Puerto Rico cleaner recall reprises the bacteria that cost Clorox $14 million

The Consumer Product Safety Commission on Thursday announced the recall of roughly 6.3 million bottles of scented household cleaners sold in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, warning that the products may be contaminated with a bacterium that can cause serious infection in people with weakened immune systems.

The recall notice covers scented varieties of Mistolin Dilutable Cleaners and Lestoil Heavy Duty Multi-Purpose Cleaners, two household-cleaning brands manufactured by a Puerto Rico subsidiary of the Clorox Company. The agency said the products may contain Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an organism found widely in soil and water that poses little threat to healthy people but can cause serious illness in those who are immunocompromised or who rely on medical devices such as catheters or ventilators. No injuries had been reported as of the announcement.

What the recall covers

The recall applies only to scented products manufactured between April 1, 2025, and June 17, 2026, and sold exclusively in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Nine scented varieties of Mistolin Dilutable Cleaner are included, along with four scented varieties of Lestoil Heavy Duty Multi-Purpose Cleaner, in bottle sizes ranging from 28 to 128 fluid ounces. Unscented formulations and products sold in the continental United States are not affected.

Consumers can identify recalled bottles by a date code printed on the container beginning with the prefix "PR01," followed by a five-digit number between 25091 and 26168. The products were sold at Walmart, Sam's Club, Costco, Supermercados Econo, Supermercados Selecto and other retailers for between roughly $1.40 and $8 per bottle. The CPSC is advising consumers to stop using the recalled cleaners immediately and seek a refund by registering online or by phone with photos of the bottle's UPC and date codes.

The 6.3 million units involved, first flagged by local television reporting in the hours after the CPSC posting went live, make this one of the larger household-product recalls of the year, though its geographic footprint is narrow by design: only Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, both markets where Mistolin and Lestoil are sold under long-established regional brand names rather than under the Clorox label that dominates shelves on the mainland. The manufacturer of record, Clorox Manufacturing Company of Puerto Rico, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the publicly traded Clorox Company. The recall's remedy is a full refund, with claims processed through a third-party claims administrator rather than in-store exchange, meaning affected households must retain or photograph their bottles before disposing of them.

A company with a recent bacterial-contamination history

This is not the first time Clorox has recalled a cleaning product over Pseudomonas contamination, and the earlier episode has already shaped how regulators are likely to scrutinize the company's response this time. In October 2022, Clorox and the CPSC jointly announced the recall of roughly 37 million bottles of Pine-Sol Scented Multi-Surface Cleaners after the same bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, was found in the products.

What followed was a lengthy federal investigation into how Clorox had handled that discovery internally. According to the CPSC's account of the case, company microbiologists had identified contamination in storage tanks and finished product as early as 2019, and Clorox subsequently received reports of cloudy bottles from retailers and distributors, yet the company did not notify the agency until the products were pulled from shelves three years later. In January of this year, Clorox agreed to pay a $14.15 million civil penalty to resolve allegations that it had violated its legal duty to immediately report the hazard once it was known internally, and agreed to strengthen its internal safety-reporting controls and submit annual compliance reports to the commission, a settlement covered at the time as one of the larger civil penalties the commission has extracted from a consumer-products maker.

"Prompt reporting of safety risks saves lives, and CPSC will not hesitate to enforce the law when companies fail to meet their obligations," CPSC Acting Chairman Peter A. Feldman said in January, when the commission announced the Pine-Sol penalty.

It is not yet clear how quickly Clorox identified and reported the contamination behind this week's Mistolin and Lestoil recall, or whether the enhanced compliance program required under the January settlement played a role in surfacing it. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a common environmental bacterium, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that it can enter consumer and healthcare products through contaminated water sources, surfaces or manufacturing equipment, making it a recurring challenge for makers of water-based cleaning formulas in particular.

Who is affected

Because the recall is limited to products sold in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, mainland U.S. consumers who buy Clorox-branded cleaners are not affected by this action. Within the two territories, the recall touches a broad swath of households: Mistolin and Lestoil are longstanding, widely used cleaning brands sold at major retailers including Walmart, Sam's Club and Costco locations as well as the Econo and Selecto supermarket chains.

The CPSC's guidance singles out people with compromised immune systems — including cancer patients undergoing treatment, transplant recipients and people with chronic illnesses — along with anyone who has an external medical device such as a catheter, feeding tube or ventilator, as facing the greatest risk if exposed to the bacteria through inhalation, eye contact or a break in the skin. People with healthy immune systems who may have already used the recalled products are not considered to be at meaningful risk, according to the recall notice, though the agency is still urging all consumers who purchased the affected items to stop using them and seek a refund.

What happens next

Clorox Puerto Rico has set up a dedicated recall information page and a toll-free hotline, staffed from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time, for consumers seeking refunds. The company is asking claimants to submit photographs of their bottle's UPC code and date stamp rather than accepting returns at store counters, a process that is likely to take weeks to fully process given the size of the recall.

The CPSC has not indicated whether it is separately investigating the timeline of Clorox's internal discovery and external reporting of this contamination, as it did after the 2022 Pine-Sol recall. Under the terms of January's settlement, Clorox remains subject to enhanced federal oversight of its product-safety reporting through at least the next several years, including mandatory annual reports to the commission — a framework regulators will likely apply in assessing how the company handled this latest discovery. For now, health officials in both territories are directing residents to check their cleaning-product cabinets against the recall's date-code range and to contact the claims hotline rather than dispose of affected bottles without documentation.