By Anonymous - 26/02/2016 22:31 - United States - Malden

Today, my idiot neighbor decided the best way to dispose of the poison ivy in his yard was to pile it all up and burn it. I'm severely allergic. It was so bad that one of my eyes is still swollen half shut. FML
I agree, your life sucks 21 182
You deserved it 1 369
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Top comments

senor_octubre 24

Don't say half shut. Think of it like glass half full so in this case your eyes are half open. Boom. The powers of optimism.

199 10
Kermy1113 23

I hope you're okay! And that it's not a deadly allergy..

110 6

Comments

tastychickens 13

That happened to my mom about 35 yrs ago. She put on long sleeves, pants, shoes, and heavy gloves to rake the poison ivy away from a big tree in the yard. After she burned it, her eyes swelled shut and her doctor prescribed a particular cream for her eyes. It took a while for her to get well. I hope you get much better soon, OP!

5 1
zeffra13 31

Burning aerosolizes the oils that cause the allergic reaction.

0 1
Brandi_Faith 33

To be fair, I think that the neighbour is allowed to burn stuff like that as long as he's in accordance with the city laws. A lot of people burn stuff to get rid of it. It's not like he knew you had the allergy and purposely did it to hurt you. Now if it was illegal to do and/or he wasn't within the cities regulations, than that's a different story. But I don't think he's an idiot for choosing this method to dispose of it, seeing as he thought it probably wouldn't hurt anybody this way. Don't get me wrong op, it totally sucks that this happened to you, and you should probably see a doctor if the reaction spreads anywhere else; but I don't think your neighbour did anything really wrong here.

25 13
engel2882 3

Poison ivy is the exception. You NEVER burn poison ivy because then the oil is an extremely dangerous vapor. It can easily cause suffocation, as many have said.

12 3
juturnaamo 29

Almost everybody is allergic to poison ivy. The neighbor himself was probably allergic to it. Of course that means odds are, the neighbor probably had a similar reaction has OP, unless he went inside while it was burning.

9 1
pink_raindrops 26

In Canada its actually illegal to burn poison ivy or poison oak. Almost everyone gets the reaction from both of those and burning it makes the blisters and everything happen in your lungs/throat from you breathing it in. It could kill anyone that breaths it in. The op should call the police.

9 2
Brandi_Faith 33

Oh ok. I didn't know it was illegal. If it's illegal than he definitely shouldn't be doing it and he should've check up on that first. I just know that a lot of people burn bushes and plants and I could see why he would think it was ok to do. He probably thought it was safer than throwing it out where someone could touch it and get hurt, not realizing that the oils infect the smoke and the fumes can hurt people. Hopefully he learnt his lesson!

4 1
RedCronos 17

Its not like he could've known though.

1 10
SarcasticShade 16

I guess you'll have to sleep with one eye open if the ivy comes back.

1 6
pandarae 12

Omg I feel you I ended up in the hospital because my neighbor did that, got it all in my lungs and esophagus.

2 1
revolvearoundme 15

Least you didn't have sex in a patch of poison oak. I would have take a swollen eye over the itching of my ass and junk any day.

0 9
writergirl1029 17

Burning poison ivy is a monumentally stupid way to dispose of it, even if no one in the area has allergies. It would have caused him to have some sort of adverse reaction, too.

5 2
pink_raindrops 26

I've never met anyone that doesn't get a reaction from poison ivy, or poison oak. Burning it causes everyone who breaths the fumes to get that reaction in their lungs and throat and it can kill people. The person who burned it is a moron. Its illegal to burn it in Canada, probably where op is too

1 1
zeffra13 31

I used to be immune from reacting to poison oak, even got it in my eye once and was fine, but then I got it in a cut on my arm and now I react.

0 1
SailorSolaris 43

@ #35 Have now. I'm fully immune to poison ivy, and I don't know why.

0 1
JohnnyWake0 13

So a garbage bag just was not an option there?

3 1
RageWolf16 31

(Chanting softly) sue, sue, sue, sue....

9 2
enganerd 17

You might consider having an epi-pen around in case your neighbor does this again. I hope that he doesn't but you might want to be prepared just in case.

0 3