to not 'get' air fresheners?

[MousyMouse]

• most of them they stink
• are unhealthy
• no, that is not the fresh smell of a spring meadow
• they give me a headache
• are a fire risk (the plug in ones)

ffs open the windows and let air in.

I am conflicted. I hate plug ins but I would rather smell 'Cool Linen' or whatever than go in a house and smell old stale cigarette smoke. So I think they are the lesser of two evils in a smokers house.

As for my house, it's clean and I have windows open all the time, but there is an indefinable musky smell in the front room quite often. As soon as I close the windows it comes back immediately. I am beginning to think it is just the smell of the leather furniture. So I use a nice reed diffuser.

I prefer the house to smell of fresh air and have windows ajar most of the time.

But recently our cat has been coming back into the house just to use the litter tray (filled with pine pellets) so I've put a plug in of vanilla / amber next to the litter tray and after I've emptied it, I put the plug in on for half an hour. Even though the window is ajar the smell settles in the corner of the dining room.

Why is there never a good place to put a cat litter tray?

No Ivana, that's the thing. Like I said, I just get faces and claims that there is no smell!

I'm not bonkers (well, maybe a bit, but it's real! I can actually TASTE it!)

I must just have a far keener sense of smell or a dead rat up my nose

I don't get them either.

I open the windows. Or in really bad cases, burn a "naice" scented candle.

I hate the smell of air fresheners. Even worse is the smell of air freshener mingled with the nasty smell it's supposed to mask. Urghhhh. They make me sick.

Also, I can't stand that they make things like washing up liquid so smelly. Yuck.

I find that cleaning products (even the ones I use - I always go for the least-scented possible) tend to clear up house-smells when I use them. Other than that I open the windows.

That said, I like putting perfume on me. And I use quite a lot of essential oils here and there.

I have a reed diffuser in the downstairs loo as there are no windows. Other than that I air the house daily and clean obviously. We do however have some febreeze air spray that I love the smell of so I squirt that around about once a week although normally when the windows are already open! Lol I am weird though!

Candles are better if you really can't bring yourself to open a window.

MoChan - likewise with laundry products! It got to a point when I opened a new box of Persil that I'd be actually reeling from the strength of the perfume smell!
The stuff I use now (in Australia) is virtually unperfumed, which I much prefer - but whenever I go back to my Dad's in the UK and use his stuff, I'm shocked at how much my clothes smell of laundry products afterwards (using recommended amounts, I hasten to add).

Air fresheners, especially those God awful plug in ones, smell like the rotting corpse of a Care Bear. Plus they're a fire hazard. Do not use plug in air fresheners!

Open your windows, keep your home clean and burn some bee-yoo-tiful essential oils. I love burning essential oils.

I just checked and the ones with the plug are £5 for a 'starter kit' and £4 for a refill. if you have them going the whole time do they last, what two weeks tops? that's 26 x £4. £100 a year!

The adverts prey on insecurities and are pretty obviously aimed at making you insecure about what people will think of you if your house is not 'fragranced' to the hilt. Its also clear that air freshener adverts are aimed at consumers who could spend £100 on better things. its terrible.

I can tell if there's one in the room. Not by the fresh scent (because it's generally not) but by the itching in my back of my throat and my streaming eyes.

They're really bad for the lungs. Also the plug in ones are dangerous for small pets like birds in cages etc. They can kill them!

I have asthma and I can't be in the same room as one. The car ones are also VILE, when I was pregnant I couldn't get into DP's car as he had one, I was fit to vomit as it smelled so toxic!

I wuld rather smell a nice airfreshner any day than the pungent odours my DH produces on a regular basis thats for sure. No amount of open windows would get rid of that!

In my old job they got a new cleaner who put plug in ones in the main corridor. None of us knew why as it didn't smell and was in regular use so not a musty corner somewhere that never had airflow.

Every time we walked down the corridor we switched them off but someone kept switching them back on. We even unplugged them but someone kept putting them back in. We had already complained to our manager that they were making us feel sick and it was only when an asthmatic said it was affecting her breathing that they agreed to get rid of them.

I have a fetish for Yankee candles and method cleaning products..

But I think air fresheners are awful. In a share house my housemate bought one from pound land that smelled worse than the big smelly shits she tried to mask.

Method cleaning stuff is lovely arthur.

Isn't it Sparkling?
I love the lavender cleaning spray. I find it lasts longer too and so is worth the higher price.

I like the lavender one, and I have the tub and tile blue one for the bathroom. It is a bit ££ but it lasts ages, and smells fab.

And it doesn't bleach your clothes when you waft it around too enthusiastically. not like some spray cleaners we could mention

Hecate - can you smell it anywhere else - or just at home?? I only ask because there are various medical conditions that present with the first symptoms being the smell of hot dust/paper.....

thumbwitch - Oh, so glad it's not just me. I buy Surcare washing powder, which is unscented (I think it's made for people with allergies). The smell of normal washing powder nearly knocks me out. Sometimes my MIL washes clothes for us when we are at their house, and the smell of just one wash takes MONTHS to fade. Drives me nuts.

Washing up liquid though. Urg. Can't stand it when you put a pan on the stove and the smell of Fairy comes rising up at you. And I should add at this point that I'm an avid rinser. I rinse and rinse and rinse. So it's not because I'm not rinsing. Luckily I discovered that Surcare do washing up liquid too. If I can't get that, the eco brands aren't too smelly either...

What's the solution for a loo with no window? I considered sending DH to use the public toilets in the village whenever he needed a number 2, but I had second thoughts as I can't inflict that smell on the unsuspecting public ...

Leave a box of matches in the windowless toilet. Burning a match should clear any bum smells.

Thanks. Have matches. Will try!

I used to love air fresheners, especially the plug in ones. Then I met my (very mildly, not had an attack for 20 years) asthmatic dh and had to stop using them all as he convinced me that they weren't good for his chest. I was a bit about it and thought he just didn't like them, so I bought a plug in one and stuck it in. That evening he had to go to A&E because his chest became so tight (I did unplug it when I realised). While he was there they did some tests on him and his oxygen levels were dangerously low.

I'll never ever use one again. If they can have that effect on someone it's not worth it. Now I open windows and use fragrance-less cleaning things wherever I can.