One concern in homes with ferrets is air cleaners. People want them to be not only effective but safe. In our family with some of us having allergists and a few others having pulmonologists we have often echoed the advice of those experts: that is is usually best to avoid ionizing air cleaners because some simply are not safe enough for humans in terms of ozone created, which also means that they could potentially be even harder on ferret lungs. Ozone may smell thunder storm fresh but it is a pollutant. One quote from the CR article, "Experts agree that ozone concentration more than 80 ppb for eight hours of longer can cause coughing, wheezing, and chest pain while worsening asthma and deadening your sense of smell. It also raises sensitivity to pollen, mold and other respiratory allergy triggers, and may cause permanent lung damage." Of the 7 models CU tested only 2 ionizing air cleaners were recommended, but the other 5 were judged to have poor performance and in some cases also to create high ozone levels (page 25). Another quote in the article, this time from Jonathan Samet, MD, the chairman of the epidemiology department of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, "We can't guarantee safety at any ozone level, so it makes sense not to contaminate your living space." There is also the problem that some of these can poof out all of the dust in them in one burst if there is a power outage, or sometimes even in a brown out. (Useful to have a spouse who was once involved in the design of a clean room that was stricter than many operating rooms -- and who swears by hepa filter air cleaners as do the allergists and pulmonologists used by the family members...) It turns out that there is even more to consider. I didn't know this but ozone inside can react with the terpenes in cleaning products and air freshers to create formaldehyde which is a carcinogen, and the particulate size involved is also a concern. Here is this new resource for you: Consumer Reports: May 2005 page 9 (Sharper Image ordered by court to cover CU court costs since inaccuracies were not found in reporting on an air cleaner they sell) and pages 22 - 25 tests of air clearers They write that they also plan a more extensive air cleaner report late this year. Ferrets are sensitive enough to tobacco smoke that they are used in some studies of its effects, and there have been ferret-list past reports of some who reacted badly to certain air cleaners. It would be a shame if people trying to counteract such effects, or even just trying to reduce the smell of ferret in their homes endangered the health of the four footed and two footed family members instead. [Posted in FML issue 4838]