If my neighbour's smoke is getting in, will their Covid particles too?

[MiraWard1]

We have some gym equipment in our garage. Our garage is on the end of a row of 3. We have new neighbours with the garage at the other end (so there's one garage in between).

The new neighbours seem to have turned their garage into a sort of 90s pub with smoking and darts etc.

Their cigarette smoke gets into our garage, which is unpleasant at the best of times, and more so when wanting to exercise.

We can't ask them not to smoke in their own garage (though I suspect they smoke there because it's rented and not allowed to smoke in the house). We will be having some work done on ours in a few months and will have it sealed off then.

But a worrying thought struck me: if their smoke particles are seeping into our garage in concentration enough that we can smell it, would COVID particles travel in the same way.

And if they could, (as a brief google suggests, though with little evidence), would enough make it through to cause infection? (Presumably this would be exacerbated if someone was breathing hard from exercise)

Is there an expert lurking who can either validate my concern or reassure me robustly?

Smells are a lot more pervasive than virus particles. Viruses are big and heavy and need to be suspended in water droplets. Smoke smells, fart smells, all sorts of other smells can go right through all sorts of barriers and don't need to be dissolved in water. Smelling something doesn't mean the virus can get you, no.

Not an expert, but I agree with KihoBebiluPute. Early on the actual experts determined that Covid wasn't really air-borne. It will stay in the air for a moment when you breathe out and travel a few feet if you cough, but that's it.

Google tells me cughing and sneezing produces droplets aprox 5microns in diameter.
Smoke from cigarettes is 0.1-1micron in diameter.

I would imagine the covid would settle much faster, and probably fall down, rather than rise up and over the dividing wall (I'm assuming your garage is like mine, with the roof space not sealed between thecseperate units).

@KihoBebiluPute

Smells are a lot more pervasive than virus particles. Viruses are big and heavy and need to be suspended in water droplets. Smoke smells, fart smells, all sorts of other smells can go right through all sorts of barriers and don't need to be dissolved in water. Smelling something doesn't mean the virus can get you, no.

This is what I thought; that smoke particles are much tinier than the droplets that virus particles are in.

But, that smoke has been in someone lungs before it billows into our garage...

@TierFourTears

Google tells me cughing and sneezing produces droplets aprox 5microns in diameter. Smoke from cigarettes is 0.1-1micron in diameter.

I would imagine the covid would settle much faster, and probably fall down, rather than rise up and over the dividing wall (I'm assuming your garage is like mine, with the roof space not sealed between thecseperate units).

Thanks for this. And yes, I presume that's the issue.

@LastTrainEast

Not an expert, but I agree with KihoBebiluPute. Early on the actual experts determined that Covid wasn't really air-borne. It will stay in the air for a moment when you breathe out and travel a few feet if you cough, but that's it.

I think this has moved on some and I think it's a bit more accepted that aerosolised airborne particles are much more involved in transmission than formites on surfaces.

I think there'll definitely be more door-open gym action till we can get it sealed. Which rather negates the point of it being (sort of) inside exercise in January.

Thanks all for your contributions.

Spoken to a scientist friend whom pointed out that water droplets nucleate around smoke or dust particles.

And since this smoke is coming out of someone's lungs, it's not unreasonable to expect that droplets from their lungs could be carried on these particles. And bring their Covid particles too.

The door got left open tonight (the door into our garden). I just went out to close it and despite being open ("ventilated") it still stinks of smoke. 🤢

All of that relies on them actually having covid doesn't it... do they? Why are you so worried about this? It seems a little.... irrational if I'm being totally honest. Are you particularly vulnerable?

You seem very keen for this to be a risk? Bit confused.

@TrustTheGeneGenie

All of that relies on them actually having covid doesn't it... do they? Why are you so worried about this? It seems a little.... irrational if I'm being totally honest. Are you particularly vulnerable?

I don't know that they don't. And maybe they don't know they have it. There is an incubation period...

But the smoke has been in their lungs, and it is filling up my exercise space, so if they did have it, it could theoretically be getting through with the smoke.

There is a pandemic on, yes I'm concerned. Maybe if more people were as "irrational" as me we wouldn't all be locked down with 100,000 people dead.

But mostly, I'm allowed to be worried without you belittling and gaslighting me.

@tatutata

You seem very keen for this to be a risk? Bit confused.

You seem very keen to dismiss this potential risk. Bit confused.

Having this level of fear about covid is concerning.

It is extremely unlikely that a high enough viral load will drift in to your house in this manner. There is a reason for 2m distancing being a thing.

I think this is a healthy level of fear. There's quite a high rate of "long Covid" which I'd quite like to avoid.

It might be unlikely, but I don't think it's impossible. Though the larger health risk is probably from their second hand smoke.

Besides, I think the 2m distancing is redundant if you're in an enclosed space in which aerosols can gather. The neighbours seem to be hotboxing their garage which is seeping into ours. I think the point of the 2m distancing is invalidated by the concentration of particles they're generating. And as I said, moisture particularly nucleating around smoke particles means those smoke particles could facilitate the more widespread distribution of virus. Into my garage.

Ok so you're convinced its a risk, why bother asking? You can't ask someone to not smoke on their own premises so don't use your garage at the same time I guess. Or keep the door open when you're using it. Honestly, the chances of the virus transporting that far on a smell/tiny amount of smoke particles are close to zero lol

It's extremely, extremely unlikely that you will get covid in this way. As you acknowledge, the second hand smoke is likely a bigger risk. As is getting injured falling down some stairs. Life must come with risks to be worth living. It's a shame that the risk of the smoke drifting in has no benefits to you. But it is so incredibly miniscule.

I don't think that level of fear is healthy actually. As someone with a long and very traumatic history of OCD and severe anxiety, if I found myself feeling worried over this particular issue, I would be concerned for my mental wellbeing.

If you think about every single thing that could possibly be a risk you'll drive yourself round the twist and I speak from experience (I did this long before covid was a thing!!!).

your breath will be getting into their garage too. .

But, that smoke has been in someone lungs before it billows into our garage...

But the smoke has been in their lungs, and it is filling up my exercise space,

Really? From two doors away? Billowing?

I used to live in a brewing town. The whole town smelt when they were brewing. So yes, smells travel far but smoke/covid particles are unlikely to make it into your garage from two houses away I'd have thought.

The short answer is yes (the virus can move from them to you). However whether it could do so in quantities large enough to infect someone, esp in an airy garage, is debatable. There have been cases in apartment blocks where virus particles were found to travel and infect people in different flats via the bathroom plumbing/ ventilation system which was somehow interconnected but that was virus moving from one small enclosed space to another.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/29/everyday-covid-mistakes-we-are-all-still-making
This suggests we should be worried if we can smell one ones cigarette smoke

This suggests we should be worried if we can smell one ones cigarette smoke

In the context of that article, that's in the context of you standing close enough to someone someone to be able to smell it. It isn't saying you can literally catch it from smoke. A very important distinction.

Forgive me, I haven't read the links (won't open properly on my phone) but doesn't this mean that they are also at risk from your breath? So if you're chuffing away in the garage they would be just as much at risk as you are from them puffing away?

Maybe they are as much at risk from me, but I know where I've been. I don't know where they've been (but I do know they're not following 'the rules').

We'll go in there for maybe an hour to exercise, they seem to be in their garage for hours of an evening, filling the place up with smoke.

When they're smoking in their garage, the concentration of smoke suggests they very much are in an enclosed space, it is filling another garage between the two and coming into ours. It's collecting even with our door being left open.

We know the official messaging is obscured and oversimplified to fit the government's narrative and to shift blame from them to the individual. We know that ventilation is important because aerosolised particles can build up in an enclosed space. Like a garage. Rendering the 2m thing irrelevant.

I suppose we'll just have to try to avoid using our garage when they're using theirs.

And no, there's nothing wrong with my mental health. To suggest so is pretty rude to people with actual mental health conditions. I'd say this is a normal, back of the mind query in the middle of a pandemic. I'm not sitting here rocking and screaming.

And, for the wilfully obstinate, I'd had a google when I first posted, but couldn't find anything concrete either way. So asked here, because I know that there are a whole range of clever (and not so clever, evidently) women here.

But, I understand that if I am right to be worried about this, it might mean that you're not as safe as you thought. And it's easier to mock me for being concerned rather than consider yourself at greater risk and possibly part of the reason the virus has spread so much.

And no, there's nothing wrong with my mental health. To suggest so is pretty rude to people with actual mental health conditions. I'd say this is a normal, back of the mind query in the middle of a pandemic. I'm not sitting here rocking and screaming.

Not nearly as rude as you suggesting that people with mental health conditions are all ‘rocking and screaming’