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).

ikea my issue with that (acknowledges true petulance and pettiness) is that I don't see why I should be the one to suggest the compromise when a) he is the one with the problem and b) he is plain rude. I see how UR that sounds given that this is the smoking bogeyman though...

Gross. I don't smoke but can't imagine lighting up under someone's window. Shame the law doesn't cover this. I would hope most smokers would be considerate of others.

Smoke in your flat with the windows shut?

You are the one causing this problem.

His impac on you eg noise is your problem but he is the cause - perhaps there is opportunity for a treaty?

maddening that's option 3 in my op. Sorely tempted to say, happy to if you can keep your noise down. right now a treaty would probably require intervention by the US (or mumsnet)...!

You should be the one to suggest the compromise because at the moment your bad habbit is making smoke go into the home of children. Your smoke is being breathed in by children. It is not their fault that their father is an idiot and it's not their fault you choose to smoke so that it goes into their home but those children deserve to be able to breath clean air in their own home.

How can you enjoy a cigarette in the knowledge that children are probably passively smoking that cigarette?

Yabu as someone who can't breath if someone smokes near me. I have to go onto my inhaler, and sorry if you smoking in street I gave to rush past you or cover my mouth or else I start wheezing. Ok in theory you can smoke where you are but how would you feel if your neighbour is taken into hospital due to your smoking (ignoring the fact op hasn't mentioned any problems with neighbour and breathing...). To be neighbourly if you going to smoke this known cancer risk (I can show you what your feet look like if you smoke!) could you move away from open windows or his garden. Sorry op you can smoke where you are but in fairness to your neighbour it's a horrible smell do its a yabu from me despite you doing nothing wrong. X

You're on the pavement. Smile sweetly and say he should think about moving somewhere that doesn't face onto a road if he doesn't like people doing what they want in a public place, because that is what it is after all - a public right of way.

Yabu. Sorry but you're behaviour is impacting on him and while it may be perfectly legal its not nice.

So you're blowing smoke into his flat and he's the inconsiderate one. That is hilarious.

Why on earth wouldn't you smoke inside with your windows shut? Oh, you don't want the skanky smell in your flat?

There are lots of things you can do which are technically legal but inconsiderate and shitty.

And if you think his calling out, "stop blowing smoke in my flat please," is rude you've had a sheltered life.

But you acknowledge that smoking is an awful habit?

Yet you are still going to make your neighbours suffer the smell of it until you are ready to give up.

YABU, stop making your neighbour suffer the stench of smoke in their home. You go out of your home so that it doesn't make the house smell presumably? So what gives you the right to continue to smoke where it affects your neighbours? You wouldn't standing your living room smoking of it made it smell, it's the same thing.

Glad I don't live near you.

You really need to explain how your stupid and filthy addiction trumps people's rights to enjoy fresh clean in their own home.

I would find it abhorrent to have smoke drifting on a daily basis into my home.

Whether or not he asked politely, I think that knowing the smoke is causing him annoyance, you should find somewhere else to smoke.

Saying that any number of people could smoke there if they chose to is just a cop out. You are the one smoking there on a regular basis.

Yes, he should have been more polite.
Yes, you should stop smoking there.
Yes, he should stop stamping his feet.

So you've made noise complaints to the council about the stamping and noise, right?

What, he's a shitty neighbour so you get to be one too? That's going to turn out well.

I don't think the fact that you are in a public place gives you total carte blanche, does it? I imagine if someone came and stood in the same place and started make a noise at 3 a.m. you might not lie there and think "I don't own the pavement, nothing I can do about it". I also don't think it's reasonable to demand that neighbours close their windows to avoid your smoke - in this weather that would be a total pain in the neck. I know smoking isn't illegal, but the issue is really whether it's considerate. Couldn't you move a bit further down the pavement, for instance?

Yanbu. Smoking is not illegal, you aren't doing anything you shouldn't, and he is being a twat. So are all of the people pearl-clutching and talking about how they would just die if you smoked a fag within 60 ft of them in the plain air. Fuck it. He'll be getting much more damage through car fumes etc than he will from so-called 'secondary smoking' which actually doesn't exist, unless you stand there for 12 hours a day purposely smoking and blowing smoke through his window.

Christ but I am bored of the anti-smoking rhetoric that you get on mumsnet.

According to figures from the Royal College of Physicians, millions of children in the UK are exposed to second-hand smoke that puts them at increased risk of lung disease, meningitis and cot death.

Second-hand smoking results in over 300,000 doctors visits among children every year, 9,500 hospital visits and costs the NHS more than £23.6 million annually.

to a non-smoker, the smell is quite revolting and really does carry.

there is no magic curtain that means if you stand just outside, the smoke will disappear. That's why people don't like you smoking under windows, by their doors etc. You reek.

so work out which way the wind is blowing and stand so it blows away from open windows, especially at this time of year where there is lots of lovely warm fresh air. This may involve walking more than two steps from a building.

not 'anti-smoking rhetoric' - basic consideration. Smoke away, doesn't bother me as long as I can't smell it. I won't die of it but it is a nasty niff.

Bore-off.

I'm going to buck the trend here and say he's being fucking ridiculous. His window is open directly onto the pavement? And he's a shit neighbour? Crack on.

If he's that bothered he should have chose a better flat. And how's he gonna stop every passing smoker inadvertently polluting his flat? Not to mention all the carbon monoxide from the passing motorists.

"Cigarette smoke smells like motherfucking ass and demonstrably causes chronic and debilitating health problems. When some weak-willed addict forces their cigarette smoke into my life I reserve the right to say how fucking obnoxious it is."

There, just producing some more anti-smoking rhetoric. HTH.

I agree with your neighbour unfortunately.

I live in a back to back terraced house which opens directly on to the street. Because we have neighbours at either side and at the back, my house gets very warm in the summer.

I can't open my door or windows because my skanky neighbours stand outside their house and smoke weed all day, every day.

I have a 6 month old dd and I have to put her to sleep in a boiling hot bedroom because I can't open the window. When I'm cooking or if the weather is nice, I can't open the front door to let some air in because it lets all the smoke and smell in.

Why should he have to close his windows just because you have a dirty habit?

Cruikshank did you not read what I wrote. I along with loads other people have my asthma triggered by smoke from fags. Do you know whats it like struggling to get each breath. I'm lucky my inhaler sorts me out but for some people including children that's a trip to hospital. Asthma can kill! (It's worse if I had a cold). I've got better as I've got older. I don't think op for one minute will want that on any child or adult so if that means she moves away from her neighbours window or garden so be it. She's doing nothing illegal but surely her neighbour has the right to breath fresh air without the horrible smell! I can smell a smoker in the street ( you can't hid it ever despite what smokers say).

It's not about an anoying smell in an anoying neighboring home, it's about dangerous smoke in a child's home.

If it was just the smell I would say yanbu, if you were having a bbq for example, but if you can smell the smoke you are breathing in the toxins from the smoke.

toxic chemicals in secondhand smoke are suspected to cause cancer, including (1):
Formaldehyde.
Benzo[?]pyrene.
Toluene.