Shortage of toilet paper

[Pyromancer]

I use a grocery service (Peapod from Stop & Shop) and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the things that are consistently out of stock right now.

Things I haven't been able to get for a couple months:
-canned peas
-certain brands of cat food
-BenGay Muscle Rub
-Pepcid antacid
-Baby wipes
-kitty litter

Are people hoarding bizarre stuff or does it all come from China?

[CellarDweller]

I'm assuming it's a regional thing? I've been to food stores and drug stores, and I've seen all those items on the shelves here.

[Pyromancer]

@CellarDweller Probably not regional, probably because I use one of those services where you order what you want online and then they deliver whatever they happen to have in the warehouse...it would probably be easier to find stuff if I went out to the stores but I can't manage that at the moment so I guess I have to stop complaining and just make do.

[LJay]

Keep complaining, @"Pyromancer" . It has been nearly two months since the outages began and that should be plenty of time for the supply chain to stock the shelves. As a retired purchasing agent this situation puzzles me. We should not be lacking for basics.

[MusicFanLover]

When this first started i went to a few stores and the toliet paper allies were completely empty then after a few days I saw some stores shelves were stocked toliet paper

[Rod]

There is a shortage of toilet paper. But the problem is honestly at the distribution centers. They arent balancing the stock out to the store properly so some stores are stockpiling while the stores that are suppised to be getting doubling the inventory to compensate sales end up with too few. I feel like the mistake are due to call outs and quitting occuring at the centers due to covid19. Oh well. We can just clean our bums like our ancestors. Leaves and river water. XD

[InbetweenDreams]

Seems that you can now get toilet paper and paper towels at places like Wal-Mart, cleaning supplies, alochol, disinfectant wipes are still hard to come by. Part of the problem earlier when they would try to restock items, people would just buy up everything all at once. Honestly, once the stores seen that people were making a run on an item they should have imposed limits. I seen people filling their carts up with nothing but toilet paper.

It does seem that some things are starting to go back to "normal," right now we have a large influx of tourists who want to go camping and whatnot...It is a bit annoying as these are the people who probably think it's just the flu or whatever.

[LJay]

@InbetweenDreams I understand that supplies are short for certain products but I keep thinking about my mother's approach to cleaning when she used plain soap, hot water and other simple products without fancy brand names to get the job done.

According to the Center for Disease Control, you can make a sanitizing solution to use in combating the coronavirus by mixing 5 tablespoons (1/3 cup) bleach per gallon of water or 4 teaspoons bleach per quart of water. Pour this into a clean spray bottle, grab a clean cloth and scrub away. The solution will stay active for an hour and your budget will rejoice.

[LONDONER]

@InbetweenDreams I understand that supplies are short for certain products but I keep thinking about my mother's approach to cleaning when she used plain soap, hot water and other simple products without fancy brand names to get the job done.

According to the Center for Disease Control, you can make a sanitizing solution to use in combating the coronavirus by mixing 5 tablespoons (1/3 cup) bleach per gallon of water or 4 teaspoons bleach per quart of water.  Pour this into a clean spray bottle, grab a clean cloth and scrub away.  The solution will stay active for an hour and your budget will rejoice.

Soap and water are not always readily available so you do need hand sanitiser.  It's easy and cheaper to make your own.

Buy a litre of alcohol and some tubes of aloe vera gel on eBay.  Mix 70% acohol with 30% aloe vera, bottle and it will last ages.  I have a pump action bottle in the kitchen and a small spray bottle I carry around with me that I use to sanitise keypads at ATMs etc, and also use on my hands when I have touched something.

[eastofeden]

TP is now available but everything I need to re-open now is not in stock or I can order it and get it in mid June so now I have to drive all over the Bay Area  to shops to get the plexiglass cut - mounts - social distancing signs for the floor - printed instructions - padlocks for my bathrooms - UGH. I also need sanitizer available which I can't find so I have to figure out what to use instead and will take Londoner's advice above if my journey today doesn't pan out. 

I don't even want to open because I know we will have to close again since so many of the most precious citizens feel like a mask is just too much for them and it infringes on their freedom. It doesn't occur to them that other people's freedom to live might actually be important. 

The good news is I see what is coming so after I get the necessary stuff I will begin to expand my online business and website to accommodate what the precious citizens claim to want to avoid - the next shutdown which they will be directly responsible for.