AIBU re neighbour (politeness and smoking)

[dancingwithmyselfandthecat]

I have started smoking again. This is neither big nor clever and I make no justification for it. I will be giving up again shortly but this really seriously isn't the week.

When I smoke, I go out by the front door. I live in a ground floor flat and this leads me straight onto the pavement. I pretty much cannot go further away without stepping onto the road. My upstairs neighbour lives on the upper ground floor.

The last couple of times I have been out upstairs neighbour has bellowed out of his open window at me to stop smoking "into his flat". There was a "please" on the end the second time, but the kind of please which acts as an intensifier and not a courtesy.

I have a strained relationship with upstairs neighbour anyway because he is rude and domineering. So I genuinely can't tell if I WBU to give him any of the following responses:

1. Explain that he cannot dictate what people lawfully do in a public space ie the pavement outside their house and that he has the alternative of shutting the window.

1. Explain that whilst I understand that smoking is unpleasant and anti-social his attitude is also deeply unpleasant and anti social. If he would like to ask me politely (genuinely politely, as opposed to bellowing from his sofa) I would do my best to accommodate him.

1. Smile sweetly, and say that I am happy to be more neighbourly, but perhaps in turn he could also be more neighbourly and try to keep down the incessant banging on the floor which I find maddening (it is particularly prevalent when there is sport on the telly).

I'd tell him to piss off - he doesn't own the street. If he'd asked nicely it'd be different...

sorry but yabu. we had neighbour who used to stand out in his back garden and the smoke went straight up the wall into our bedroom. we moved in the end.

I can see both sides, I have this issue with my neighbour, they step out to smoke and it comes into my door. I detest smoking. However he is bu to be so rude.
Ignorant people can't consider that living side by side requires tollerance.

greenfolder - did you ask him to move? Did you ask him politely? what did he say/do?

My alternative is smoking in the back garden, which would go into his kitchen and children's bedroom.

Tell him to knob off and close his window.

It's going to sit in the air... And float in, it's horrible. Really, it is.

If he had asked politely, I'd say you should maybe find somewhere else to smoke. But seeing as he yelled out the window at you, he can stick it.

I sit and seethe at my neighbour when I'm having breakfast in the summer with the window open and she's having her morning fag on the back step as she doesn't like to smoke in front of her DC.

I've never complained to her about it as she's in her own garden.

But I hate it nevertheless...

anyone not denying that it is horrible but consider a) he could ask me politely b) my alternatives are (for him) equally or more horrible and c) he could always shut the window (given that the street is a public place, and relatively busy and any number of people can smoke there if they choose to.

A deeply unpleasant and anti social attitude doesnt make YOUR house smell though, does it?

My downstairs neighbour smokes directly under my living room window and he has many more options than you do.. but isn't that just a fact of life? I don't own the ground he's standing on, I've asked him to try and not stand there before 7pm as my daughter will be up and playing in the living room.. He sometimes goes somewhere else and sometimes doesn't.. Either way, nothing I can do about it!

Being politer clearly would have gotten him further though..

If he's worried about the smoke being in his living room I would just start smoking out the back? If it makes no difference to you, he will either not notice because he's in the living room, or have a go at you for smoking there too- in which case tell him to fuck off and decide which one he would prefer, and when he's made his decision he needs to stop harassing you about it!

I can understand why you step outside.
However, he isn't psychic; he doesn't know when you are going out to smoke and therefore cannot close his window before you light up.

This isnt the same neighbour about the Bacon is it?

Yabu. By the time he knows your smoking his flat will smell of smoke, I imagine you wouldn't smoke under your own open window if your children were in the room?

Yes legally you can smoke on the street but I'd imagine legally he could water plants on his windowsill so the water drips down onto the street.

Why don't you knock on his door to warn him your going to smoke under his open window?

andsmile no issues with bacon...

Issues with incessant and maddening noise. With his coming into my garden unannounced (when I am naked on my bed which faces directly onto it). With cutting through my TV aerial lead and refusing to pay to get it fixed. With trying to bully me into going behind the freeholder's back on work needing to be done to the exterior, yes...

ikea if he were to propose that compromise or ask that I just shout up to warn him and ask nicely then I would...

Hmm. If someone smoked outside my window I probably wouldn't like it, but if it was on public property I would just have to lump it and shut the window.

He can't dictate whether you smoke or not and it is not his actual garden or anything so I suppose YANBU.

Although he was rude I think it is also rude to smoke under someone's window. It will make his house stink. If you're used to cigarette's it's hard to understand how horrible the smell is for others.

If you smoked in the garden surely you could step further away than you can from the front door.

magpie I'm not directly under his window - I am on the pavement, and the farther side of the pavement at that. I could smoke directly under his window if I stood on my own doorstep but I don't.

Well it is a horrible smell yes, but it's not illegal and the OP said its either the pavement or the road.

As much as smoking is unpopular, people can't stop others doing it.

He goes into your garden and invades your privacy - I hope ypu are building up a fil on this loon

Suggest that to him then. You could even take his number and text him when you were going out for a smoke, we asked our neighbours to do this when I was pregnant with ds1 as we don't share a stairwell but their balcony is right next to our living room.

andsmile yes. I have had words with him about that. The problem is that he is so generally unpleasant that I am totally unminded to give way on this unless he either asks politely or shows in some way that he understands the concept of give and take. I get that I may BU about this but frankly three years of him has totally clouded my judgment.

Why not smoke indoors and stink out your own place.

A non smoker shouldn't have to deal with second hand smoke.