Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with fumes

Perfume Puke

pjern — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:35:33 -0800

How do you deal with excessive levels of perfume? There's a family reunion in my immediate future, complete with some women who, to put it frankly, wear enough perfume to qualify as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions on Chemical Warfare, and are going to want to get all huggy and touchy-feeley with me. I can't stand the petrochemical after-effects of that activity. How can I tactfully avoid that contact?

The perfume gives me an immediate headache, and if I actually get rubbed up against it seems to transfer the stink to me, which is just horrible.

I'd like something or some tack that will avoid World War III in my family.

Is it safe for my pregnant wife to be around polyurethane fumes?

bingwah — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:09:49 -0800

I want to have 2 bedroom hardwood floors refinished. My wife is about 14 weeks pregnant. Is it safe for her to be in the house with the polyurethane fumes from the floor finish? I have a raised ranch house. The 2 bedrooms being refinished are on the upper level. We have another bedroom on the lower level on the opposite side of the house where we can sleep.

I know polyurethane and pregnancy do not mix but I figured she can mostly avoid the fumes by staying on the lower level as much as possible. The kitchen is on the upper level so there would be times when she's exposed to the fumes.

Are the fumes very dangerous? As an aside does anyone have experience with water-based finishes for floors?

What is that? Smells like a turd covered in burnt hair.

bjork24 — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:18:43 -0800

The salon next door is leaking fumes into my projection booth. Am I going to die? Our new theater is located right next door to a high-end salon, and I'm fairly certain that our exhaust fans use the same vent escape. At various times throughout the day, the projection booth will smell like hairspray, perm solution, hair dye, or fart.

I'm assuming these aren't the most toxic fumes in the world, or else there would be a lot more dead stylists, but it's still slightly concerning. After a particularly long shift, I sometimes feel light-headed and my lungs feel cold. On the plus side, the fumes have really opened my sinuses.

I've contacted our landlord, but they haven't remedied the problem yet. Don't worry, I'll keep on them until it's fixed, but in the meantime, how harmful is it to breath in the refuse fumes of a salon for 8 to 10 hours a day?

Death Defying Oven Cleaning

zackola — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:59:33 -0800

Am I going to kill myself why attempting to clean my oven? Hi, there's a self cleaning oven in my apartment. It hasn't been cleaned in what looks like forever. I live in a studio. There is no outdoor ventilation near the oven. Just one window in the apartment, at the opposite end. Is it going to be really fumy in here? Is it going to make all my clothes, couch, and bed stink? (remember studio, all same room) Also, I'm worried about leaving the apartment when the oven is in clean mode, but also worried about fuming myself to death by staying here. Any advice? There were specific instructions in the oven manual about not cleaning it with traditional methods. Is that just BS though?

Furnace vents net to sandbox. Is this bad?

winston — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:50:23 -0800

High-efficiency gas furnace installed where previously there was mid-efficiency. So it vents straight out the wall while the old furnace used the chimney. The vent is right next to the sandbox. How bad is this? Tiny yard -- not much other space for the sandbox. It's either keep it or get rid of it.

Of course, during the peak months for sandbox usage, the furnace is rarely used.

It's in a corner (between the house and the wooden fence) so a little more enclosed than if it were in the middle of the wall.

The kids are 4 and almost 2.

A sandbox is one of their favourite things in the world and they can use it for hours at a stretch.

Followup on medical patients emitting enough fumes to sicken hospital workers?

krisak — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:51:28 -0800

Whatever happened to people emitting enough toxic fumes from their bodies to clear an operating or emergency room? I remember seeing news reports on this multiple times in the 1990s, but haven't heard anything since. I recall at least two different cases where people were taken into operating rooms, but fumes from the body sickened hospital workers and cleared the operating/emergency rooms.

The only thing I can find is this article, which provides no followup, but does suggest that gardening chemicals had to do with the issue.

So my question is twofold:

1. Whatever happened to these people? I assume they died, but what was the cause of the fumes?

2. Was this something that only really occured in the 1990s, or have we not been hearing about it since because the story ceased to be interesting?

Additionally, I remember hearing bits and pieces about people who's blood or internal fluids had been crystallized, but I may just be remembering scenes from the Andromeda Strain.

Help me with wood stain and varnish fumes.

Zinger — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 16:23:19 -0800

Suggestions for getting rid of the smell of wood stain/varnish? We just bought a nice buffet/hutch for our dining room, and we had it stained to match our existing dining room table. The problem is, it reeks. It's winter here so wide open windows really isn't an option, and so far I've tried: bowls full of bicarb soda, bowls full of white vinegar, and one of those air filter/hepa/ionizer thingies. It's moderately better, but still enough to knock you over. Any ideas?

Health risks from neighbors' hardwood floor installation?

cybercoitus interruptus — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 15:35:05 -0800

Upstairs neighbors had hardwood floors installed. I think they've gone on vacation while the installers did their work (stage 1 was Monday, stage 2, yesterday). The paint-fume smell in our condo is awful. What kind of health risks are there to ourselves or our cat? We opened the windows on the evenings of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (not overnight though because outside has potential burglars, freezing temperatures, and we're both sick with a nasty cold). The smell in the building was almost back to normal on Thursday, but then the installers came back yesterday. We opened the windows again yesterday evening, shut them overnight, opened them again today for a couple hours (but shut some of them again because it was too cold). Are we risking serious health problems by closing the windows overnight? (I realize now I should have asked this yesterday, but I wasn't thinking straight yesterday.)

Also, the installers vacuumed the main floor lobby carpet, but not the carpeted stairs leading to the basement units (one of which is ours). There's a thick layer of dust, I assume from sanding, on the banisters and the stairs. Googling turns up references to sanding resulting in carcinogenic dust. Does this mean I shouldn't use my little (non-HEPA filter) canister vacuum on it? If not, how do we get the dust out of the carpet?

Is my car's air conditioner releasing deadly fumes or something?

exceptinsects — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:42:07 -0800

Is my car's air conditioner releasing deadly fumes or something? When I turn on the AC in my car lately (since we've been having really hot weather), I notice a sort of burning in the back of my throat. I don't see or smell anything.

This seems to happen on either fresh air or recirc, but if I just run the fan, I don't notice the problem.

I'm going to take it to the mechanic, but I wanted to know if I should be worrying about it. (Generally I try not to worry about things.)

Is it some kind of coolant?

New House & New Sufur Smell - What do we do?!

tastybrains — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 20:23:54 -0800

We've just moved into a new house and we've noticed a strange odor both inside and outside most nights since we've been here. It's our first house ever and we're at a loss with regards what to do... We just moved into a house in Nashua, NH. We have noticed that many evenings over the past two weeks, there has been a slightly sulfur smell inside the house and also outside.

At first we thought that it might be because the dump is 2 miles away, but that seems kind of strange that so many people in our relatively nice neighborhood would tolerate something like that. We also used to live near a swamp so we thought it might be something swampy...but it doesn't quite smell the same as a swamp. Definitely more acrid, and less like frogs and mosquitoes.

Tonight I noticed the smell again, as did my husband. We noticed it mostly in the garage and in the upstairs hallway. I went outside to compare concentrations and I can barely smell it outside. So now I'm freaking out that it could be the house...

We do have LP tanks outside (opposite side as the garage where we are smelling the odor) and another concern is that it could be sewer gas.

Our plan is to call the gas company first thing tomorrow to have them come by and check our tanks & everything. Then our plan is to call a plumber to check for sewer gas or anything plumbing related.

So...do these seem like reasonable things to check out? Is there anything else we should look into if we can't find an answer?

And how do we find a good plumber if it comes to that??? We are new to this area and don't know anyone around here. I'm really kind of worried and upset about all this. I don't even trust my own nose. My husband thinks I might be overreacting because I do tend to go towards the worst case scenario, but I don't think it's unreasonable to find a nightly sulfur stink in my new house unacceptable.

Office painting fumes

marajade — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 18:13:05 -0800

My boss has decided to repaint the interior of our office building, which is nice. However, she is having it done during office hours - I'm 10 weeks pregnant, we have someone with allergies and someone with asthma. Is this odd? Isn't this usually done outside of office hours so we don't have to sniff paint fumes for 8 hours? If so, what recourse do we have? Can we report her to some state agency or something for unsafe working conditions? Even if I wasn't pregnant, I don't think it's reasonable to have to smell fumes all day for a week. If it matters, the type of work we do has us all just sitting at computers all day. The windows don't open in any of the rooms, but she's going to keep the front door open (it's 29 outside today).

bad smells at work what to do

naxosaxur — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 13:32:12 -0800

Noxious cooking, chemical, and exhaust fumes at work [m.i.]: I am currently working through my first couple of months of relocation at an old, neglected office building with about thirty floors. My office is on one of the top floors, in a sixty-by-fifteen-foot rectangular, tiny space. Downstairs in the lobby, there is a fully functioning deli with a grill and ovens, and they do a high volume of cooking throughout the day. Every morning and lunchtime, my office fills with the smells from the deli: various fried food odors, raw onions, a weird peanut smell, barbeque, etc. By the time I get home, my clothes and hair stink of crap and grease, and are completely saturated down to my undergarments. So it's clear that whatever is being done in the deli travels into the office (via stairwell, through doors, up the elevator shaft, etc.), and I’m constantly breathing this in. Some mornings upon arrival to the office, the entire space is saturated with the smell of stale cooking grease.

Anyway, that's bad enough, but it gets much worse: Since October 2004, I've noticed that on most afternoons, at least 3 times a week, from about 3:00pm-6:00pm, my office fills with fumes of a chlorine-tinted, heavy, burnt cooking odor. The smell is definitely coming from the deli, because I can smell the same thing in the lobby if I go downstairs. The only way I can properly describe the odor is like maybe they're cleaning the ovens with bleach and it mixes with burnt food. It definitely has a chlorine odor, and its kind of a 'burnt foody' smelling. I unfortunately can't pin down the composition of the fumes, because I’ve never smelt anything like it before.

The fumes are so strong that by the first hour, I am dizzy, disoriented, and unable to concentrate. My eyes burn slightly from it, too. The first month of this, I developed congested lungs, and would 'decongest' for like 3 hours each night after work by coughing-up phlegm, but I must have gained a tolerance to it, because that doesn't happen much anymore. My lungs still do get inflamed a little after breathing the fumes for about an hour. If I take a walk outside, my head clears up within twenty minutes, so I know the physical reaction is from the fumes.

The building is old, so we have opening windows, which is the only way to combat this. So I leave the windows as far open as I can tolerate (but it’s 7 degrees fahrenheit today), and run a fan at the window. As much as this makes it a little better, the fumes are still very cloying, and I still get dizzy with burning eyes. My superior here knows about it, but he sits on the opposite end of the office, and the fumes do not reach him very often. He knows I have a problem with it, but he has told me to keep up with the issue on my own end, so he clearly does not want to get involved. Which is fine, but I can’t take it to him.

And by the way, yes, I've taken it up with building management and the acting manager, and that's not what I want to focus on. It is extremely frustrating because it takes about 20 identical requests to get anything done with management. I have sent about a dozen emails to the building manager since October 2004, and I really only complain when the odors are particularly strong. I smell them everyday incidentally, but some days I can deal with it better than others. Management promises that they're doing something about it, and that's all I can get from them.

So here's my question: Obviously the deli is doing some sort of chemical cleaning to their equipment after the lunch crowd rush, as I always smell the chemical fumes start around 3:00 pm or 4:00 pm, and it usually lasts three hours. I have no experience of kitchens and cooking, as I have never worked in a restaurant at all. Therefore, do delis clean their ovens and grills daily like that? Do they use chemicals? Do they use bleach? Do they 'burn off' food after the big crowds? What is responsible for making me so goddamn dizzy? Is there not proper ventilation for the building? Why are the fumes traveling all the way up here like 30 floors? Is this normal for older buildings? Does anyone have a similar experience? What did you do? Is this something I should bring up with OSHA or the EPA?