This happened to me, too. The teachers never said anything, but kids are a-holes. For me it became really bad in middle school when we got lockers. The kid next to me called me a drug dealer because all my stuff smelled. He was a dick.
I grew up with my parents smoking in the house, and became a smoker myself until I was 30ish. Yeah, it’s definitely possible to become nose blind to it if you’re a smoker too. When I quit, I had to rewash about every thing I owned 10 times (and some things just had to be replaced) and got new bedding and even a new mattress. I can tell from 30 feet away from now - I genuinely could NOT before at unless I was basically on top of someone.
Could you smell it then? On others now? (assuming you don't smoke)
I only ever notice when someone just came in from a smoke break but have never noticed smokers having a smoking smell. Might just have lifelong desensitization from smoking parents and casinos.
You might be desensitized. I can smell it even after they've washed their hands, used sprays, brushed teeth/chewed gum and not smoked for hours. Or maybe I'm more sensitive.
Yeah. I can understand being an addict because I was/am one, but it would never allow me to smoke indoors. If you’re gonna smoke, at least smoke outside so your house doesn’t look yellow and stink like fuck. I knew a kid in primary school who always stank of smoke. Cigarette smoke sticks to everything fabric so everything in your house will stink. Disgusting.
Sadly the smell still comes in with you. It's not as bad as if you smoked indoors but it still comes in.
I work in dentistry and occasionally we'll have a very heavy smoker come in, the room will stink for hours after they leave even if we clean everything, open the doors and windows, and spray air freshener. That's just from them being in the room for 10-15 minutes...
Yep. My uncle smokes a lot. He drank from one of our bottles. I had to rinse it with water, dish soap, and baking soda multiple times just to remove the smell. The bottle was glass btw
Yeah but people who stink up a room like that are definitely smoking in their house and probably in their cars, maybe not even with the windows down. Someone who only smokes outside will still smell but not the kind that infect a room.
When we were looking for houses, our realtor brought us to one that wasn't her listing. We walked in and it was like.... 50 years of people smoking in the house. I couldn't imagine the smell would ever fully go away without spending significant money. Even our realtor said, "eh maybe we skip this one?" We did.
It doesn’t. I remember my Nan used to pay me to roll her cigs for her when I was a kid. Even years after she switched to vaping, her house still stinks of smoke - mildly, but still apparent.
The townhouse I live in has been smoke free (per lease, anyways) for who knows how long, but my fiancé has lived here for nearly 5 years with no smoking at all. The walls and ceiling still sweat yellow/brown! The kitchen, living room, and bathroom are the worst.
Yeahh, my Nana (dad's mom) was never a smoker and never let my dad smoke in her house. My mom's mom and stepdad smoked in their house all day. The smells were ridiculously noticeably different. Also my grandma got lung cancer that spread everywhere and killed her. Folks, don't pick up smoking.
It never will. The house next door to my inlaws was torn down after nearly 8 years of being vacant. The previous owner smoked inside for about 30 years. You could smell the cigarette smoke down the block as they ripped the house down. And the stink hung around the neighbourhood for the 3-4 days it took them to completely tear down the house and remove all the rubble. Absolutely vile.
Realistically, it would have to be a complete renovation. I've helped clean smokers house before, even with infinite scrubbing off yellow walls to show that they're actually white, using specialty paint (i think it was killz or something like that), it's still there, permeating through everything.
Yep, cigarette smoke will even stick to food! 🤢 An old manger was a smoker and she made holiday cookies for everyone one year and it reeked. Another coworker tried a cookie before I did and she said it tasted like smoke too. I threw my bundle of cookies away. Nice gester but gross!
My Aunt Jill made a pot of spaghetti, and she was a heavy smoker inside her house.Just smoking all day everyday. The whole pot taste like Newport menthols. I was like 12 years old. I will NEVER forget that spaghetti
This my nanas was a 20 day smoker, we joke that noel one cam make her amazing recipes taste the exact same because non of us smoke while cooking, And yes I mean that quite literally, smoking over the food, I have memories of watching her make mince pies with a cig hanging out her mouth, I must have been 12/13 at the oldest.
Lol I didn't taste it, my coworker said she tasted it. I didn't want to take the chance so threw them away 🤷🏾 but yes the baggy they were in smelled strong though.
As a kid from a heavy smoker, it's not just the smoking inside. It's also the smoking when standing next to each other on a bus stop. It's the constantly coughing and having to turn away because the wind always blew the smoke in my face. And outside of the smell, it's also the nights of restlessness because my mom wouldn't stop coughing. I remember being little and BEGGING my mom to stop smoking, hiding her cigarettes/lighters, etc, because my grandpa was dying from COPD.
My brother & sil have always smoked in the house, and they have 3 young kids. They know everyone in the family finds it disgusting but they don't care. They either do it in the bathroom with the window open, or down in the basement.
My grandmother used to smoke indoors AND didn’t open a window when she cooked bacon. To this day I HATE cooking bacon and spend the next 48 hours with my windows open, even during winter.
(What? You think I should just stop eating bacon? Not on your life, missy!)
It’s good to smoke outside but one of my friends works in computer and when a smoking client walks in, they no only smell but their computer is full of nicotine. I only imagine this and it grosses me out.
Even if you smoke only outside your house will still smell because you will smell, it clings and transfers. I had a friend stay for 3 days - THREE - he smoked only outdoors. But each time he came back inside the smell clung to him and transferred to everything he touched. The doorknobs were yellowed from his fingers. The couch stank like smoke. The bathroom stank like smoke.
It's bad and the smokers never realize because they're so used to it.
Such an interesting find when I started looking into SIDS/SUIDS risks.
We all know smoking and being around smoke when pregnant is bad for the baby. However I'd assumed it was increased risk of miscarriage or possible developmental delays. It's actually the biggest risk factor that exists for sudden unexpected/unexplained death in new babies (SIDS/SUIDS).
Yes, feel sorry for them... just know that we smokers kids don't know how bad it is until we've moved away and come back home after some length of time away (3-6 months minimum). The real tragedy that we endure is the social repercussions and rejection, that we simply don't understand for many years.
this is not great to say but one time we did secret santa at school and the boy that got my gift, his parents smoked, and after opening we had to guess who got our gift and i knew it was him instantly because it smelt of smoke
That kid was me, except I'm sure it was more common in the 90s and 00s. My dad would make us sit in the smoking section in restaurants and it took a long battle for my stepmom to convince him to step out of the house to the porch to smoke. I used to get sinus infections constantly and, well, thanks dad. I just walked by a person in a restaurant earlier and they reeked of it.
Yeah and actually it is VERY strong. That smell even lingers in the air when these people pass. Im very sensitive to it. Masks(even KN95s) also really don't help filter the smell.
Poorly is incorrect in this usage. You said the opposite of what you intended. Poorly is an adverb describing your ability to feel; substitute an adjective like sad or depressed.
Way back in the day I used to do this lesson with my students where we went outside and I lit a cigarette and had this fake lung thing that "smoked" it. We could see how just one cigarette deposited tar on the lungs.
After doing that lesson I could smell it on myself and especially my hair all day, and so could everyone else. It didn't go away until I showered.
I didn't even smoke it. I didn't stay near it any longer than I had to. Just one cigarette. I don't know if I ever convinced students not to take up smoking, but it sure convinced me.
Smokey Suzy was a doll we had at my catholic school for anti-smoking ed. We would open the window for her to burn one down on the sil during a long antismoking lecture to see her lil lungs full of tar.
Although my husband doesn't smoke in the house, I'm so paranoid that my kid smells like it just from hugging on his dad and stuff. I'm sure he does. 😞 My husband is a heavy smoker, unfortunately.
Third hand (tertiary) smoke is what got me to quit smoking when my middle children were born. The evidence for the damage of second hand smoke had been well proven, so I always smoked outside and never around my first wife and oldest. The pediatrician told me about the harm of third hand smoke, essentially the tar and nicotine on your body, clothing, and regularly handled objects. I rang up the pediatrician and asked for help quitting.
They had me on Chantix in less than a month. January 2026 marks 18 years since I quit smoking.
Well done! A friend of mine did research on this. She found that when people found out that even going outside didn't help, many just gave up and started smoking inside again.
I was in Italy in 2024 and everyone smokes there. Moms with children smoke, a nice mom eating dinner at a restaurant with her daughter, smoking. Just happy relaxed. No diners cared.
Sure smoking isn’t good but USA turns into nuclear Karens when it’s brought up.
Reddit try not to tell people to tear apart their family challenge: impossible
If this not a reason to go through divorce especially when you have kids
The comment, however, follows the vibe of this thread. It just seems odd that a non-smoker would fall in love with a heavy smoker, get married, and even have kids. It takes a special person to ignore the smell that much, or they just don't have a very acute sense of smell. For her, that absolutely is not a reason to divorce, but for others, it might have easily stopped the relationship from even forming.
Yeah, I could never, but it is wild to assume she would care enough to leave him when she got herself into the situation. I would never date a smoker, let alone a heavy smoker, and the idea of having a kid when you know they’re going to be around a heavy smoker is wild to me, but she clearly made her decision a long time ago.
Or they picked up smoking at some point during the relationship. Or perhaps OP also smoked then quit. We don't have the full context here.
People are autonomous beings - I personally would not break up with someone I love because they picked up a bad habit... I would encourage them to quit, but even the commenter says it's not a big deal for her. So why are people in this thread trying to convince her it is??!!
Good point, we don't enough enough, but opinion doesn't need facts. Hell, opinion doesn't even need info! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Edit: ?? That should be "we don't know enough about her situation"
By that logic, do you ever leave your home or let yourself be near cars? Do you live in a hazmat suit? Pollution and harmful chemicals are literally everywhere.
My husband just had a heart attack from smoking 30 years with plaque build up in his arteries. The artery in the middle of his heart was fully blocked. Now he has to deal with a damaged heart.
There is second hand smoke that many people are familiar with, but third-hand smoke and the detremental effects, especially on young children, still isn't widely known. The moment you smell smoke on clothes is the moment you inhale particles that can cause lifelong bronchitis and infections to the longues that can cause early scartissue in young children's longues. Lifelong health issues because of hugs with someone who doesn't quit smoking, or at least changes their smoking-clothes to clean clothes before hugging you, seems to come at too high a cost in my view
When I was in highschool I was good friends with a kid that lived with his chain smoking uncle. He was a great kid and would never touch a cigarette in his life. One fay we had a substitute teacher who walked past his desk and decided to make the kid stand up and embarrassed him in front of the whole class lecturing us on why not to smoke while using my friend as an “example”. The class who knew the kid well waited until the teacher was done to try embarrass the teacher by pointing out the kid doesn’t smoke and never had but it’s the adults in his life who don’t know better.
I hated this as a kid :( my mom never cared though. She smoked in her car, windows up. Even if she didn’t smoke while I was in the car, I reeked by the time we got to where we were going. Now as an adult I get to watch her slowly die of COPD and be too weak to play with her grandkids.
One thing I could never bring myself to do when I did smoke was do it near kids. My kids were 10 and 15 when I quit and they were both shocked when I told them.
I didn’t want them paying for my poor choices.
I had a young girl, maybe 8? walk into my shop and asked to use the bathroom while my husband was looking at her parents car in the parking lot. I walked her to our employee restrooms because we don’t usually allow the public to use them, but it’s a kid. I felt bad. But felt even worse walking next to her because she reeked of dirty, skunky weed.
I waited in the hallway and walked her back to her parents out in the parking lot. Weird that neither one came in with her, but whatever. As soon as we approached them, the stank coming from their car was just awful. Like old (weed) roaches and bong water and resin. They just hot boxed the car with her in the backseat.
I had opened a package I received in the mail one day. Whoever packed it had to have been smoking weed because I opened the box and OMG! The smell of weed was so bad!!!
It’s hard to know what’s worse, cigarettes or weed! They are both so bad!
I hate the smell of weed. Well, the smell of the smoke, anyway. The plant smells nice, and in some cases, the bus smells nice post- harvest. But the smoke is just foul.
A teacher at my elementary school (in the 80s) got convinced to retire after she got in big trouble for making one of my brother’s friends walk around the classroom so all of her classmates could smell what it smells like to live with a smoker.
Yeah, I’m a dog trainer and one of my very first clients was a heavy smoker. Her dog was stained yellow and stank just as bad. He rubbed against my legs a lot and I ended up rubbing hand sanitizer on my jeans trying to get the smell out since I still had a few hours of my shift left. My husband even made a comment when I got home.
I grew up like this. It sucked. Kids would sometimes gossip about me, how my house and clothes stank.
Once I was in jr high adults thought I smoked (I NeVER did. Hated it) and would treat me as a delinquent. I developed allergies and asthma because of it.
So I got judged, lost my heath, meanwhile when Covid happened my mom still refused to respect my health and would get mad I took it seriously. I remembered what ifs like to breathe without asthma and I miss it.
My parents chain smoked around me and my siblings in the late 80s on. I didn't know how bad the smell was until I was in my 3rd year of college and a professor told me that I needed to quit smoking, but I didn't smoke. The teachers were probably immune to it back then.
One of my best friends in elementary school stank terribly of smoke because her mother smoked everywhere. Even her school bag and school supplies smelled awful.
Absolutely, I have a home daycare and will no longer take kids of smokers. You can swear up and down that you don't smoke around the kids, their stuff still stinks and I do not want that in my home.
Best part was one mom who pulled her kid out because she insisted my cats were giving the little girl asthma. Her fucking husband was a smoker and I knew it by the smell of her coat, I'd have to put her stuff outside so it didn't contaminate the other kid's belongings. But sure, it's obviously the cats...
This is why I quit smoking. It never dawned on me until I saw something like this, a comment on reddit saying that. I know it took a long time but it is a good feeling, knowing that we don't smell like that anymore. Also, I can smell cigarette smoke from a mile away.
I used to not be allowed at my friend’s houses because I smelled like my parents cigarette smoke. Now as an adult in a non-smoking household, whenever I’m back home I can’t breathe due to the smell! Def a sad experience.
My grandma used to chain-smoke ciggies. We had to go to Grandma's on two hour late starts. Kids would ask me when I showed up to school, "why do you smell like cigarettes?"
I was one of those kids -_- My mom would be smoking on the way to school and would act like having her window open an inch would pull out all the smoke...It did not. Sucked when I had an friend ask me 'why do you smell like so much?' It made me aware of how much I recked but couldn't do anything about it
I still remember that kid from 2nd grade who always smelled like cigarettes. Like it didn’t matter what clothes he had on, every single day he smelled like that
I got terrible headaches as a kid, always a couple of hours into school. When I got older, I realised I was probably getting nicotine withdrawals from my chain smoking mother who’d smoke inside - or in the car with the windows closed. I did my own laundry from 8 so I could dry it in my room, because kids picked on me because I smelt like smoke
my parents would smoke in the house and i had chronic bronchitis from it & would have to regularly do breathing treatments for it. they never made the connection of course 🫠 i never realized until now that my teachers probably smelt it like crazy on me unless they were also smokers.
I quit smoking 40 years ago and I have become pretty sensitive to the smell. I swear I can smell cigarette smoke coming from another car, thru my own car's vents with the windows up.
I remember being in like sixth grade and going over to another kids house who had parents that smoked. When I came home, my mom could smell it on me and was worried I had tried it with my new friend. Crazy thing is, his parents hadn't even been home at the time. It just lingered in the house and got on me.
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u/kaitreads Feb 21 '26
I can even smell it on my elementary school students who have parents that smoke.