What Finally Helped My Boys Breathe Easier in Their Apartments

College is supposed to be a time of independence, late-night study sessions, and figuring out who you are. What we didn’t expect was that my boys would spend the first half of their college experience battling something no one warned us about:

Fragrances drifting through vents, hallways, and even shared walls.

At first we thought it was a fluke—maybe someone down the hall used a strong detergent or plug-ins. But it kept happening. The smell would roll in at unpredictable times, settle into the room, and trigger headaches, itchy skin, and that foggy, unsettled feeling that only people with sensitivities truly understand.

For weeks, they tried everything:

• taping outlets and other crevices
• cleaning the vents
• keeping their room ridiculously tidy
• running basic store air filters

None of it made a difference.

And then - finally - they got their Austin Air unit.

Why Austin Helped When Nothing Else Did

Austin units aren’t the “pretty” filters you can grab at big box stores. They’re heavy, real machines packed with:

• pounds of activated carbon,
• medical-grade HEPA, and
• metal housing that lasts decades.

Once the units arrived and ran overnight, both boys said the same thing:

“I can finally breathe in here.”

That one sentence says everything.

What Worked Best for Their Spaces

Based on what they lived through I now tell other parents:

For small dorm rooms
HealthMate Jr. Plus– Compact, strong carbon, great for fragrances, cleaning products, and laundry chemicals.

For small apartments or larger student rooms
HealthMate Plus – More carbon, a bigger HEPA, and better coverage when the air problem isn’t just one direction.

For highly sensitive individuals
Bedroom Machine – Adds an extra layer designed with hospitals and emergency rooms in mind. This is for the kid, like mine, who reacts to everything.

What I Wish Other Parents Knew

Fragrance sensitivity isn’t about being “picky” or dramatic. When the air isn’t right, studying is harder, sleeping is harder, and your child’s whole system is on alert. Dorms and apartments can be unpredictable. You can’t control what thirty other kids plug into outlets, spill on floors, or wash with.

But you can control the four walls where your child sleeps. You can make their space safe for them.