Roommate Sprays Poison on Food Throughout Kitchen, on Video, Tenants Claim

A California man was taken into custody Tuesday night following an hours-long standoff with deputies ... when cops were called to the house after his roommates reported him for allegedly poisoning their food.

Watch the video ... a man wearing a gas mask and gloves is spraying down an entire kitchen with a substance from an aerosol can. The man's roommates thought to review the footage when they started feeling sick, and doctors couldn't tell them what was wrong.

KTTV reports the suspect's married roommates say they caught him on surveillance video spraying an unknown substance on their groceries and other kitchen items ... citing multiple instances of him dousing fruit, vegetables, canned goods, snacks and even their coffee pot with some kind of foreign liquid.

One roommate told KTTV, "Back in October, my wife had to go to the E.R. They ran all kinds of tests ... there's definitely something wrong with your liver, and based on the blood work, it seems like poisoning."

Deputies served a search warrant at the Santa Clarita house, about 30 miles north of Los Angeles, but a standoff ensued, lasting until about 9 PM Tuesday ... the unidentified suspect reportedly experienced a mental health crisis, necessitating a Mental Evaluation Team to negotiate his surrender.