I smoke. Mr. W. smokes. My dad passed away because he smoked. Yes, we are planning to quit, but as many know, it's sometimes easier said than done. We have a Plan, but haven't gotten there yet.
This post is mostly about smoking INSIDE your house or car. Ugh. Ick. EEEEWWWW. When we cleaned up the car in March to drive it to Sacramento, I used nearly half a roll of paper towels and half a bottle of Windex, cleaning the orangey-brown gunk from the INSIDE of the car windows, and leather cleaner and FeBreeze and carpet deodorizer just to get the car to NOT smell like an ashtray and to be able to see out of the windows.
The house is 12 years old. The walls were painted with flat paint. Flat paint absorbs everything (I'll say it now, I hate flat paint). When we clean and prep a room for painting it takes an entire day. We go through multiple buckets of TSP for each room, because the water gets so filthy from all the smoke residue.
And residue it is. In May we had the heating/air conditioning people out to inspect our systems and to clean the ductwork. MAJOR eeeeewwwww. The furnace vents were BROWN from the residue build up. The carpet around the registers were BROWN from the recirculation of crap. The furnace filter was virtually unrecognizable as a filter. The HVAC people had to order a special cleaning thingy (there I go, getting all technical) to get the gummy residue off of the coils and interior of the furnace.
Even the light switches have gunk built up! Out come the Q-Tips and more TSP to get them so that they're not STICKY!
Cleaning the insides of the windows and the woodwork produces orange/brown muck on our sponges with just one swipe.
Bottom line, it's gross. Gross, gross, gross. For each and every room in the house we're having to clean for a day (and spackle and caulk), then lay up a coat of primer, then two coats of NON-flat paint to get rid of the smoke smell and staining.
We clean this stuff, and think, "Why do we think that we can get away with sucking this stuff into our BODIES????" If you have to smoke, do it outside.
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The "Other" Blog
About Me
- T
- Cast of characters: Me (T), on my fifth 'career' and second husband. Officially a quilter, but since discovering knitting, found it's easier to knit than to quilt while sitting on my butt in front of the TV. Not born-to-be a mother, but still managed to raise The Girl and The Boy, who each now have offspring of their own (but DON'T call me that "G" word!). Mr. Wonderful, my rock, my love, my conscience. J - My best friend. K - J's husband. L - my teaching backup and pattern designing partner - a fellow quilter who's got even more gadgets than I do! Puppybutt, the cutest, sweetest and most loving little pooch in my universe!