Keyboard off-gassing

Question

I cant be the only person in North America who has experienced the noxious fumes of an off-gassing aluminum keyboard, but when I called Apple the first responder and the second-tier responder said they'd never come across this before. I see posts from 2008 and earlier about this, but nothing recently. Yet I have become slightly dizzy, my eyes watering, and I had a headache when I woke at 430 this morning due to a replacement Apple extended (wired) keyboard I picked up from the Apple store yesterday night. Here's what I wrote to Apple this morning (minus some personal details which I indicate with REDACTED):
Thurs, December 12:
This email is being written on my iPhone because I do not have the use of a keyboard until this issue is resolved or until I am forced to purchase a non-Apple keyboard later this morning. It is 530 am and I've been up an hour due to the smell of the replacement (#2) keyboard which has given me a headache, made my eyes water, and forced me to bag the keyboard, put it outside my window and close the window. Unfortunately my apartment, which doubles as my office, reeks now of this chemical off-gas.
To recap:
December 10, my computer was acting oddly, with random clicking sounds like Morse Code, with unpredictable actions from the cursor (the wired mouse was plugged into the keyboard--I did not think it was a keyboard fault initially). I reinstalled the Mavericks OS. I called Apple Canada. We decided based on my description of the problem that there may well be a problem with my OEM keyboard, so a new one was sent to me.
Case number REDACTED.
(Equipment serial number is REDACTED).
December 11,approx 10am, UPS delivers replacement keyboard. Old one is returned via UPS within the hour. New keyboard works but smell soon overcomes me: symptoms are stinging eyes, slight nausea. Remove keyboard to windowsill, open windows, hoping the smell will dissipate. Leave apartment for three hours.
Later that day after being unable to work in my home office, I return home to find smell infiltrates entire apartment -- very noticeable astringent chemical smell.
Call Apple, , am referred to next level support in California:
Rob, at 877-416-4271  extension number REDACTED
We go over my complaint, I suggest that rather than wait for another keyboard to be sent, I take this one to Apple store, Pacific Centre Mall, which is a fifteen minute walk from my apartment, as I was planning to go downtown anyway. This he arranges.
5:05pm, I meet with Genius Bar employee and get my second replacement keyboard.  Like the first replacement it is packaged in brown, unmarked cardboard. Open box in store. It too smells but I assume it is "less" than other one, leave and go to a movie. Now this is interesting: the keyboard, which is now in an Apple-branded plastic bag, but opened to let it air out in the theatre ( as he required the box to return the other one), I can smell it as I watch movie. I put it on the floor.  There were only about two dozen patrons for this long documentary film on Berkley University. And near me I overheard one say to another, "They must have cleaned the theatre, can you smell it?"!!
Thinking i might air it out further on the walk home i throw out the bag and carry it home. But this not-very-funny chemical smell persists as I go home, so I put the keyboard, unused as yet, onto a windowsill again.
Go to bed--still cannot do any typing!!
December 12, 4.30am: I awake with a headache and dizziness. I immediately notice the apartment is smelling of the "electronic benzene" keyboard smell (I wonder if it is the smell of treated aluminum) and put the keyboard into a new kitchen garbage bag, tie it shut, put it on the ledge OUTSIDE the window and close that window.
It is now 6.03 am as I complete "tapping" this report with one finger on my iPhone.
I have a project with a Friday deadline which is the transcription of four hours of counselling audio--each hour if audio takes five hours to transcribe and format and check for accuracy. I haven't been able to do any work on it since mid morning yesterday.
I will be getting rid of this second replacement keyboard, either returning it it Apple store again or by post, and will have to purchase a keyboard.
I wonder if the entire shipment of this series of replacement, non-retail keyboards is affected. I cannot imagine that someone buying a new keyboard in the white Apple branded box would put up with this smell, so is there a difference between the replacement part keyboard and the retail ones in terms of point of origin, serial number, etc.?
This is a Health and Safety issue. If I were working in an office where the employer is covered by Worksafe BC--which is our British Columbia equivalent to OSHA and similar workplace health and safety regulatory agencies--instead of my home, where I work freelance,  I would be filing a formal complaint. As it is, I think Apple has a larger issue here: not only to supply me with a safe, non-gas-emitting keyboard, and to offer me compensation for a days loss--so far--of wages/work time, but to examine the entire shipment of these replacement keyboards and test the off-gassing. Up here in Canada we aren't so quick on the trigger to start class action suits, nor are they as easy and common as they are in the US, but I can see this becoming one were I  an American customer of Apple!
Signature REDACTED

Answer 1

How very interesting! The same thing has just happened to me.
I have an existing Aluminium WIRED keyboard which I bought several years ago. No problems with that one. It is a wonderful product. Apple products are usually wonderful. I just bought a new R2D2 Mac Pro which arrived on Friday 24 Jan (yesterday - fittingly on the 30th anniversary of the Mac!!), and ...I bought a new aluminium keyboard to go with it.
I opened up the new aluminium keyboard, placed it on the desk ... connected it up ...   strong, chemical smell. At first, I thought it was the new computer ... but it was not! It was the keyboard. Then I placed my nose next to the keyboard and took a whiff ... my god, it stank of chemicals. Absolutely disgusting.
I took the new keyboard out of my study, and put it in the garage to breathe. Today, I went up into the garage and the whole garage simply pongs of that vile chemical smell. Absolutely appalling. I wonder if I should refer this to the EPA in Australia. It must be hazardous.
In any event, I am certainly not keeping this ... I will return it to the Apple Store ... I think it is a hazardous product ... probably made in China and maybe they dump formaldehyde or something into it.