I lived next to the exhaust air outflow of a piano refinisher-- drafty living room windows about 15 feet from it. (I was on the floor above their shop. The outflow came up through the garage roof that formed a sort of terrace outside my windows, and the pipe was right at my window level.) I got very sick and did research to see why. They were grinding off the outer layers of piano varnish (or whatever) and using chemical strippers to get the bottom layer off, then applying new finishes. The old finish, the new finish's fumes, and the stripper all contained very nasty stuff.    When I say I was very sick I mean that most of that year I don't remember much except being sick-- my brain was deeply affected at the time and who knows, maybe permanently. (Of course the effect on brain function made it kinda hard to do battle with anybody over it.) The local and regional health and EPA folks were surprisingly unperturbed about all this, but eventually I found the discarded cans of what they had been using, in the building's dumpster. Big red warning labels. Nerve damage, brain damage, etc.

The business eventually closed down and the building itself changed hands. Immediately I could see an improvement. I still can't believe how sick I was, how little anyone cared, and how hard it was to deal with while impaired because of it.

~Susan