Use of drain cleaner fills Monroe County justice building with rotten-egg odor; workers report vomiting, nausea
At least two Monroe County employees vomited and others reported nausea, headaches and watery eyes Tuesday after jail maintenance workers used an unfamiliar drain cleaner, filling the Justice Center with a rotten-egg odor. Some went outside for air or left work.
Left: Windows normally kept closed at the justice building are cracked open to ventilate the building. Middle: One justice building employee picked up some scented soap when they were a Bloomingfoods (frankincense and myrrh from Zum Bar), so they could sniff on it as a way of getting relief from the rotten-egg smell. Right: The door to the sheriff's office facing 7th Street is normally kept closed, but is open to help ventilate the building. (Dave Askins, Aug. 4, 2026)
Several Monroe County employees headed outside the Charlotte T. Zietlow Justice Center late Tuesday morning (Aug. 4) to escape an overpowering rotten-egg odor. The smell spread through the building after jail maintenance workers used an unfamiliar drain cleaner.
Employees said at least two workers vomited. Others reported nausea, headaches and watery eyes. Several sheriff’s office employees were sitting outside for fresh air, while workers inside opened windows that are normally closed.
“I couldn’t keep my lunch down,” one employee said.
Chief deputy sheriff Phil Parker identified the source in a 12:47 p.m. email to the county commissioners that included an apology.
Because of the age and condition of the jail’s plumbing, drain lines frequently become clogged, Parker wrote. Maintenance workers had run out of the product they ordinarily use and substituted a liquid cleaner they do not typically use.
“This cleaner obviously has had unanticipated effects and resulted in the strong odor that is permeating the Justice Center,” Parker wrote. “I understand this odor has become overwhelming in some areas of the building.”
Parker apologized for the “disruption and major imposition.”
Employees said they reported the odor and illnesses to the county commissioners office. One worker said when they called a poison control number staff answering the phone advised contacting the fire department to have the air tested. So they were trying to reach the fire department.
Some employees reportedly just left work and went home, unable to tolerate the smell.
Sulfuric acid is an ingredient of some chemical drain openers. While sulfuric acid itself does not itself produce the characteristic rotten-egg smell, adding acid to sulfide-containing sewage can convert dissolved sulfides into hydrogen sulfide gas.
OSHA’s hydrogen sulfide fact sheet says moderate exposure can cause “headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, staggering and excitability”:
Tuesday’s episode came just after county officials received reassuring news about a different air-quality concern: mold.
A July 30 Indiana Department of Health report, based on samples collected July 22, concluded that the building’s air quality was acceptable. Indoor fungal concentrations were lower than the outdoor concentration, and carbon-dioxide and humidity readings were within the benchmarks discussed in the report.
But those samples were collected before a sewage backup on July 24.
On July 24, a bag containing e-cigarettes was flushed down a jail toilet, blocking a sewer line and sending wastewater from the jail’s upper floors through ceilings into court and county offices below. The building was closed while workers removed damaged drywall and carpet and cleaned, sanitized and dried affected areas.
The recent episodes add to concerns about working conditions in the aging building, where the jail sits above courts and offices. County officials are still trying to settle on a new jail site and a basic approach to dealing with the old building.
The debate has continued as the county even as the county government faces a new ACLU lawsuit over jail conditions. The dilemma includes significant spending on a building commissioners administrator Angie Purdie recently described as “dying.”
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