Smoke smell vs secondhand

[chawke]

I live on a first-floor apartment right near the building entrance where the smell of smoke from tenants smoking near or at the entrance enters my apartment through the front window or door. I've made efforts to mitigate this issue including by sealing the window, using an air purifier and spraying Febreze, but none of these completely help and the latter two don't prevent the smell from entering in the first place. I'm considering making a suggestion to the board to have tenants smoke further away from the building.

In the meantime I'd like to know: how much does the smell of smoke correlate with secondhand smoke in terms of harmful chemicals etc? I read there is not necessarily a correlation, so am wondering to what degree the smell of smoke entering my room multiple times a day would correlate with actual harm over the longterm.

[StringJunky]

How far away from the window and door are the smokers, typically?

Edited April 29, 2020 by StringJunky

[chawke]

50 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

How far away from the window and door are the smokers, typically?

They are roughly 5-8 feet away from my window and 10-11 feet away from my door depending on where they are standing, based on the room and building measurements. On top of that, in this particular room in my apartment (currently my bedroom) I usually sleep/lie around 5-10 feet from the window and 8-9 feet from the door. I put an air purifier directly in front of the window (1.5 feet away) which I run for at least 30 minutes when I smell smoke and verify there is a smoker outside.

Edited April 29, 2020 by chawke

[StringJunky]

4 hours ago, chawke said:

They are roughly 5-8 feet away from my window and 10-11 feet away from my door depending on where they are standing, based on the room and building measurements. On top of that, in this particular room in my apartment (currently my bedroom) I usually sleep/lie around 5-10 feet from the window and 8-9 feet from the door. I put an air purifier directly in front of the window (1.5 feet away) which I run for at least 30 minutes when I smell smoke and verify there is a smoker outside.

Yes, that's too close. Aside from bringing it up with the board, which should be explored, have you put draught strip around the external door and a brush strip on the bottom?

[chawke]

On 4/29/2020 at 6:18 PM, StringJunky said:

Yes, that's too close. Aside from bringing it up with the board, which should be explored, have you put draught strip around the external door and a brush strip on the bottom?

Not yet, something to eventually do. Most of the smoke seems to be entering through the closed window however. Until I figure out how to completely shield my room from smokers outside, are there any studies that examine the extent to which the smell of smoke correlates with secondhand smoke? The most I've found is a sentence from this page: https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/By_the_way_doctor_Is_the_smell_of_cigarettes_the_same_as_secondhand_smoke

[StringJunky]

15 minutes ago, chawke said:

Not yet, something to eventually do. Most of the smoke seems to be entering through the closed window however. Until I figure out how to completely shield my room from smokers outside, are there any studies that examine the extent to which the smell of smoke correlates with secondhand smoke? The most I've found is a sentence from this page: https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/By_the_way_doctor_Is_the_smell_of_cigarettes_the_same_as_secondhand_smoke

If you can smell smoke inside the particles are getting in, I would have thought. If someone actually smoked in a room, that would deposit condensed vapour on the surfaces, which would emit an odour and that would linger for a long time.

Edited May 7, 2020 by StringJunky

[chawke]

Well I've sealed the apartment door and windows using stripping, and had brought up the issue with the board who've long since put signs up telling smokers to not smoke on the stoop (in fact the chairman said not to do so to one smoker in particular who regularly smoked at this location); but still, smokers, including at least said resident who continues to smoke there multiple times daily or close to daily, lead to whiffs of smoke smell entering my apartment, which seem to mainly enter through the front window even when it's visibly fully closed.

Again, I'm not sure how much actual secondhand smoke this smell correlates with (still missing scientific studies on this) and whether the amount is significant over the longterm, but in any case I'm restricting opening of this window (for air circulation) to late night / early morning due to the smoking mainly occurring during the day and early evening, although as I said this doesn't fully prevent the smell from entering the window.

[CharonY]

On 4/29/2020 at 10:45 AM, chawke said:

In the meantime I'd like to know: how much does the smell of smoke correlate with secondhand smoke in terms of harmful chemicals etc? I read there is not necessarily a correlation, so am wondering to what degree the smell of smoke entering my room multiple times a day would correlate with actual harm over the longterm.

So are you wondering whether you are exposed to secondhand smoke if you are able to smell the smoke and how much? Unfortunately it is only possible to state that yes, you are getting exposure. I do not have the lit at hand, but I remember there was an study during outdoor smoking measuring PM2.5 and while there is a decrease over distance, there were still detectable levels at ca. 9-10 m from the source.

How much and whether it is harmful depends on a lot of factors and other than measure it directly, I am not sure how to determin it.. One thing that I have seen from indoor pollution studies is that even with purifiers the air quality in homes are often astonishingly bad (e.g. due to VOCs and other compounds released from the house itself as well as trapping particles and other pollutants). However, if the smell dissipates fairly quickly after cessation, it might not accumulate.

 

Edit: there are actually PM2.5 devices for home use (often sold as indoor monitors of sorts), which could give you an estimate of exposure.