I see this thread was started a long time ago. I will say that I grew up in a house where my mother smoked all the time, much to the dismay of my father, who was able to quit cold turkey. There was always a cigarette going while we were growing up. Didn't think much of it, because those days, a lot of people smoked. Then I got married and moved out and the first time I came back "home" I could hardly believe how much that house smelled!!! I guess my point is, smokers and people who live with smokers become so used to the smell they don't think the house or their clothes or anything smells. My mother, really, was a stink pot! (Of course we loved her anyway) Didn't know it when we were growing up, but after a time away and coming back in it was so obvious. When she passed, the house needed a thorough cleaning to get rid of the nicotine that had attached to almost everything. Just my thoughts.

One of my 'duties' as a volunteer in a hospital is to check the knit/crocheted hats for the babies. One group of hats was full of cat hair. Some of the hair was actually knit into the hat. I tediously picked off what I could, and used a lint brush. I don't know that those hats actually made it to the kids. If you had a seriously sick child, would you want your child to receive a hat that had cat hair on it?

We frequently get fabric with an odor - smoke, musty, etc. The strangest odor was the fabric that smelled like vitamins.

My 2 cats & 3 dogs are forbidden from my sewing room but they sneak in there sometimes if the gate gets left open, and I know hair floats around in the air and migrates in there too. My stuff is not sold, just given away but I still try very hard to keep the pet hair off of things because it drives ME crazy to see cat/dog/my hair on things I'm giving away.

Everything is washed after I'm done making it and then if it's something I'm not keeping it goes straight from the dryer into a plastic bag (after being examined for any lingering stray threads, etc), which then goes up into the closet until its time to be given away (never more than 2-3 months, so I'm OK with it being in plastic that long). Or if it's just a couple weeks wait, I'll go ahead & stick the bag in my car (which is a pet-free zone).