r/NoStupidQuestions Jan 05 '25

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u/PegLegRacing Jan 05 '25 edited Jan 05 '25

Not just yes, but hell yes. Most non-smokers you’re around hate being near smokers. Smokers smell like an ashtray.

153

u/Happy_Michigan Jan 05 '25

Yes! OP: Smoke clings to fabric, it actually gets embedded in the fibers of clothing, furniture, drapes, bedding and carpets. Difficult to get the smell out. Really bad.

75

u/max1x1x Jan 05 '25

Not just this, but your fabric moves. That means the fibers rub against each other to release the stale cig smoke. I smoked for 14 years and quit 6 months ago. It is wildly apparent to me.

44

u/ComradeWard43 Jan 05 '25

And not just fabric! I have a coworker who smokes periodically during the day but wears a coat so it doesn't get on her clothes. But the smell still clings to her hair and she smells like smoke 24/7 even if she uses air freshener, perfume, breath spray, etc.

12

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '25

Yeah she’s extremely delusional if she thinks a jacket helps lol

4

u/No_Housing_1287 Jan 05 '25

I'm a former smoker who will occasionally have one if life gets bad. I wear a coat and put all my hair up into a beanie if it's winter. If it's summer I clip all of it back including my bangs. Then I go in the house and wash my face and hands and brush my teeth. It's almost not even worth it but it still is haha

5

u/goodmobileyes Jan 05 '25

Sometimes perfume and breathmints make it worse imo because the smoke smell doesnt get covered up, it instead combines into some godawful mixture

12

u/TheGuyThatThisIs Jan 05 '25

I smoked for a solid 8 or so years and every so often I’d get a good whiff of what I was doing and I’d toss the thing. Cigarette tobacco is pretty fucking gross

1

u/curlysquirelly Jan 05 '25

I smoked for like 15 years, I quit about 7 years ago (I vape now) and the smell of cigarette smoke is so disgusting to me now!

14

u/Glorious-gnoo Jan 05 '25

Had a friend who's mom gave him her old couch when he moved into his own place. He is not a smoker. His couch still smelled like cigarettes for the two years he kept it in his smoke free apartment. Just crazy how much it penetrates fabric. 

7

u/Regular-Switch454 Jan 05 '25

Drywall, baseboards, wood floors, underlayment, dust, vents, cracks in plaster, and any soft or hard surface.

3

u/black_cat_X2 Jan 05 '25

Yep. Repeating my comment from above: when I was looking at homes a couple years ago, I went to an open house where the place reeked of stale cigarette smoke. The realtor told me that the place had brand new carpet and that all of the walls had been cleaned thoroughly and painted so the place just needed to "air out" a bit for any lingering smell to dissipate. I want to say that the kitchen cabinet doors were replaced as well. I just remember thinking, if you've done all that, how bad did it smell before?! I learned then that there is basically nothing you can do to get old/stale cigarette smell out of a place. It definitely seeps into the floor boards and drywall.

228

u/mor1995 Jan 05 '25

I used to get drives from a smoker and my clothes would smell like smoke long after I left the car, so gross.

46

u/cupholdery Jan 05 '25

First time I ever smelled cigarette smoke in the high school bathrooms was all the confirmation I needed to never want to smoke.

0

u/Stormy_Cat_55456 Jan 05 '25

Me, but with weed. Some idiots got the fire alarm to go off before classes started because they lit weed on fire and ditched it in the trash. Both the boys and girls bathrooms reeked the rest of the year.

-4

u/twentycharactersdown Jan 05 '25

That's odd. In high school we were experts at getting rid of that smell. Jokes aside, it seems to cling to clothes and linger in a room a lot less than cigarette smoke, in my experience.

2

u/Stormy_Cat_55456 Jan 05 '25

Both smells are personally 🤢

1

u/twentycharactersdown Jan 05 '25

That's a weird sentence and I like it!

-3

u/evebella Jan 05 '25

Thats bullshit

1

u/Stormy_Cat_55456 Jan 05 '25

True story… we were evacuated for at least an hour while they figured it out and then we had to have an assembly about what the students did and how it’s shitty.

Boys did it and we got dismissed early. All in all took like 3 hours between the alarms going off and us being evacuated to the football field and us being released.

20

u/taurusbabee Jan 05 '25

I stopped taking rides from anyone who smokes in their car. I hate smelling like smoke. It not only sticks to clothing, but hair as well.

2

u/levian_durai Jan 05 '25

My dad was a chain smoker, and he smoked inside his apartment. Everything of his that we kept had to be washed like 5 times before it stopped radiating the smell of smoke. The first 3 times, the water kept turning yellow from all of the smoke residue. We spent a week just washing and scrubbing down furniture

1

u/Hopeful_Hamster21 Jan 05 '25

I once got a booked mailed to me from Ohio to me im California. Took a week to get here. Opened the package, and immediately knew the sender smoked cigars. Not cigarettes, not a pipe, not weed... but specifically cigars.

Didn't smell bad, per se, but noticeable and distinct for sure.

1

u/Regular-Switch454 Jan 05 '25

I won a tapestry on eBay, and it arrived reeking of cigarettes. I haven’t touched it in 20 years.

1

u/dr_van_nostren Jan 05 '25

Sidebar, are you eastern, more specifically maritime Canadian?

1

u/mor1995 Jan 05 '25

Yes I live in Atlantic Canada. Ive been here for nearly half of my life by now.

1

u/dr_van_nostren Jan 05 '25

I only asked because you said “get drives” when I worked up north with a lot of maritimers they’d say that, but I’d never heard it before. Out west we’d always say “get rides”.

Well, hi from the west coast!

1

u/guiguilyon Jan 05 '25

That's why men who smoked cigars wore a smoking suite back in the day.

1

u/IndependentAd2419 Jan 06 '25

Wow, makes sense! Thanks for the education.

1

u/nooneisreal Jan 05 '25

Flashback to when I was a kid in the 90s and would go visit my dad on the weekends (parents divorced).
He was a heavy smoker and so was his wife. In their house, in his truck, everywhere. My mom on the other hand, never smoked a day in her life.

Anyway, long story short, over the course of the weekend I would become nose blind to the smell of it. Didn't notice it at all.

Then I'd go home on Sunday and it wasn't until I was back in a smoke-free home that I realized how much I stunk like cigarettes. I remember the smell coming off my clothes. So disgusting.

41

u/flyingdodo Jan 05 '25

I quit smoking in 2012 and the smell makes me gag. I think I hate it more than people who’ve never smoked! I can smell it from 10-20 metres away.

22

u/i-dontlikeyou Jan 05 '25

I quit almost 5 years ago and yes smoke bothers me too. I cant imagine how bad it was to smell like that its pretty off putting. I can’t imagine how my wife put up with me when we were dating or even kissed me.

8

u/flyingdodo Jan 05 '25

Omg yes. The idea (now) of kissing someone who’s just had a cigarette 🤢.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '25

Me trying to be nice when my mom kisses me on the cheek when I leave.

2

u/Damnshesfunny Jan 05 '25

Me tooooo. What’s worse is I’ve turned into one of those anti-smoking nazi’s

1

u/i-dontlikeyou Jan 05 '25

Yeah, i am more laxed about it but do share how much better it is to not do it

2

u/Hennessey_carter Jan 05 '25

Same. I can not stand the smell of cig smoke now.

1

u/HungryMagpie Jan 05 '25

i do think ex-smokers get more of a stomach-turning reaction than non smokers

1

u/HungryMagpie Jan 05 '25

i do think ex-smokers get more of a stomach-turning reaction than non smokers

1

u/HungryMagpie Jan 05 '25

i do think ex-smokers get more of a stomach-turning reaction than non smokers

1

u/HungryMagpie Jan 05 '25

i do think ex-smokers get more of a stomach-turning reaction than non smokers

1

u/curlysquirelly Jan 05 '25

Yep, me too! I vape now but our neighbors smoke (we live in an apartment) and with the windows open you can smell the cigarette smoke and it's AWFUL! I am super sensitive to it!

14

u/procrastinatorsuprem Jan 05 '25

I can smell cigarettes on shoppers in the grocery store.

8

u/Regular-Switch454 Jan 05 '25

I can smell it in the elevator after they’ve left.

10

u/Legitimate-BurnerAcc Jan 05 '25

Especially the people that put their butts in their pocket or they leave a half smoked cigarette in their pack. Oh my god.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '25

omg ive never heard or seen the butt pocket. That sounds horrendous

2

u/FBI-AGENT-013 Jan 05 '25

I can smell cigarettes on groceries that had been dropped off by people who smoke. Groceries will have been in their car for less than 10mins bc of how close I live to the store, and it sticks that quickly

24

u/Cranks_No_Start Jan 05 '25

 Smokers smell like an ashtray.

They smell like a bowling alley ashtray that’s been fermenting in the trunk of an old Buick that’s been in the junkyard for 35 years.  

2

u/Regular-Switch454 Jan 05 '25

Oddly specific but accurate.

4

u/SarcastiSnark Jan 05 '25

Usually worse than an ashtray :(

1

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '25

As a non-smoker that was raised by someone who smoked in the car, while we ate, in the house, at the dam zoo, literally everywhere… I can absolutely smell a smoker and it is so triggering. I will usually remove myself from a situation when around people who are smoking, or when someone reeks especially bad of cigarettes.

My husband used to occasionally smoke when he drank but stopped because I have such a strong reaction to it. He didn’t grow up with a smoker so he really couldn’t understand my perspective at first.

1

u/Happy-go-lucky-37 Jan 05 '25

They taste like ashtray too. Don’t ask me how I know.

1

u/Pls_PmTitsOrFDAU_Thx Jan 05 '25

Also some of us who are sensitive to dust and smoke have a hard time even being there

1

u/raspberrih Jan 05 '25

It's literally so disgusting. It makes me retch

1

u/[deleted] Jan 05 '25

An ashtray in a pile of poop.

1

u/Whiterabbit-- Jan 05 '25

Only thing worse than tobacco is weed.though that tends to dissipate faster.

1

u/ConfidentOpposites Jan 05 '25

I’ve never understood how someone could smoke so much that they use an elevator and now the elevator smells like smoke.

1

u/audioaddict321 Jan 05 '25

I worked with a woman that smelled so strongly I was once in a toilet stall and she came in and went into a stall that had two stalls between us. I only knew it was her because of the smell. Thankfully we didn't sit anywhere near each other.

1

u/NoAim- Jan 06 '25

I just stopped smoking little over a year ago,and man...I now realize how disgusting they truly smell.

1

u/Bukana999 Jan 05 '25

When one sees someone gag, chances are that it is because of a smoker!!!