3) Any scented candle is dangerous around pets, especially birds, and also humans, especially small children. My suggestion is avoid any manufactured product with fumes such as Magic markers, paints, house cleaners, carpet fresheners, or anything perfumed around your bird or small child. That this is not taught in schools amazes me. I do believe that Glade Scented Candles can kill birds.

If you find your pet's breathing is stertorous then look at scented candles, scented cleaning compounds, or other "air fresheners" as the culprit.

In case you think your bird is safe by only lighting the candles when your pet is in another room, please be advised that they are dangerous to birds even if not lit.

This applies to all products not just Glade®; almost all scented candles contain lethal fumes. You will find that most of these products contain warning labels about using them around pets.

All your household chemicals should be kept in ziplock bags to keep the fume levels down to a minimum. Here are some great ideas for using natural cleaning solutions around your birds : Natural Cleaning Solutions and Safe Substitutes at Home: Non-toxic Household Products.

Warning: Do not leave any room with a candle lit, even for a few seconds. If you are candle-fume dependant and absolutely must have a constant aromatic stench going, put out the candle, stick a little fragrant wax in your nose, and leave the room. DO NOT LEAVE A ROOM WITH A CANDLE BURNING. Candles cause more than 20,000 house fires a year with hundreds of deaths.

As far as Glade and house fires: Back in 1998 SC Johnson recalled 1.7 million Gel Candles from Glade®. These candles can burn with higher than normal flames, as high as 3 inches above the container, posing a potential fire hazard. Also, back in 2002 the company recalled 2.5 million Glade® Extra Outlet Scented Oil Air Fresheners. These may have been misassembled during manufacture, which could pose a risk of fire.

The two events above could have started the email rumor that Glade® Plugins cause house fires, see my post on this rumor.

Go to awfulcommercials.com to see a Glade Plugin commercial.

Sales of air fresheners rose from nearly $2.7 billion in 1999 to nearly $3.5 billion in 2004, an increase of 29% in current dollars. In addition, new fabric refreshers and scented cleaning products and scented cosmetics all throw more and more crap into the air.

These sales stats indicate that we will have more and more homes with these stinking chemicals polluting our breathing space; so if you have some spare change, invest in companies that sell products into the asthma market. If I wasn't so busy I would set up bird cemeteries to cater to all these poor folks who don't read this post.

I am waiting for the next innovation in the "air-freshener" market, perhaps scented nose plugs so that you can continue whiffing in that pine-lemon-mountain-fresh_lake-rain_shower-country_garden aroma while you shop at the supermarket or while jogging in the park.

How about a perfume spray shooting out from the sides of your eye-glasses so that you constantly walk into a light foggy odor of desert-cactus-night-mist?

Although I personally hate chemical smells there is no shortage of grey cells among Americans:
here's a clever way to disperse fragrance using a roomba.

Troubling, of course, is the huge, growing immigrant population (especially Hispanics) that tend to be more frequent air freshener users than whites. Perhaps they are still trying to get rid of the smell of their old-country markets and sewers and dumps.

We should give all new immigrants a welcome-to-America-Pamphlet: Don't Stink it Up!