The dry, dusty air was as thick as London fog, and we had to run the central HVAC constantly just to make the air more breathable.
I grew up in a little clutch of houses too small to even be called a town. There was a gas station nearby, and a 12-room hotel, and 30 or 40 houses on the side of a seaside hill. This place was picturesque, quiet, and an amazing place to grow up. I could see the ocean from my front yard, and a half mile up the road were a series of logging trails that led deep into the dense forest. When I was in high school my dad got a new job and we had to move to the midwest, which was a shock to my system. This place was so hot it felt like I would melt whenever I left the safety of the air conditioning. It took a few days before I adjusted the heat, at which point I realized there was something even worse – the air quality. The dry, dusty air was as thick as London fog, and we had to run the central HVAC constantly just to make the air more breathable. Long before COVID people were wearing masks around here, just to serve as an air filter for the air they breathe. We went from changing the air filter in the central system once every two months, to once every two weeks! The air filters were always clogged up with dirt and dusty so quickly, we had to start buying the 12- filter supersized pack. We thought about getting the HEPA air filters, but we went through them so quickly they would be cost prohibitive.