Next door's cigarette smoke

[Rachtoteach]

Please help! I am, and always have been, a non smoker though I firmly believe each to their own, live and let live and all that...

I do, however, detest the smell of cigarette smoke/stale cigarettes and do my best to avoid it. Problem is, evidently my next door neighbours smoke like chimneys and for some reason I can't quite fathom the smell is filtering through to my living room even when the doors and windows are shut!!! I can literally tell when they've just lit up as the smell starts coming through. We got back from holiday yesterday, so doors and windows were shut for a week, and as soon as I got through the front door I was hit by the smell of stale cig smoke!!

What can I do to get rid of the smell on an ongoing basis. PLEASE don't suggest I go and talk to them as the last time I went and politely knocked on the fence to ask if they would mind sharing the cost of fixing (their) broken fence which had fallen into our garden, they shut the door in my face!

I live in a normal 30 year old semi, why why why is the smell managing to get through the walls?!!!

• door

vents? though I wouldn't suggest blocking them. some anto bac candles or something? my sympathies and I am a smoker. cant be pleasant at all for you.

Air fresheners?

You could contact your councils environmental health department, they may be able to investigate it as a case of statutory nuisance. (ie their behaviour affecting your enjoyment of your property) but its likely to take a looooooooong time to resolve.

It might be quicker to get a (reputable) builder in to investigate how the smoke could be getting through. (shared sub-floor space, gaps in joint chimney breast, etc)

Not easy to resolve, especially if your neighbours don't want to play ball :( I feel for you though, it's not pleasant.

They do anti smoke candles but i think.your house must have an issue if you can smell their smoke.Bit dangeroys what if they had a poisonous leak and it got through to your house?

Kill them.

If you can't work out an obvious place where air is getting through from next door (do you have a chimney breast?) then I'd second getting a builder in to find out. You can't stop them smoking in their own home but there's clearly something wrong if it's coming through to yours.

I second getting a builder to have a look, I don't think talking to them would do any good, if my neighbour asked me to stop smoking in my own home I would think she was mad.

YAY YIPPEE - another anti-smoking thread !

expat

The anti smoker threads have been rather over done this week.

Shall we move on to alcohol now?

It's not the OP's fault there have been several on similar subjects.

OP I think this is very common and I don't know why. I've had similar happen in a lot of houses, however old they are.

I think the options are either to get in a builder to quote you for sorting it out somehow - which may not work and might be very dear and disruptive,
or wait for them to move out

Or move out yourself.

I'd be miserable in your position so I hope you can find an answer.

I can sympathise. I used to have a smoker living in the flat beneath me. He smoked in bed and I could tell within seconds when he'd lit up.

When he moved out I got straight onto to the letting agents and begged them not to rent it out to another smoker. I don't care if other people smoke I really don't, but waking up to a bedroom of stale cigarette smoke was so frustrating.

Sorry, I realise that's no practical help. You need to get a builder in to see where the air is wafting in.

forget trying to tackle one reek with another - you do need to find out where the leak is. Sympathies, it must be disgusting.

you can't object to them smoking indoors, any more than you can object if they fart there, so as this doesn't sound right please call a builder.