The tenant directly below me smokes heavily and the odour fills up my living room.
Any ideas about what I should do? Not a big fan of inhaling second hand smoke.
There is 1 year left in the lease and the building is not smoke free.
Open to all suggestions
That was unnecessary. Sorry that happened to you. I mean if smoking didn't stink like it does why do smokers have use breath mints? or spray themselves silly? Yeah because stinks.
Thanks. Yeah, that's true. Those guys I was unlucky to be neighbours with were just a bunch of insensible selfish people. I did show my note to my colleague before putting it under their door, her comment "It's fine. Unless they have anger management issue, it is a friendly note". Guess what, I got neighbours with anger management issues *sigh…
But I'm glad your neighbour is the kind one, good to know not all neighbours are like mine back then :)
That's a bit drastic lol washing walls from 2nd hand smoke. Wait till the E smokers start puffing blueberry pie hahahahah
Report to the agent, hopefully the people below you are renting and I can't imagine a landlord would be thrilled about people smoking in their property. If people are going to smoke those cancer and dementia sticks in spite of everything we know about them now, they can keep it out of everyone elses faces.
The agent brushed it off by saying the place wasn't smoke free :(
Is it their agent? Or yours? I can imagine they wouldn't care if it wasn't their tenant.
Agents a frigging lazy s#¡Ts, and rental agents are the worst. The hierarchy at t he real estate office is:
Rental agent
Secretary
Cleaner
Basically rental agents just (over)load their books and do as little as possible, so if you want them to do anything you have to ride them like a wild horse until he obeys, which usually involved showing proof, reading up on your rights and then telling him what he/she needs to do and making some threats about taking it up if they don't do their job.
As such, practically all other options make sense if you aren't prepared to do that, or the law isn't on your side
Couldn't have said it better. They are just as bad if you are the owner as well.
It's my agent :(
@hammmer: Yes, they really don't discriminate between the owner or renter, they want the easiest outcome for themselves. E.g.
They are a waste of space if you ask me, you may as well self manage as you will get a better result every time
They are still legally required to provide premises that are habitable. Scientific evidence has established that there is no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke. That's why landlords have been successfully sued in the past for failing to mitigate the health risks associated with individuals inhaling smoke from other tenant(s).
I would try telling the agent that you are prepared to take legal action to protect the health of not only yourself, but that of your child (that will completely freak the agent out - having children inhale the smoke massively increases the chance of damages being awarded). Cite the health impact of second hand smoke on children in addition to previous news articles of successful legal cases.
having the same problem here.. We have actually tried contacting the Landlord/owner but it seems they are probably 'big-time' investors' and don't give a dam about their cheap unit being trashed anyways. let alone these tenants disturbing other people with their filthy smoking habits
Fix your windows.
Apartment living can suck, not just because you're exposed to this, but also because people should be able to smoke in their own place without upsetting neighbours.
Will definitely give the window seal from bunnings a shot. I suspect newer apartments don't have these issues of upsetting neighbours because everything is sealed (compliant fire doors I think?)
As a general rule yes, but newer buildings are often so shoddily built that they can be worse than old ones.
Same issue as you OP, the tenant downstairs are heavy smokers. All my windows and sliding are tightly shut but I still smell it.
Can't do anything about it as the building laws states that they can smoke from their balcony.
Suck it up I guess.
Yeh the agent said it's not a smoke free apartment, so they definitely have the right to do that. I'll be trying to seal up the windows, but just annoying I can't open the windows for fresh air. Oh well
I feel you mate, I'm in WA as well and during the summer it's the worst as I have my windows and sliding fully open.
looks like air purifier is the way to go mate.
+1
Wow, I thought all apartments now are smoke-free.
Any chance to talk to your agent / landlord and considering the early termination of the lease?
Second hand smoke is serious condition that would affect your health.
I feel you :(
Swap apartments? Since the smoke goes upwards, it should be a less issue to you if you swapped to his lower apartments.
Living in the apartment of a smoker is REALLY not going to solve the smell issue.
Shit like this is why I'll never live in an apartment
Introduce him to e-cigs. It's safer for him and you'll start getting the smell of fruits and other food flavors instead of cigarette. Win-win.
This'll seem redundant since Cusack just mentioned ecigs but offer to go 50% on a decent vaporiser if they agree when at home to only vape tobacco/weed.
The Pax 2 should handle tobacco and weed just fine (no personal experience, google says so). This will set you back ~$120 but if they agree to it will probably make a friend of your downstairs neighbour and remove the smell.
Possible downside: they hear your offer and tell you to go Broden yourself and hate you from here on out.
Good luck!
My name's Dan Wilson. I run Iowa's largest wildlife preserve.
By a massive bass and player death metal at 4am
It is a bad situation. I hate drugs and people using them, should be ashamed of themselves!!!
Lol obvious troll is obvious.
We'll all become extremely used to the smell of pot once the ALP wins the federal next election and legalizes recreation marijuana. The left loves cannabis as passionately as they hate tobacco and ethyl alcohol. Cannabis use is the liberals' equivalent to the Christian eucharist.
A few days ago a Democrat senator introduced legislation to legalize marijuana federally in the US. https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/booker-debuts-marijuana… . And to be honest, it makes little sense to have in illegal in some states and legal in others.
I don't know about that. I consider myself conservative leaning but that cannabis laws need to be altered to the point of near decriminalisation.
Alcohol is a terrible burden on the public health system. Cannabis is a terrible burden on what's left in the snack drawer and on productiveness.
This case is quite absurd. I wonder what else can the owner do to alleviate the issue.
1, Buy an air purifier (I have one and it works okay).
2, Fix your windows.
3, Talk to them nicely and arrange a mutually beneficial solution if possible.
4, Get used to it.
5, Move after a year.
In rough order of preference.
i bought a blueair air purifier (you can get ones with smoke filters called smokestop) when we had our first child.
its good to have generally but expensive (so are the replacement filters)
Make a hole in your balcony then do your dumps through that.
Yell out "if i have to deal with your shit, you can deal with mine."
Call the cops duhh
Plz dont they'd laugh!
Nose pegs; clothes pegs in lieu; spring variety more ergonomic.
Leave a note made from cut out newspaper letters under his door encouraging him to buy a vaporiser from https://www.australianvaporizers.com.au
Best case scenario he buys a vape, quits smoking and strictly vapes weed, leaving little to no smell to encroach on your privacy.
Worst case, he gets paranoid AF and moves out.
Win win.
If tobacco smoke annoys you then you should have done your homework and moved into a building that is designated 'smoke free'. If your neighbours are using drugs then tell the landlord to get it sorted else you'll report the matter to the police.
If you're under contract for another 12 months then it would seem you're stuck unless the landlord suggests shortening the period - lol
UPDATE:
The agent has contacted me saying the windows will be replaced in the whole building at some point during the month….so I'm hoping this will solve the issue.
I'm pretty sure this was planned in ages ago…so it just happened to be rolled out after I complained.
Good news, I suppose. It's just a pity that you'll have to keep the windows shut in an attempt to combat the unsocial habits of others.
I wonder if OP has tried talking to gis neighbour, like a normal human being; rather than passive aggressively posting about it on the internet.
Like face to face.
Most people are quite reasonable.
I find it hard to speak to gis neighbour like a normal human being
Prefer to be passive aggresive commenting on posts on the internet Prefer to ask for opinions on forums like ozbargains then weigh up my options e.g. fixing windows without impacting the habits (good or bad) gis neighbour.
If that doesn't work then talking to gis neighbour will be the next thing to do.
Perhaps try an ozone generator OP?
You were lucky! Or I just was unlucky to have such unreasonable neighbours. I ended up getting yelled at!