Something sticky has invaded my life - eviltoast

It started about a week ago. I noticed a sticky feeling on my hands so I washed them (as I do regularly). Unfortunately it wasn’t long before the feeling came back. I’ve started noticing it on everything I frequently touch - mouse/keyboard, Xbox controller, phone, on and on. I tried household cleaner, rubbing alcohol, water/soap on these surfaces and it seems to help for a short while, but it comes back within hours. Just now I gave my phone a good wipe with soapy water and as soon as it dried it feels sticky again.

I’m not sure what else to try or how to get rid of it.

Possible culprits I can guess at: -pollen? the cars around here have been covered in greenish yellow powder which I have seen before, but never experienced this stickyness. I don’t use my car / touch the door handles very often.

-some sort of plastic or rubber is degrading, maybe my phone case? It’s an Otterbox that’s over 6 years old.

-a little weed container I bought around the same time this started, maybe the store had vape juice spilled on it? But I don’t touch it often enough to warrant the spread of this profound stickyness.

Any ideas are welcome. It’s driving me nuts.

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    104·
    2 months ago

    some sort of plastic or rubber is degrading, maybe my phone case?

    There’s this type of coating – I commented on it a while back, will link to my comment in a sec – that was put on a lot of consumer electronics that over time, breaks down to become sticky.

    kagis

    https://lemmy.world/comment/12199022

    TPE, thermoplastic elastomers. They (some?) break down over time into really sticky goo.

    I haven’t seen it in some years – was a real problem maybe, I dunno, ten years ago? If your thing is only six years old, I dunno if it’s that.

    But isopropyl alcohol and enough elbow grease will get it off, if it’s just a coating on plastic.

    I don’t see anything when searching for “sticky otterbox”, though, so I don’t know if that’s the factor, even if that’s what’s going on here. My experience that the source is pretty obvious, since it’s a “grippy” rubberized thing that becomes increasingly-sticky over time.

    • ElectroVagrant@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      2 months ago

      But isopropyl alcohol and enough elbow grease will get it off, if it’s just a coating on plastic.

      Do beware, however, that you may want to dilute the alcohol to some degree, or simply use a lower concentration form of it. Too strong and it may eat at the underlying plastic just as much as the coating and ruin it.

      unrelated

      are you getting a cut from kagi for writing that instead of search? gimme the deets on that deal if so! 😛

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        37·
        2 months ago

        Nah, I just used to write “googles” and when I switched search engines to Kagi, switched to “kagis”.

        In this particular case, Kagi runs a Threadiverse – what they term “Fediverse Forums” – search lens. AFAIK, haven’t checked recently, Google doesn’t yet offer that, so that search depended upon a Kagi feature. Kinda the analog to site:reddit.com with Google, but spanning the Threadiverse instances.