Bad Air Sponge Air Freshener

The Bad Air Sponge - Cigarette Odor Removal

The Bad Air Sponge is an amazing product when used to remove persistent cigarette odors from homes, rugs, furniture, and more. The following articles contain information about cigarette odor including other ways to remove cigarette odor from your home.


Second Hand Smoke Removal

Dear Mr. Alpert,

I am in receipt of your letter of March 10th 2004 in which you take issue with our selling air cleaners for the reduction of smoke, odor and VOCs "Your web site, in describing these products reduce tobacco smoke from the air, leads to a strong presumption that this equipment reduces or eliminates the health risks associated with tobacco smoke. Business owners and the general public, in viewing your website, could presume [our italics] that IQAir, AllerAir, and Austin Air's products will protect hospitality workers, patrons, and the public from the health risks associated with secondhand tobacco smoke".

First of all, I was surprised by the tone of your letter since we try and give the public both accurate educational information and correct expectations as to the efficacy of our products.

It is in that spirit of integrity, that I will both add some disclaimer about the known safe levels of smoke and other carcinogenic substances to our air cleaner product pages and will publish your fact sheets on our web site, as well as include your fact sheets in our monthly e-newsletter which has a readership in the six figure range.

I am a non-smoker myself and believe very strongly in the rights of all human beings to live in a toxin free environment and have access to pure air and water. I have mandated a non-smoking environment for over thirty years; long before smoking was legislatively banned in most workplaces. I have given substantial cash incentives to past employees to stop smoking as well as seeing a grandparent die of lung cancer. I follow the principals of socially conscious investing, and agree with you that there is no definitively proven safe levels of secondhand tobacco smoke. I would go further and suggest that there is no level of any toxin, which is really safe, although our bodies have adapted remarkably and filter out some of the environmental poisons to which they are exposed. It is for that reason I do not drink, and classify alcohol as equally poisonous and potentially carcinogenic substance, although the ingestion of alcohol is more socially acceptable in our society.

Now to the subject of air cleaners. Given that we live in a society, that for both economic self interest or protection of individual rights, has a government which is reluctant to ban all known toxic air borne substances and protect its citizens from ingesting them, I believe in our individual right to protect ourselves against the health hazards engendered by such toxic substances including secondhand tobacco smoke. Even though air cleaners can only reduce as opposed to eliminate levels of secondhand tobacco smoke, most often because the rate of recontamination is too high, I would defend people's right to buy them. However, for the exact lab based data on smoke removal effectiveness of each machine, you need to contact the manufacturers directly or the AHAM which certifies air cleaners which are effective in the removal of smoke.

When customers phone us for advice on this subject, we inform them that direct elimination of the source of any toxin is the best solution, including smoke which means usually contacting your landlord or the health department in the case of secondhand smoke. This is the course of action we took in our own business when a neighboring company sharing our air ducts had employees smoking on the job.

When somebody is helpless and does not want to move their residence to avoid second hand smoke[ which often would be the preferred course of action],we tell them that air cleaners are the choice of last resort. We tell them to position the air cleaner as close to the offending communal air vent as possible. We have measured dramatic particulate reduction in these circumstances- but complete 100% elimination is has not been attained to date. Once smoke has entered a customer's house we advise them it is very difficult to eliminate completely.

However there are circumstances where smoke is involved, other than cigarettes, as in the smoke case of 911 and West Coast wildfires. The hundreds of people who buy our air cleaners during these times of crisis can exercise some modicum of control and reduce smoke particulates and other toxins to at least a level where they can breathe. I think those people are under no illusion about the level of protection afforded by air cleaning devices but something is better than nothing in circumstances where people have little or no control over their environment. We have tremendously positive feedback from customers thanking us for at least giving them something, which allows them to breathe in such adverse conditions.

As I said earlier, despite the way you presented your case in your letter to me, I think we are really on the same side of this issue since we both abhor the health hazards presented by secondhand smoke. I will publish your fact sheets on our web site and in our newsletter and will make even clearer than what we have done already, as to what we deem to be product limitations. May I add in closing, that the man who bought an air cleaner last week from me for his weekly card game in order to reduce the disgusting smell of cigars, had to endure a brief lecture from me about injuring his health and understand that despite opening the windows after his card game and keeping the air cleaner going throughout his card game, that he was merely taking the edge off the problem and not curing it.

I hope that makes my position on this topic quite clear and since you already posted your letter to me on your web site, I would appreciate the courtesy of publishing my reply in its entirety.