Tobacco Odors in Funeral Homes | May Newsletter

Boats, floats and camping gear: Vacation is just around the corner. Time to take your "summer toys" out of storage to get ready for some fun in the sun. That means it's also time for NeutrOlene spray -- to get rid of those musty odors. It also works on mildew, too, cleaning and deodorizing those cushions, chairs and umbrellas for patio and outdoor living. Don't let those nasty odors spoil your first camping trip, first ski trip to the lake or that first party on the patio. Just keep NeutrOlene handy. You -- and your guests and family -- will be glad you did.

Tobacco odor ironic in funeral homes: 6.4 million lives! Slightly less than the population of Tennessee. That's the global toll on smokers around the world. Smoking is the most preventable cause of death and the second biggest risk factor for death and disability.

Of all the ways to die, rolling up tobacco, setting it on fire, and voluntarily breathing in the acrid, smoky, result is a surprisingly common one. In 2015, smoking killed roughly 1 in 10 people worldwide according to a recent study in the medical journal The Lancet. It remains the second leading risk factor for an early death and disability.

Fifty-two percent of those deaths occurred in just four countries: China, India, the United States, and Russia. This is partly because of demographics. China, India, and the USA are, respectively, the first, second, and third most populous countries in the world. Russia is the ninth most populous.

PS: If you have had smokers in your atrium, prayer garden or the front or back outdoor areas of your firm, simply spray NeutrOlene in these areas daily to neutralize the odor.

Favorite smells say alot about you: All of us have that favorite smell. It makes us pause, soaking in the delicious aroma. It could be the tangy riff of a freshly cut lemon. It might be the crisp scent of fall with the promise and football in October. You might favor the promise of hot-out-of-the-oven cookies. Whatever your nose desires, it’s a great moment when you catch a whiff!

If freshly mown grass is your favorite, you probably like being outdoors, enjoy nature or are likely to be a go-getter. You'resomeone who has a strong drive for activities, but also has that free hippie-ish vibe. You value hard work and you really value people who put in a good effort all the time.

If you like the aroma of ocean breezes, you’re a dreamer. You like to escape away to the best of times. Constantly a glass-half-full person, you’re also everyone’s go-to for a pick-me-up. You’ll never let people on the outside see your sadness.

You love the aroma of the dirt when rain first starts because it smells so fresh and clean. It brings about it a new face of innocence. You’re likely appreciative of the rain smell most when you need to wash away a recent mistake. You likely enjoy nature and quite possibly practice yoga or tai-chi. You likely have a vivid memory, and really enjoyed playing games outdoors with the neighbor kids growing up.

MeetNYC's Legendary Professional Nose:  One of the unusual figures in New York City’s history, James "Smelly" Kelly walked the tracks of NYC's subways for decades, using superhuman olfactory senses, plus a handful of his homemade inventions, to sniff out hazards, leaks, poop, and eels in New York’s subway system.

In the subway's infancy -- its first underground line opened in 1904 --problem detection efforts were left to subway workers...and there was no one better than the Irish-born Kelly and his legendary nose. He initially worked as a maintenance engineer for the NYC Transit Authority in 1926...and it wasn't long before he was noticed for his uncanny ability to locate leaks no one else could find. "All it takes to be a good underground leak detector are “quick ears, a good nose and better feet,” Kelly said.  

Kelly was once called to the Hotel New Yorker to find the origin of a stench. Engineers couldn't pinpoint a sewage leak behind one of the walls. Kelly located the broken pipe within a half an hour by flushing a staining agent, uranine, down the toilet. Before long, a portion of the wall turned yellow, indicating the busted pipe. “After that, I was in leaks for keeps,” Kelly told Robert Daley for his book, The World Beneath the City. 

A legendary story about Smelly Kelly occurred at the 42nd Street subway station when he was called to suss out a stench. Kelly said the odor almost bowled him over, but after he recovered, he pinpointed the source of the reek as…elephants...and he was right! 

The station had been built beneath the location of the old New York Hippodrome, torn down in 1939. The Hippodrome often hosted a circus, and layers of elephant dung were buried at the site. A broken water main had rehydrated the fossilized elephant dung and leaked into the subway. Voila! Problem solved.

Author Daley wrote the infamous sniffer, in his career, had walked almost 100,000 miles of track, trained 50 to 60 junior subway smellers and even in his retirement, didn’t think they were as good as he was. 

Smelly feet ban overturned. It took a decade for Teunis Tenbrook, a philosophy student at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Holland, to complete his studies. He was banned from the university as a result of complaints from professors and students that it was impossible to concentrate with the rancid smell emanating from his feet. 

In 2009, a court ruled that having smelly feet is no excuse to ban a student from a university. A judge said of those who complained: “They must hold their noses.”