“zoo” is driving my mom crazy – air contaminants
Everyone knows that it sucks to be a kid. When you are young and everybody else is in control of your life, it can be a very bad time. Sometimes it’s finally remembered as being a time without responsibility or worry, but that wasn’t my childhood experience at all. When I was a kid, my family life was crazy. My dad was a raging abusive alcoholic who often threatened us. He was removed from the house and then stalked us for many years. My oldest brother was a heroin addict who tortured us for years from inside the home. the only respite that I had from all of my family craziness was collecting and hanging out with animals. In fact, I had my own little zoo in my bedroom. It was a great way to escape from all the drama. However, it often created even more drama by upsetting my mother. She was constantly raging about the poor air quality in the house and blaming it on my animals. She said that all of the bedding, dander, and hair from my room was always floating around in the air and it was slowly ruining her central heating and cooling system. As a kid, I definitely didn’t understand how our air temperature control equipment was being affected by a few pets. I tried to fix the issue by hanging air filters in my room and regularly grooming my pets so less hair was escaping into our indoor air. I also started changing our HVAC air filter every 2 weeks, according to my mom’s demands. As a kid, I genuinely couldn’t understand this obsession with the central heating and cooling system. As an adult, I would never do that to my own air temperature control system and I can’t believe that she let me keep so many wild animals in my room.