My husband’s sister has been a smoker since she was seventeen. As much as I hate her habit, my husband constantly reminds me that it’s not my place to condemn her for it. “As long as she doesn’t do it in the house”, he always says, “I could care less.” When we left for a two-week vacation last Winter, we left my sister in-law in charge of our home, and gave her a sizeable payment for services rendered. Our one rule was simple: Don’t smoke in the house! Well, apparently even one rule is too challenging for my sister in-law to handle, as we came back home to a house that smelled like an ashtray. The air was so stagnant, and reeked of cigarettes! Our air quality was in the gutter, thanks to her refusal to step outside for a smoke. After a week of putting up with the lingering odor, I had enough! I reached out to a local HVAC contracting firm and asked about options for purifying the air in a house. That’s when the contractor explained how I was looking for an air purifier, which is installed into the HVAC system itself! The purifier works a number of ways, including the use of UV lights, which eradicate airborne bacteria and also scrub the air clean of lingering smells. “If that doesn’t get the smell out,” the contractor said, “nothing will!” We had the purifier installed last week, and after almost two weeks of consistent use, I believe it’s made a big difference in the air quality of our house! Not only is the cigarette smell almost gone, but the air conditioner seems to be producing much cleaner air for us to breathe in, too. My husband often suffers from seasonal colds, but it seems this purifier is helping to clean the air and prevent the spread of germs. In a strange way, I’m glad my sister in-law smoked inside the house, only because it allowed us to commit to buying an air purifier!