Oh man. A previous employer had someone come around and spray for bugs monthly. I told them to let me know when it was going to be so I could stay away for an afternoon. The exterminator insisted it was perfectly safe and wouldn’t bother me. Yeah, well, immune stuff runs in the family — my older sister had lupus — and it did, in fact, bother me.

As a test or something, he came around spraying without telling me. I was in my office when I felt my sinuses starting to swell and my chest started tightening. When I walked out into the common room and saw him smiling at me with a “see, told you it’s your imagination” grin, my coworkers had to drag me outside because I was ready to kill him.

Look, man, I’d freaking love not to have asthma and other allergy stuff. I don’t like taking handfuls of antihistamines. I’m not trying to be a pain in the ass. I just don’t, like, enjoying dying.

I hate all that stuff too, but I have to nit-pick the last sentence. Everything you breathe is chemicals. Everything that is good for you and bad for you is chemicals.

This in particular bothers me because I end up having this discussion with family members all the time who are convinced that "chemicals" are bad for you, and they only eat food without "chemicals".

I am thankful my workplace has a no scent policy. Unfortunately I have to go into clients homes all day so sometimes run into heavily scented homes. If we report it our boss will inform the client they need to remove it or not use it prior to our visits or open a window. I am thankful that I am naturally not a smelly person (confirmed by girlfriends) and I shower with non scented soap and I don't ever wear deodorant. Sadly I have teens. They over spray perfumes and colognes to the point that I can't even be near them at times. I hope the unscented trend picks up and spreads to more places. Thinking about the topic of scents were you around when you could basically smoke anywhere? I remember the days walking in a mall smoking and people would just drop the smoke and step on it then walk away. Banning smoking from public places where I live was the greatest thing.

Chemical allergies are an area where I'm fine oversimplifying decisions and using a simple heuristic of "if my body says no, stay the heck away."

Of our five senses, smell is the most well attuned for detecting something that'll hurt us internally (ie poison cancer).

I had a leaky air freshener attached to wall, it dripped on top of baseboard, the chemicals did a better job removing the paint on the baseboard that regular paint removers…

One of the reasons I still mask. An N95, while not perfect (an N100 with a carbon layer would be the real ticket), blocks a lot of the common scents. Things like those dangly air fresheners every ride share driver has about 5 of.

same here. my downstairs neighbour burns garlic for every meal, and then burns some kind of incense to get rid of the smell of garlic. both of them somehow come up through the floor and make me retch, so I have to open the window - at which point she goes outside for a smoke and most of it seems to come in through that window.

live among people, they said. it'll be nice, they said.

I am the opposite. My nose has barely any sensitivity, so I love intense smells, because they actually make me smell something. Also, fuck the people who keep windows open 24/7 even during winter. They make everyone cold just because the air isn't perfectly fresh.

At my previous job we had a guy who'd always come and instantly open the windows. I know that I'm the minority with my preference to keep them shut, so I just suffered in silence, except for these first 30 minutes before he showed up, those were a blessing. He lived outside of the city and commuted, and one time he really needed to sleep inside the city, and I had a spare bed, so I let him sleep at my place. He walked in and instantly said "Can we open the window?", to which I replied "NO, WE CANNOT". I cannot describe how satisfying that felt.