Day 567: And another bother
Oct. 5th, 2021 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve_primeI spent late last night and much of today dealing with a strange chemical problem in my bedroom, and it's too late at night now for me to write about it. I think everything's okay? Maybe more later.
Okay, here's my synopsis. On Monday night, I entered my bedroom and there was a noticeable odor - nice, actually, a bit like fermenting apples, but since I get a sore throat from almost any sort of fragrance (or rather, the chemicals producing the fragrance), I was concerned.
D. had just finished showering in the attached master bathroom, so my first guess was that the formulation of his shampoo must have changed. I have completely unscented shampoo, but D&J both prefer using commercial products, and there's a "fragrance-free" shampoo that they've been using for years. It's not actually "fragrance-free," it just doesn't have products specified as "fragrance" added. Rather, it has botanicals like aloe vera, some lavender I think, and something else. Anyway, it's mild and dissipates quickly so I don't mind, as long as it's not on my own hair. But the formulation has changed in the past so I thought it might have changed again.
I ordered some fully unscented shampoo and conditioner for him online, and I turned up the air purifier. I normally have the air purifier set at 1 (lowest of 10), but I increased it to 5. I've used it daily since I got it in July, except for the previous three days, but not overnight because it seems to dry out the air in the room too much and that gave me a headache.
I then packed up my pillows and such and went to J's house. He'd already gone to bed but I figured I could sleep in his Magic card room. I banged about a bit, moving a ladder into the room so I could tie a blanket over the window (much too bright in there for me otherwise, once the sun comes up), hung my "do not disturb" sign on the door, left him a note on his computer, and sent him Skype messages that he'd see when he got up and went to his computer in the morning for work. I slept there overnight then went back to investigate further.
As soon as I opened the bedroom door, I got a big hit of the smell. Still pleasant, but now even stronger. That wasn't consistent with it being a shampoo problem. The bathroom seemed better than the bedroom, too (I'd had the door shut). I took D's towel and the clothes I'd worn working in the yard out of the room, in case they were the culprits.
The scent problem wasn't happening in the other rooms, so it probably wasn't from something outside (all vents would have had it), or something that D. had introduced into the bathroom (it would have shown up in his bedroom and bathroom too, surely). I looked outside anyway, even though it was raining, and the neighbors had not left a random pile of rotting apples near my bedroom window (no surprise).
The internet had several wacky ideas for what would make a sweet or fruity smell in a specific room: some sort of weird mold flare-up, some sort of insect infestation, a dead mouse, a haunting...
To finish ruling out the shampoo, I did a test. I got D's shampoo and conditioner and J's shampoo (the same brand but opened much longer ago) and sniffed them each outside. The two shampoos seemed identical (as they would, being from the same batch, ha), and the conditioner milder, and none of them was the scent from the room. J. tried it as well, blind as to which bottle was which, and concurred. (That's good news for both of them.)
Meanwhile, the room still wasn't improving. I found an unopened chocolate bar and put it in the freezer. Then I got J. to come over and see what he thought, mostly to make sure it wasn't some weird perception unique to myself. He definitely smelled it too, and to him it smelled like the kind of alcohol-fruit combination you'd find inside like, for example, a cherry cordial or other candy. Armed with this insight, I dug deeper. Under the bed, where I hide Christmas presents, I found the last two packages from Z's toffee-making business. In a drawer in the vanity where I have some keepsakes, I found two small tins of very potent herbal tea. Neither of those smelled like the smell I was trying to identify (and at this point, years later, the toffee didn't smell like much at all and went off to the garbage bin).
Then I decided the air purifier was probably distributing the scent around the room more than I'd like, so I turned it off. I fed the cats and watched a Perry Mason episode out in the livingroom. When I entered the room again, the smell was greatly diminished.
My air purifier! :(
Today I turned it on before going out on errands, and it was doing that same thing when I returned. So I turned it off again.
Last night, after making this discovery, I looked online and found several instances of people reporting that their Dyson Pure Cool unit was making a sweet, yeasty, or alcohol-like smell, and each time the Dyson people said that had never been reported before. So I'll have to investigate further.
I have no idea what sort of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) these are, but the unit's VOC meter doesn't appear to detect them, and it's probably much milder than the categories that bother me, like those in evergreen trees, roses, daisies, etc. It's more like a sweet version of ethanol. I have no idea if that would affect my breathing.
Some other day I'll see if the machine needs cleaning or something. I mean, it was fine for three months; it wasn't until I turned it off that it developed this problem. Did it collect too much dust in those three days? Weird.
Okay, here's my synopsis. On Monday night, I entered my bedroom and there was a noticeable odor - nice, actually, a bit like fermenting apples, but since I get a sore throat from almost any sort of fragrance (or rather, the chemicals producing the fragrance), I was concerned.
D. had just finished showering in the attached master bathroom, so my first guess was that the formulation of his shampoo must have changed. I have completely unscented shampoo, but D&J both prefer using commercial products, and there's a "fragrance-free" shampoo that they've been using for years. It's not actually "fragrance-free," it just doesn't have products specified as "fragrance" added. Rather, it has botanicals like aloe vera, some lavender I think, and something else. Anyway, it's mild and dissipates quickly so I don't mind, as long as it's not on my own hair. But the formulation has changed in the past so I thought it might have changed again.
I ordered some fully unscented shampoo and conditioner for him online, and I turned up the air purifier. I normally have the air purifier set at 1 (lowest of 10), but I increased it to 5. I've used it daily since I got it in July, except for the previous three days, but not overnight because it seems to dry out the air in the room too much and that gave me a headache.
I then packed up my pillows and such and went to J's house. He'd already gone to bed but I figured I could sleep in his Magic card room. I banged about a bit, moving a ladder into the room so I could tie a blanket over the window (much too bright in there for me otherwise, once the sun comes up), hung my "do not disturb" sign on the door, left him a note on his computer, and sent him Skype messages that he'd see when he got up and went to his computer in the morning for work. I slept there overnight then went back to investigate further.
As soon as I opened the bedroom door, I got a big hit of the smell. Still pleasant, but now even stronger. That wasn't consistent with it being a shampoo problem. The bathroom seemed better than the bedroom, too (I'd had the door shut). I took D's towel and the clothes I'd worn working in the yard out of the room, in case they were the culprits.
The scent problem wasn't happening in the other rooms, so it probably wasn't from something outside (all vents would have had it), or something that D. had introduced into the bathroom (it would have shown up in his bedroom and bathroom too, surely). I looked outside anyway, even though it was raining, and the neighbors had not left a random pile of rotting apples near my bedroom window (no surprise).
The internet had several wacky ideas for what would make a sweet or fruity smell in a specific room: some sort of weird mold flare-up, some sort of insect infestation, a dead mouse, a haunting...
To finish ruling out the shampoo, I did a test. I got D's shampoo and conditioner and J's shampoo (the same brand but opened much longer ago) and sniffed them each outside. The two shampoos seemed identical (as they would, being from the same batch, ha), and the conditioner milder, and none of them was the scent from the room. J. tried it as well, blind as to which bottle was which, and concurred. (That's good news for both of them.)
Meanwhile, the room still wasn't improving. I found an unopened chocolate bar and put it in the freezer. Then I got J. to come over and see what he thought, mostly to make sure it wasn't some weird perception unique to myself. He definitely smelled it too, and to him it smelled like the kind of alcohol-fruit combination you'd find inside like, for example, a cherry cordial or other candy. Armed with this insight, I dug deeper. Under the bed, where I hide Christmas presents, I found the last two packages from Z's toffee-making business. In a drawer in the vanity where I have some keepsakes, I found two small tins of very potent herbal tea. Neither of those smelled like the smell I was trying to identify (and at this point, years later, the toffee didn't smell like much at all and went off to the garbage bin).
Then I decided the air purifier was probably distributing the scent around the room more than I'd like, so I turned it off. I fed the cats and watched a Perry Mason episode out in the livingroom. When I entered the room again, the smell was greatly diminished.
My air purifier! :(
Today I turned it on before going out on errands, and it was doing that same thing when I returned. So I turned it off again.
Last night, after making this discovery, I looked online and found several instances of people reporting that their Dyson Pure Cool unit was making a sweet, yeasty, or alcohol-like smell, and each time the Dyson people said that had never been reported before. So I'll have to investigate further.
I have no idea what sort of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) these are, but the unit's VOC meter doesn't appear to detect them, and it's probably much milder than the categories that bother me, like those in evergreen trees, roses, daisies, etc. It's more like a sweet version of ethanol. I have no idea if that would affect my breathing.
Some other day I'll see if the machine needs cleaning or something. I mean, it was fine for three months; it wasn't until I turned it off that it developed this problem. Did it collect too much dust in those three days? Weird.