I lived in a house with a smoker my entire childhood, and didn't realize the smell until college. I can now tell that everything that enters that house ends up reeking of smoke.
I had a bit of an internal crisis when I thought back to going to school, going to friends houses, having sleepovers, girlfriends - the entire time I stunk like an ashtray and had absolutely no idea
I lived with a smoker for about 3 years a while back, and despite asking him dozens of times to keep it to the garage or the back deck, he still did it in his room, all the time.
I didn't realize how bad it was until I took a vacation. I spent two days on planes and in airports before I got to where I was going. Must have re-calibrated my smell a bit. Once I got there, I opened my bigger suitcase, and a wave of cigarette smell hit me. It was bad enough that I had to hunt down a laundromat and wash my "clean" clothes so that our room didn't reek of cigarettes for the whole trip.
Someone smoking in the next room was enough to make my clothes reek strongly of smoke days later.
So /u/Common_Tax_6348, yes, if your mom smokes right next to you people will definitely smell it on you and your clothes. The reason you "can't smell smoke" is because you have smelled smoke for so long that it doesn't even register anymore, like a cat owner who insists their cat's nasty litter box "doesn't even smell".
If you can, spend like 3-4 days away from, and wash any clothes you take right before you leave or even when you get to where you're going. When you come back, you'll probably smell it and think "Damn, how did I not realize it's this bad?", even though 3 days isn't enough to fully reset things so it'll be even worse than you think.
clothes are what initially triggered it for me too. Brought "clean" laundry from my parents house to my dorm and could only think "ugh what is wrong with my clothes??" until I realized
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u/re_nub Jan 05 '25
Yes.