I have lived in the same crammed condo for about 5 years.
Ever since I moved in, I noticed the air was dry and stuffy, and that the outside was quite literally a breath of fresh air, but I thought that was normal.
Apparently it’s actually not. It wasn’t until I had friends over that my one female friend remarked with slight disgust, “What’s wrong with your air?” I was confused when she met at first, but then she clarified by asking about my indoor air quality. It was kind of embarrassing when she found out that I still didn’t know what that meant. She then went into details about a/c filters and changing them out, and using air purifiers. Ah yes, mentioning air conditioning filters did bring back a brief memory, but I had completely forgotten about them…and I have never changed my a/c filter once while I was living here. My friend seemed appalled, and needless to say the next day, I went out to buy an a/c filter. I looked into air purifiers, but I decided to just try the new air filter for a while first. I’ll admit, after I changed it out, it took about a day, but my house felt cleaner. The air was like it was outside, it felt natural and not dirty. I was secretly thankful for my friend, but I continued to act like I didn’t care. I just can’t believe that I lived here for 5 years without knowing that I was supposed to change out the air conditioning filter, well after seeing the results of how clean it makes my house, I will try to remember to change it out more often.