Mumsnet Talk

BOF

Personally if it were bothering me I would just tell them politely. Honestly spliff smoke is everywhere we live bloody posh middle England. My old neighbour smokes it. I used to burn a josh stick just to mask the smell until I got a grip. I would rather live next door to a stoner than a bunch of piss heads to be honest. The smell is not nice but not as bad as the pig shit the other uses.
PS is it not called spliff any more then Jeez I am old.

Are you annoyed by your neighbour smoking weed or are you concerned for her children. Surely reporting that a two year old is being neglected by a druggie to social services or the police would have more of a response. However your neighbour would not take too kindly to being reported to authorities and understandly might make your life hell.

Complaining to the landlord is not likely to do much. It is not that easy to evict a tenant even when there are grounds.

You could have FAR worse neighbours, OP, so count your blessings. Mine were hammering on the walls at 3am last night, if you can believe it. Luckily, I was still awake anyway, playing my bagpipes.

YANBU to want to make sure her smoking does not impact on you or your children. Smokers are so selfish spraying everyone else with their disgusting smells and carcinogens.

My neighbour's son does it and has the window so wide open that the smell comes through our boiler vents and windows that are ajar. It makes me so mad that they choose to do the drugs then open the window to let the smell out so someone else has to suffer. Fucking disgusting.

glad i dont li ve next door to you, myob

undercoverhousewife, your friend was either very unlucky or there was something quite serious going on in her house. I'd suggest you look up numbers of prosecutions for owning small amounts of cannabis associated with personal use, check those against estimates for numbers of people who use cannabis and perhaps ask your local police what priority they give this.

Your earlier comment I doubt the police have better things to do than enforcing drugs laws.... just made you sound incredibly naive. The anecdote about your friend at least makes sense of your perspective but is just one anecdote in a sea of contrary evidence.

Anyway, it is beside the point here. The OP is just hoping to use illegality, via her landlord, to manipulate her neighbour's behaviour, rather than speak to them about an issue that would exist if they were just smoking cigarettes.

But it IS the LL's business - the tenants' actions render the LL guilty of the strict liability offence of having drugs on his/her property. "Strict liability" means that you don't even have to KNOW about it or have any control - in law, there are no excuses.

I have a friend who has been prosecuted for exactly that - she had NO idea her tenants had drugs but is still "guilty".

Actually, I am not sure I am advocating using the LL as an agent of control (LL's don't actually have much power over tenants as they have to respect the tenants' rights to quiet enjoyment) but I DO think the OP should tell the LL so that the LL can kick out the tenants before he/she gets a criminal record themselves.

People can't complain about being made homeless if it is due to their own deliberate choice to break the law.

I thought possession without intent to supply was something the police turned a blind eye to? In any case, the important point is simply that it is not a matter fir a landlord, but for the police.

Also, someone who owned his/her own home wouldn't lose it even with a non-custodial sentence, so here again we have a rather shitty social double standard about tenants and homeowners. That is important because (a) more and more people live in rented accommodation and/or rent for longer of their lives, and (b) with such an illiquid market for housing sale and purchase, many "homeowners" are renting, too, between owned houses. Therefore, no-one can feel this sort of vulnerability is "nothing to do with me". (and the OP rents, anyway).

Sorry to rant, but people are being very stubborn about using the LL as an agent to control/punish someone when it's not really appropriate... or a very grown-up thing to do.

but mugoftea if you want to keep your house, why smoke illegal drugs? Any LL would not appreciate a tenant doing that and risking THEM getting a criminal record on the back of it. Actions have consequences. Law breaking will not result in good ones. People can't complain about being made homeless if it is due to their own deliberate choice to break the law.

Hear, hear, Mugoftea

Hum... So you'd possibly propel them into a situation that might make them homeless would you OP? it's almost impossible to get a good rental at a realistic price as it is, let alone the issues of being credit checked left right and centre if you go through an agent etc, and is it reallty worth the hostility that might result?

Yes sadly I have deepred, but I'm not arguing that smoking weed isn't bad for you, I'm arguing that going to your neighbours landlord behind their back about them smoking it in their back garden is unreasonable. I wouldn't smoke it myself, but I wouldn't tell someone's landlord about them smoking it.

Assuming she's not smoking in the garden all day long.
Assuming your dcs are not disturbed by smoke most of the time.
Assuming that the landlord will not be able to prove anything so she will continue to live and smoke in the house despite your complaint.
And assuming you would like to keep on polite neighbourly terms with your NDN YABU.

Because the likely upshot of complaining will be neighbour continuing to live next door to you but making your life much more unpleasant.

YABU

As your excuse for moaning about the smoke is the effect on your DD, you'll also be implicitly calling her a rotten parent as her own DC were in her garden at the time.

You don't seem terribly good at picking your battles, I have to say. You'll be spending all summer one fence apart from the family next door - do you really want it to be an angry stand-off the whole time?

Why don't you just count your blessings that a reasonably trouble-free family lives next door? Put up some trellis and grow creepers to baffle the smoke. Take DD to the park. If you feel like a fight, find something worth fighting for!

YABU. It's not your business what she does in her own garden and what makes you think your landlord would evict her anyhow? Is he a member of the moral police? Does this REALLY stop your kids playing outside or do you just fancy a bit of drama? Meany

I wouldn't have. I wonder what your intention is though. If you think she's harming her child then her landlord isn't the person you needed to have told.

I'd talk to her, I am a smoker/ex-smoker/givingitup and if someone asked me to move away from the fence I'd be happy to oblige. I don't smoke weed but I know the smell of tobacco or weed is pretty yukky.

YAsoNBU It is so NOT the same as having a BBQ. Smoking weed is a criminal offence. I would not want my neighbours to be committing a criminal offence regularly in front of me and my children. Absolutely it is the landlord's business as he/she is also guilty of a criminal offence even if he/she knows nothing about it (drugs on premises are a strict liability offence for a LL).

Perhaps reporting to the police would be more effective though?

I can't believe everyone saying, meh, weed, so what? If they really think that then they should campaign for its legalisation. Until then, live with the law. We can't pick and choose which ones to abide by. BTW it also makes them irresponsible parents to be smoking drugs whilst "looking after" their DC.

Kellyelly I doubt the police have better things to do than enforcing drugs laws....

Well if they all switch to smoking cigarettes in the garden would it still bother you?
YABU,its a bit of weed,not crack.

If my children have to breathe their smoke then that makes it my business in my opinion. The toxins in the cigarettes will be doing more harm to anyone breathing it in than the actual weed.

Let the police deal with it more impersonally, if you want some enforcement. Sure they have better things to do than arrest someone for smoking a joint in their own garden

YABU. If your kids are coughing it is the tobacco that will be causing it, not the weed. There is less tobacco in a joint than in a cigarette, so you don't really have any justification for telling on her.

She obviously doesn't like smoking in the house because of her kids, so if this is the first time you have both been in the garden at the same time and she has been smoking than she mustn't smoke very much.

I've had some awful neighbours. Trust me, loud music, parties, drunkenness, unkempt gardens, fights are all a lot worse than somebody sitting having a quiet joint.

Pick your battles OP, you don't know who you could end up living next to if she got evicted.

Or to cut a very long post short - what would you do if you both owned your houses (and had no pseudo-parent figure to appeal to)?

OP, YABU.

The Landlord is not going to give two hoots. We have neighbours who rent and they have done a lot worse than a bit of weed and Landlord isn't interested so long as the rent is paid on time.

Although I don't agree with smoking cannabis it is widely used and I accept that people can do what they want to in the privacy of their homes (which includes the garden). Surely if they were having loud parties every week, had unsavoury characters coming and going or were shouting and screaming abuse at each other that would be more harmful to you and your family.

I would suggest you get to know your neighbour so she has mutual respect for you and would be likely to listen to your concerns regarding smoking in the garden.