Maybe I shouldn’t admit this, as you’ll wonder what it smelled like before, but now when I come home, the air smells fresh, like the outdoors (not the outdoors here in Leith, albeit). One could almost forget I had a cat! She’s giving me the stink-eye for writing that, of course, but at least her litter is giving no stink at all. I shall still change it, though.

The purifier was easy to set up (two or three minutes) and the iOS app connected immediately to my wifi.

At first, I panicked as the gas reading told me to sort out my affairs and tell my cat I loved her, but eventually, it went down to normal.

I run it on auto mode and it is very quiet. When I opened the window closest to it, the PM2.5 levels crawled up, so now I keep that one shut.

This morning, though, it was like being back in LA. I was grilling halloumi in the kitchen — the purifier is quite a ways away in the living area, but it’s open-plan — when the app flashed an alert: close all windows now and turn on turbo mode! The PM2.5 levels went up to 500, which must be its max reading, as that’s where it stopped and enjoyed a breather. It took about an hour for the levels to go down to normal. It does make me wonder what became of all the other halloumi particulates from my past. It is best, though, not to ask too deeply about a lady’s past.

I am now afraid to grill anything. When I do, I’ll move it to the bedroom and let it criticise me there. The instructions say not to use this in the kitchen, so I will have to research whether that amount of exposure will kill the machine (better me than it).

Anyway, to conclude, Noir and I can breathe easily! It is a pity, of course,
that clean air has become a commodity one has to buy, but that is one of those things best left unthunk.