# Attention smokers: everything in your house is ruined. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 19, 2014, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471 "2014-04-19T04:43:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/81 "2014-04-20T01:12:00Z")
Regarding the cats and litter, if one does not keep up with the litterboxes and shed cat hair, then yes, it is very much noticeable. Even with cleaning up after them, I wouldn’t be surprised if either a cat lover or someone with no pets at all noticed the smell. I’m sure there is one, I just do my best to make sure it’s not cat shit and urine smelling. My three cats and small house are the reason I don’t sell costumes on etsy or ebay - I can’t make anything that is cat-free. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/82 "2014-04-20T02:05:55Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > Wow, you actually believe this crap? When my former editor at the newspaper I worked for would come back in from a smoke break, my eyes would start watering and stinging from the smoke residue that would waft off of him. It’s extremely powerful, and very noticable now that not everyone smokes any more. ---
**Author:** ![Qwisp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qwisp/32/397_2.png) [@Qwisp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwisp)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/83 "2014-04-20T02:31:14Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I was going to post this too. I’ve gotten many library books that were previously in the home of a smoker. The smell never really goes away. These didn’t come from normal smile Akers homes. These probably came from chain smokers or someone who smoked in atl tiny space with no ventilation. I never really thought about it,but I have some thirty year old paperbacks on my book shelves, they don’t have any smell. ---
**Author:** ![Subterraneanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Subterraneanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subterraneanus)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/84 "2014-04-20T02:40:16Z")
Bo Pai has just unseated FXMastermind as Forum’s Biggest Dipshit–at least until FX posts again. ---
**Author:** ![Subterraneanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Subterraneanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subterraneanus)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/85 "2014-04-20T02:43:08Z")
> [@randompattern](#): > > If you have cats, to me, everything in your house is ruined. One day people will look back on cat ownership the way people now look back on smoking during pregnancy and driving without seatbelts: “_How did anyone ever do that?_” ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/86 "2014-04-20T03:01:51Z")
Yes, if you just smoke on the patio or in your garage, your house smells like smoke. My older brother lives with my parents (he has issues\*). He goes out to the garage several times a day for a smoke. For 34 years, my parents’ house smelled no more offensive than my mom’s bland cooking. Now when I walk inside the house, the first thing I notice is the smell of cigarettes. Sure, it would be _worse_ if he smoked inside. But, still, the residue of the smoke clings to his clothes and hair when he’s out in the garage, and he transfers it to his bedroom and every piece of furniture he sits on. My mom keeps an immaculate house. Well, did, I guess. Now it smells like fucking smoke. \*One of his issues is that he’s been through a shit-ton of surgeries to fix the damage done to his jaw by cancer. Teeth removed, jaw carved up, bone taken from the shin to splice the jaw back together, multiple attempts to patch the non-healing surgical site, jaw re-broken in an attempt to place teeth implants, all kinds of fun stuff. I’m sure he enjoyed all the cigs. But he’s probably not enjoying his current life of surgeries and liquid meals. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/87 "2014-04-20T03:18:30Z")
> [@Bo\_Pai](#): > > People knock smokers all the time but here’s a little something to consider: In an instance of airborne toxins or contaminants, everybody pretty much “drops” at about the same time and “the last man standing” is probably going to be the heaviest smoker. The sheer stupidity of your post hasn’t killed us, therefore we can more strongly advise you that you’re full of shit. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/88 "2014-04-20T03:41:51Z")
Years ago my younger sister gave me a new set of bath towels that she had sitting in a closet, never used. I could not wash the cigarette smell out of the towels after multiple machine washes. They ended up in the garage to be used to dry my car after I washed it. And she ended up dead, just this January, at 53 years of age, after 10 years of cancer treatments and surgeries. ---
**Author:** ![scratch\_llll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@scratch\_llll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scratch_llll)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/89 "2014-04-20T03:51:54Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > An antique marble ashtray, ironically enough. Ironically? It’s downright hillarious anyone would buy an ashtray and expect it not to smell of smoke. Or am I missing some triple convoluted joke? I actually came into the thread to make a joke about buying antique tobacco tins that smelled of tobacco but yours is better. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/90 "2014-04-20T04:09:03Z")
If cigarettes extended life expectancy, then doctors would prescribe cigarettes. Doctors do not prescribe cigarettes. Cue the claims about Big Pharma, Western medicine and nefarious physician incentives. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/91 "2014-04-20T06:44:07Z")
> [@Bo\_Pai](#): > > People knock smokers all the time but here’s a little something to consider: In an instance of airborne toxins or contaminants, everybody pretty much “drops” at about the same time and “the last man standing” is probably going to be the heaviest smoker. Please provide examples of the kinds of toxins and contaminants you have in mind with this assertion. Please also indicate (in days, hours, minutes and/or seconds) approximately how much extra “hang time” you expect a smoker to display. > [@](#): > > Non-smoking, tofu-eating purists are actually cranking up their own fragility. It’s a dirty world out there people! And the dirt is moving faster than ever - far too fast to build **immunity** , naturally. Contaminants no longer float and drift slowly into your environment, in microscopic amounts, on the wind and in the water. I suspect the word you might be looking for is “tolerance,” or possibly “acclimatization.” Are you proposing something along the lines of local athetes outperforming lowland visitors in high-altitude venues (on account of being more used to the lower levels of oxygen in the air)? ---
**Author:** ![madrabbitwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@madrabbitwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madrabbitwoman)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/92 "2014-04-20T08:04:50Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > Wow, you actually believe this crap? > > Ok, so why don’t you smell like cat litter everywhere you go? > > ETA: I mean, a dog could probably tell you owned a cat, or that a smoker had been in the house. A human? Fucking unlikely. It is in your clothes, hair, on your skin, then on almost everything you touch after. I suspect some smokers might go so far as wash their hands after smoking but not much else. The smell will transfer from your clothes to to your furniture. From your hands to things like light switches, your pets etc… ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/93 "2014-04-20T15:46:30Z")
> [@Raygun99](#): > > When my former editor at the newspaper I worked for would come back in from a smoke break, my eyes would start watering and stinging from the smoke residue that would waft off of him. It’s extremely powerful, and very noticable now that not everyone smokes any more. To the point where the building was ruined? When he left the job, they had to decontaminate his work area? Because that’s what I took issue with. Smokers stink, I have never held a different position. > [@Bayard](#): > > Yes, if you just smoke on the patio or in your garage, your house smells like smoke. > > My older brother lives with my parents (he has issues\*). He goes out to the garage several times a day for a smoke. For 34 years, my parents’ house smelled no more offensive than my mom’s bland cooking. Now when I walk inside the house, the first thing I notice is the smell of cigarettes. Sure, it would be _worse_ if he smoked inside. But, still, the residue of the smoke clings to his clothes and hair when he’s out in the garage, and he transfers it to his bedroom and every piece of furniture he sits on. My mom keeps an immaculate house. Well, did, I guess. Now it smells like fucking smoke. > \*One of his issues is that he’s been through a shit-ton of surgeries to fix the damage done to his jaw by cancer. Teeth removed, jaw carved up, bone taken from the shin to splice the jaw back together, multiple attempts to patch the non-healing surgical site, jaw re-broken in an attempt to place teeth implants, all kinds of fun stuff. I’m sure he enjoyed all the cigs. But he’s probably not enjoying his current life of surgeries and liquid meals. I’m sorry about your brother’s problems. However, he’s still smoking inside the house if he’s smoking in the garage. The smoke is going to be held in there and contaminate things. Don’t believe me? Fire up your barbecue grill in the garage and enjoy your new smokehouse. > [@madrabbitwoman](#): > > It is in your clothes, hair, on your skin, then on almost everything you touch after. I suspect some smokers might go so far as wash their hands after smoking but not much else. The smell will transfer from your clothes to to your furniture. From your hands to things like light switches, your pets etc… Again, if you don’t wash, it will become a problem. If you clean things now and then, it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/94 "2014-04-20T15:56:39Z")
Soft furnishings are the big problem - you can (to a certain extent) wash tobacco residue off hard, non-porous surfaces, but your sofa cushions will just soak it up. And not everything can be cleaned - a desktop computer from the home of a heavy smoker will be permanently infused with tobacco residue - even some of the plastics absorb it. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/95 "2014-04-20T16:04:43Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Soft furnishings are the big problem - you can (to a certain extent) wash tobacco residue off hard, non-porous surfaces, but your sofa cushions will just soak it up. > > And not everything can be cleaned - a desktop computer from the home of a heavy smoker will be permanently infused with tobacco residue - even some of the plastics absorb it. I’m not sure if this was meant at me in particular, but I’m not arguing about the contents of a house that is smoked in. I’m arguing about the contents of one that is smoked outside of and is entered by smokers when they are not smoking, which is pretty much every building on the planet. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/96 "2014-04-20T16:10:40Z")
It’s those light switches. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/97 "2014-04-20T16:53:20Z")
> [@scratch\_llll](#): > > Ironically? It’s downright hillarious anyone would buy an ashtray and expect it not to smell of smoke. Or am I missing some triple convoluted joke? The poster who made that post was not the thread’s OP (the person who was asked what they had purchased.) So, it was a ordinary one-convolution joke. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/98 "2014-04-20T17:05:16Z")
> [@Lasciel](#): > > To tack on to the rant, if you smoke in the house constantly, please don’t borrow library books. > > We have a few patrons who return books after as little as a week, and the covers have tarry ash grit on them, there are ashes on the pages, and the whole book reeks. We had to ask them to not use the bookdrops, because the smell was transferring to the other books in there. We have to scrub the covers with rubbing alcohol, then fan them out and set them outside to air out before we can reshelve them. Really? Someone smokes within the vicinity of a book for a week and every book it gets near becomes tainted? Interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Club\_33](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@Club\_33](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Club_33)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/99 "2014-04-20T17:19:57Z")
I bet a good portion of the people complaining about the smell of cigarette smoke never think twice about dousing themselves in cologne and perfume and walking into an elevator, not to mention the reek of their unhealthy car exhaust and a thousand other things that someone might find offensive. I just had to endure a week of smelling paint when my neighbors decided to add a new coat to their house. Should I have knocked on the door and told them they were disgusting people? If something is causing you harm, that’s one thing. If it is just annoying you, I’ll still do my part to make sure that your exposure to my habit is minimized, but how come the courtesy is never reciprocated in regard to other annoying smells? Because people don’t think their own shit smells, that’s why. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2014, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471/100 "2014-04-20T17:27:48Z")
> [@Bo\_Pai](#): > > People knock smokers all the time but here’s a little something to consider: In an instance of airborne toxins or contaminants, everybody pretty much “drops” at about the same time and “the last man standing” is probably going to be the heaviest smoker. > > Non-smoking, tofu-eating purists are actually cranking up their own fragility. It’s a dirty world out there people! And the dirt is moving faster than ever - far too fast to build immunity, naturally. Contaminants no longer float and drift slowly into your environment, in microscopic amounts, on the wind and in the water. This is just unmitigated baloney from the first word to the last. Not a sentence in your post has an ounce of truth to it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/attention-smokers-everything-in-your-house-is-ruined/686471.md?page=6)