go_team

Well, they're in full swing. Right now I'm taking a break from the major cleaning project. I started with the range and the grimy grease-catching area underneath the burners (turns out the stovetop lifts up, but by the look of things no one had ever done so until Peter showed me how), and have just begun to clean the even grimier area underneath that (i.e. the oven). My hands are already cramped and the skin on them is all tender and wrinkly. But at least I have me some tea (made before I dismantled the stove, so it's cooled to an extremely drinkable temperature). At the rate I'm cleaning, though, we're probably going to have to go out for dinner, because first of all I might not be done by the time people are hungry, and secondly it's my night to cook and I'm already pretty sick of our stove, oh yes.

Anybody got any good tips for clearing a room of the smell of cigarette smoke? Turns out leaving our windows open around our smoker neighbors has led to the living room smelling a bit like an ash tray. Okay, actually more than just a bit. I might not have noticed because I'm usually in there during the day and tend to assume someone's smoking right outside (not uncommon during the day), but no. I was just letting the cat out, and the late night/early morning air outside is distinctly fresher and cleaner than the living room, and ugh. Help?

The only thing I can think of is to leave all the windows open for like a week, and hope it all airs out, except that I'd have to somehow make it so no one smokes within 100? more? feet of the windows for that time as well... blech. I guess I could use fans or something, to suck the smelly air out of the living room and blow other potentially bad smells away.... I don't know.

The worst thing about this situation is not just the cleaning, but the fact that it makes me feel like an anti-smoking nonsmoker, and one of the really obnoxious ones at that. I don't want to tell my neighbors, "No, don't smoke in your own yard" (even if it's the yard of the house we share), but I don't want my living room to smell like other people's air pollution, either. Bleh. Ok, back to sleep now. At least the smell hasn't penetrated to my bedroom (yet?) If it does, there's going to be trouble, because I really can't sleep with the smell of smoking. Gah. I don't like that this problem makes me feel like I suck. Hopefully it's just because I'm so sleepy, and everything will seem better in the morning (hopefully the cat will keep relatively quiet for another few hours... yeah, right).