Dear Prudence,
I have been with my partner for five years. His parents live 15 minutes from us, and we get along well; we frequently go over to their house for dinner, to watch a sports game, or just spend time with them. I enjoy this and their beautiful, well-kept home, except for one thing: My partner’s mother is quite fond of home scents like Glade plug ins. I’m quite sensitive to scents, and exposure to intense fragrance products often gives me debilitating migraines with nausea. After all these years of lovely visits, I’ve said nothing about this to his parents—I have no idea how to tell them without feeling rude! I’ve taken to simply unplugging the one in the guest bathroom while I am there, and plugging it back in before I leave, but most of the house is still quite heavily scented.
Part of the reason I have never said anything is it just feels rude to say “the smell of your home, which you find pleasant, makes me terribly sick.” Another part of the reason is that my partner and his family are POC and I am white, and I worry about the problematic dynamic a white person communicating to a person of color that their home’s smell is sickening—even if it is from an artificial source and not cultural such as cooking or religious incense, and there is truly a medical issue at play.
Lately I’ve been growing more and more sick from the fragrance—sometimes a migraine is triggered by even the smell left in my dog’s fur hours after he has been in their house. I work with my medical team to manage my migraines, but despite all the medications one of the most important ways to manage this condition is identifying and avoiding triggers. Can you help me with a script to ask for some sort of accommodation while I am there without coming off as rude or entitled?
— Scents-Itive Soul