the fish back in the tank, they were all dead! Some began to die after only 30 minutes. He removed the survivors to another tank but they all died. Retracing his steps to clean the tank, the only thing that was different was using that new kind of sponge-he'd used the regular old pot Scrubbers for years. Lo and behold I discovered on the back of the packaging in about the finest print you could put on plastic a description of the fungicide in the sponge and the warning in tiny bold-face letters, "not for use in aquariums. keep away from other pets."  

Thanks for the warning Proctor & Gamble. It seems the fungicide  is a derivative of the systemic pesticide-herbicide, 2-4-D, more  popularly known as Agent Orange, the chemical we sprayed all over Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War that many veterans and war refugees say did them permanent  damage to   their lungs and nervous systems. The package warning goes on to say they fungicide cannot be washed from the sponge even if it is placed in the dishwasher (in which  case agent Orange is now all over your dishes and drinking glasses). And, if you think its there to kill disease causing bacteria like Salmonella from contaminated chicken flesh, think again-it's not an effective enough bactericide to kill those kind of bugs. I called P&G to register a complaint and told them I'd never use  their products again because I couldn't trust what they were putting in them. By popular demand anti-bacterial, anti-viral disinfectant liquid soaps and hand cleaners are flooding the market. Don't buy that poison and warn your friends as well.