Hello friends! You may have seen me say before that my neighbor(s) smoke a lot of weed, which I am unfortunately allergic to. It gives me migraines when their smoke invades my apartment. Maintenance added some extra caulking around my plumbing, since most of it was coming from under the sinks, and via the drains (so I plug the drains as soon as I smell it), and I have my air purifiers which have saved my life. The big one turns over the air in the whole apartment twice an hour, so even if I don't catch it fast enough with the drains to prevent most of it from coming in, at least it can be cleared pretty quickly now.
However, the other culprit per the internet and the maintenance guy, is that smoke probably comes in via the electric outlets and switches. The walls are hollow, and shared, of course. So I was finally able to get these insulating gaskets to put underneath the switch plates:
I started installing them today. Some of them go in easy, like this basic single switch:
Some of them were a bit of a cluster, like the cable box I put one in. Less so because none of the cut outs are fit to a cable box, and more so because all the cable boxes in this building date to the 80s and are loose and disconnected in there (and some need replacement, like the tech had to come and fuss with mine in order for me to get internet in this unit):
The single plug installed easily enough:
And the double switch was also a bit difficult. I ended up cutting off one side to make it fit (double layering it in the middle was too thick for the plate to go back on):
I thought maybe it was still a little too big as the side seemed to have a small gap, but I double checked the one in the kitchen that is the same kind of switch where I hadn't installed a gasket yet and it too had that gap. I think it's just "cheap landlord plastic switch plates" and not that it's too thick.
The last type is the GFCI outlet in the bathroom:
Oh, landlord paint jobs, sticking switch plates to the wall since the invention of electricity.
This one had a big gap on the side even with the gasket, but it's better than nothing. I wonder if that's from when they had to update to GFCI plugs to be up to code?
Yes, I have a mushroom nightlight in the bathroom:
It's going to take me some time to finish installing these for every port in the apartment, a lot of plugs are behind heavy furniture. But hopefully it helps! These are also supposed to help with drafts, and this building is very drafty, so maybe this winter I will have fewer drafts as well. :)
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day!
