Second-hand smoke is invading my apartment thanks to a new neighbor and his nonstop smoking which is making me sick. I am asthmatic and get severe headaches from cigarette smoke. I've asked him in the past not to do it. He just apologises and says he won't do it again but the very next day he is again back to his drug-fuelled self. Our apartment is not a smokefree so I guess there is no point getting into an argument with that airhead . I checked online if there is any workable solution.I researched air purifiers, and the ones that claim to remove odors are very expensive. I don't want to spend a lot of money unless it will definitely clean the air. my GP recommended this using this Clair BF2025 room air purifier for asthma. Was wondering whether I can use the same air purifier for smoke as well ?

Is there any other alternative ? Please help !! Looks like he languishes at home and barely leaves his room .I work from home and am at my wits end !!!

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I know you live in an area where the area is not smokefree, but can't you tell the landlord to get the other tenant to not smoke/control his smoking or you will leave/are getting sick from it?

My landlord doesn't even respond to my repair requests . He is least bothered and I don't think it will actually make any difference to him whether I stay or leave . He'll easily manage to find a new tenant and also at the moment I cannot afford to move out from here :(

You can try the purifier, i mean they work, but I am not too sure if they are 100 percent effective against smokers. Also, even if he gets a new tenant, i am sure they will move out soon with a smoker as their neighbor.

Hmmm.. Thanks for the input .

At the moment I guess I don't have too many options. I'll just give those room air purifiers a shot . I hope it works both for Asthma and smoke . I'm all droopy eyed right now ... trying so hard to get a good night's sleep feeling nauseous and also have a splitting headache all thanks to the nicotine infested air ... Grrrr....

Is it the smoke that irritates you, or rather the odor "perfume"?

A couple of door-bottom weather strips (one for your door and one for the neighbour's) might do a lot to cutting down the amount of smoke. The cost is minimal and if the neighbour or landlord won't spring for it you might want to spring for them yourself. They install easily.

You can give your neighbor an electronic cigarette. Many heavy smokers (including me) stopped with the e-cigarette. Give him e-liquid with 11mg nicotine to start with.

Get a gas mask from the military surplus store, wear it and knock at his door!

You can also burn a candle to destroy cigarette smoke.

I recommend that you research HEPA air purifiers. I think that you can get better air cleaning at a lower cost. I know that Honeywell air cleaners do a good job and have reuseable filters (you can rinse them in the sink - once you have a cleaner, the filter cost becomes significant. Most HEPA cleaners will be rated by how large a room that they can clean and how many times per hour they will they will clean all the air in the room.

Good luck. Most 'big box' stores and large discounters like Fred Meyers and Target will have them and will allow you to turn one on to hear what they sound like

Important caveate - make sure it says 'true HEPA' as that is a standard that can not be wishy-washied away. I have seen phrases similar to 'HEPA-like' that implies more than it means. The range in costs is from $80 and up; most of the cost difference is the volume of air it can clean in a set amount of time.

Cigarette smoke gives off a lot more than just small particles, and HEPA filters will only work from a certain particle size on up.

There are over 4,000 different chemicals in cigarette smoke, many of these are carcinogenic. To remove these chemicals you need a charcoal filter or burn them completely. A so called electronic filter might work.

HiHe: agreed - the only true solution is to not have a smoker nearby. What I am offering is a way to remove 99.97% of particles that are .3 micrometers or larger. The outer filter is charcoal activated and removes the (relatively) huge chunks from the air before the 'interception, impaction, diffusion' takes place in finer detail.

Once you start talking about chemicals in the air, cigarette pollution becomes buried in all the other crap a typical apartment dweller has to breath. From carpet outgassing to neighbors outgassing (fart joke).

And generally speaking, allergies and other breathing discomfort is mostly caused by the larger particles and mold in the air. The pollutants (i.e., "chemicals" as some fools might call them) that are disolved in the air might have some bad implications for your health in the long term (like carcinogens), but won't cause nearly as much allergy or asthma in the short term, meaning that it is likely the larger particles (within the cigarette smoke) that causes your bad reactions.

And as GrimJack points out, the pollutants that cigarette smoke puts into the air in any urban environment is dwarfed by all the other pollutants that city dwellers are exposed to (e.g., standing for an hour outside on a busy street corner is more harmful than being a closed room with a chain smoker for a whole day).

I'm all droopy eyed right now ... trying so hard to get a good night's sleep feeling nauseous and also have a splitting headache all thanks to the nicotine infested air ... Grrrr....

I'm not a doctor but I must point out two important and very possible alternative causes of your symptoms. First, mold problems are very common, especially in older and not-so-maintained appartment complexes. It is very possible that the cigarette smoke is simply making you more sensitive to the mold in the air, because it is far more common to have such symptoms from mold in the air than from cigarette smoke.

Second, you said things like "second-hand smoke is invading my apartment", "he is again back to his drug-fuelled self", and "nicotine infested air", such strong language suggests that you have a strong aversion towards second-hand smoke or the smokers themselves, and oozes a certain sense of panic. Btw, there is very little nicotine at all in second-hand smoke, and it is not a substance that would cause such problems (other substances in the smoke could, but not nicotine). But the real point here is that second-hand smoke has a very strong psychosomatic effect (i.e., "imagined" symptoms), which is due to a disproportionate fear of it, sort of like a mild panic-attack at the slightest smell of smoke (for example, in the 90s, the average person would be barely annoyed by the smell of a smoker close by, and today, the average person in the same situation has an asthma attack, odd isn't it?). My point is that you need to be open to that possibility. Any responsible doctor would have to consider that possibility (and they will often prescribe placebos if they make that diagnosis). In this case, anything will remove the odor and give you the illusion that the smoke is gone will likely give you peace of mind and releave your symptoms at the same time.

commented: Are you sure you're not a doctor? ;p +0
commented: Thanks a lot for the elaborate reply . I think my symptoms are more physiological not pscychological +0

My friend like to use flavored tablets to get rid of smoke smell.

I guess you can mask one stink with another.

HiHe: agreed - I wonder sometimes about all those different 'stink' producers available on the market - up to and including one that allows you to set moods. The most I want to do is to is, maybe, light a joss stick. The one most effective trick I learned (I am a cat person) is to bag and seal everything that I scoop out of the cat box; it seems that 'cat smell' is usually not from the cat box but from the garbage where the scoopable is stored until disposal.

A home water fall might help, add a little vinegar to the water. Nicotine is a base.

We used to have carbon monoxide and cyanide detectors in the lab. They would go of if someone smoked nearby.

Thanks a lot for all the suggestions . Wish you guys a great year ahead . I just got back home after a long weekend . At the moment I'm feeling rejuvenated. Just by staying away from my apartment for a couple of days I feel so nice . I think even my neighbour is out of town that explains the apartment minus smoke .

I think even it's psychological or not, you should equip yourself air purifier. The Clair that you mentioned (I check the specs here: www.go-clair.com) seems not an ozone air purifier, but purely air cleaner so you should give it a go, I guess?

Hmmmm I'm thinking on the same lines . Air purifier shouldn't do much harm . Also this Clair air purifier isn't too heavy on my pocket and is easy to use . Though I secretly wish my neighbour vacates from the apt for good .

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