Well, in your house you are breathing bleach in an enclosed space, pools are different.

The classic bleach smell comes from combined chloramines: CCs.

Whenever Free Chlorine, FC, metabolizes something it leaves behind CC. More FC will break that down.

So, my pool will be 7 or 8ppm of FC, but have no chlorine smell. I get in and get out and I smell a bit of chlorine--the FC has metabolized whatever contaminants are on my skin--dirt, sweat, suntan lotion, aftershave, bacteria (gasp! ), etc.

Yet while I was in my skin didn't bother me, my eyes probably didn't bother me (more a function of pH than FC), etc.

However, if the chlorine in a pool is breaking down lots of stuff, there were be a lot of CC in the water. That stinks like bleach, irritates your skin and your eyes. This is not good, either for you or your pool.

Chlorine metabolizes lots of stuff, but what you REALLY want it to kill is bacteria and viruses. So if it's metabolizing all sorts of other stuff, it may consume all your FC leaving your water vulnerable to infectious stuff. That's why algae is SO bad. It not only makes your water ugly, all your chlorine gets used up killing it and you have NOTHING to protect you from the dangerous stuff.

So, after all this long-windedness we come back to proper testing, knowing what those tests mean, and how to get your water sweet and sanitary again. Too much chlorine is held up as a boogie-monster by lots of people, and blamed for lots of problems for which it's not responsible. 99.99% of all the problems we see here come back to folks not yet knowing the basics, and having to UN-learn a lot of nonsense that pool stores and pool chem companies distribute.

Finally, there's no magic to good and easy pool care. But there's no substitute for understanding what does what in your water, and knowing how and when to act to adjust it. Our stickies on BBB and getting rid of algae as well as other topics try to communicate this. It actually all makes sense.