To smoke in my own garden

[LittleBear4]

I am a smoker. I smoke 10 fags a day and I'm not planning on giving it up yet (one day!).

In smoke in my garden, I've got two neighbours either side and one every time I'm smoking will come out and say 'it stinks out here' and will start to cough loudly.

It's really getting on my nerves, I can't move down the end of the garden because it's tiny and would make no difference at all but AIBU to hate the passive aggressive comments when I'm smoking in my garden?

Yabvvu

You say you don’t smoke indoors as you have children. What if you’re neighbours had children playing outside, or a pregnant neighbour or someone with health problems. Clearly you don’t give a toss about others. Selfish smokers😡

You an smoke we’re you like but as it’s a small garden it must go into your neighbours and their houses if it’s a nice day .
I’d be really annoyed too as I don’t need to be breathing in second hand crap and neither do anyone’s kids

Shame there's not some sort of 'over the head' contraption smokers have to wear when they smoke ensuring they breathe in every last bit of the shit and no one else is affected.

Quite disturbed to see comment about the idiocy of smokers, only morons would start smoking etc.

OP herself said she started smoking after experiencing trauma. I posted the following on another thread the other day.

“I got addicted to smoking because my sexually, emotionally and physically abusive father bought me a carton of 200 Marlboro red when I was 12 and made me smoke them all during a stay at his house (I think it was a week). After that I never managed to quit.

There is a massive correlation between smoking and mental health issues, trauma and / or a history of abuse. Absolutely huge.”

63% of people with PTSD are or have been smokers, compared to around 20% of the general population.

Even more important, those with mental health problems such as anxiety and depression are far less likely to be able to quit longterm. Smoking is often started as a teenager - those with good mental health are far more likely to be able to stop smoking whenever they choose, which explains why some people seem to be able to quit easily while other continually relapse.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2575106/#!po=0.271739

But sure, it’s easier to just dismiss smokers as selfish idiots.

try find the wind direction so it goes away from their garden or you could smoke at the front

I’d say “problem, love?” and let them decide how much of a problem they want to make it. DH smokes, and I did though I vape now. If you’re only on 10 a day you’re probably not out there chainsmoking 24/7 and a bit of fag smell is right down there in gripes with neigbours, so they’ve obviously got no real problems.

luvsmalldogs where I'm from that's likely to get someone flying over your garden wall to smack you one, not denying it's an erm... interesting place!

Prequelle, where I’m from your neigbours wouldn’t give a toss about your fag smoke as they’re probably smoking weed in their own garden!

Fair’s fair, last time I was approaching a dressing gown domestic with the kids one of their mates shouted “there’s little boys coming, stop fucking swearing!!!”

I would be more concerned with the difficult overly critical & dramatic personalities displaying themselves on here (showing a lack of sense of proportion, kindness or tolerance to others and to OP's actual posts) than whether a smoking neighbour might, with all the many other variables, be associated in research with lower educational attainment, class or groups of personality traits...

There are a number of traits that correlate with certain other groups with protected characteristics, and most of us recognise that it's pretty poor form to make generalised statements and assumptions about other people.

@Bellasorella makes a good practical suggestion
try find the wind direction so it goes away from their garden
A nice way to try to be mindful to NDNs

My experience is a tall full laurel bush or potted bay tree helps with a physical barrier for garden smoke of any kind (at sides of my house by back door) so really cigarette smoke from my NDN is more likely to go up & over head than my height.

A PP misquoted me earlier (they hadn't RTFT) about being asthmatic and "feeling sure I'd live" if a bit of cigarette smoke wafted over, when it was in reply to a 'think of the asthmatics you are killing off' (by your occasional wafting smoke outside) type comment earlier to that.

I definitely appreciate people being thoughtful but I wouldn't impose by negging on NDNs who are sensibly smoking outside - unless they were chain smoking right under my open window.

As someone who is asthmatic, I can tell what hits air quality more- it's far more noticeable with excessive car exhaust, bonfires and smokey BBQs that go on all evening, and from further afield, than someone smoking outside in their own garden. (Any smoking in same enclosed room is different).

Someone who smokes 10 a day is likely to only smoke only a number of those outside in their garden and the rest when out, so I doubt OP is even smoking for 50 minutes (10x 5 mins) maybe nearer 20-25 mins, of the whole day outside the back of her own house in her own garden in open air.

OP made a genuine point about NDN being passive aggressive repeatedly when most nice NDNs would have found a different way to approach it. She also said she had reasons for needing to smoke as a crutch right now, important to her mental health following some traumatic experiences and has had to endure a number of PP's slating posts about her likely being neurotic, thick, a moron and other similar derogatory posts. None of which I think were kind nor neccessary. I suspect OP is probably a nice NDN as she found it upsetting rather than made her shout back to them or react unpleasantly.

It's slightly shameful how some PPs have berated this OP.

I totally get the earlier posts (& other helpful ones) about cigarette smoke wafting over smelling gross, when they were reasonable, but this thread has descended into a farce of unkindness on display.

She's not though is she? She's smoking in her own garden and asked for some advice, not this witch hunt from some very unkind personalities.

Is there really any evidence to show that exposure to the drifting smoke from a few cigarettes a day over a garden fence for a minority of the year has any effect on health?

I can agree - as a non-smoker - that the smell might be unwelcome, for a matter of a few minutes each time. But health risk?

I think when people start to reach for health arguments in scenarios like this they begin to reveal themselves as frustrated little bossy Brown Owls rather than having any genuinely strong reason to kick up a fuss.

@KissingInTheRain
Yeay! Another voice of reason!

Some PPs are over extrapolating from research findings. Cigarette smoke outside disperses quickly so whilst cigarettes have a distinctive smell, which isn't great - and I understand their annoyance and dislike of smell- it's unlikely it would ever hit anywhere near the level of causing harm (from mere wafts of smoke from someone who barely smokes in their own garden in open air, not in an enclosed space). And that can be ameliorated by some clever planting or other strategies.
And certainly isn't anywhere near level of 3 hours of burning bonfires nor constant daily exposure to exhaust fumes.

Mental health problems do not entitle a person to harm others in any way.
And yes, breathing toxic smoke over others is a harm.

Oh give it a rest. Even assuming that the OP and her neighbour both spend 18 hours a day in their tiny gardens, never go indoors or out of their properties, I’d like to see the evidence that they are being more harmed by the small proportion of smoke that makes its way into their garden (and the smaller proportion that makes its way into their lungs) than by the constant air pollution caused by cars, buses, lorries, bonfires, bbq, factories, log burners etc etc.

I assume if you’re going to publicly attack people with mental health issues, you have the evidence to back it up?

There are plenty of people with mental health issues who don't smoke.

No amount of passive smoking is ok or healthy. That's why people aren't allowed to smoke inside public places any more. It causes cancer so I do strongly object to having it forced on me.

Smoke does stink, so I’d be the same as your neighbours. Smoke inside or out the front.

Christ alive.

Again, how do people still not understand the dramatic difference between smoking in an enclosed space indoors, and smoking outside? Anyone who has even a basic grasp of science should understand this, it’s not difficult.

Yes, of course some people with MH issues don’t smoke, but as has already been shown upthread, those with MH issues, especially anxiety and PTSD are significantly more likely to smoke and to have severe difficulties quitting smoking. Besides which, the OP said that he is suffering as a result of trauma, hence my comment.

As I said, I’m sure you have evidence that occasional exposure to smokers outdoors is more harmful to health than all the other environmental pollutants we are exposed to on a daily basis if you’re going to make such claims.

Making other people breathe your cancer causing smoke fumes is downright selfish whether inside or outside. And yes, there is an abundance of other pollution which is why it's even more selfish for people to choose to inflict their smoking on others.

What's more, there is evidence that passive smoking causes cancer and cot death.

/headdesk

You can't force people to agree with you Sink Girl 🙄

Sorry my sympathies are with your neighbours. The smell is horrible, particularly on a still, hot day. Same applies to really stinky bbq’s, within feet of other people’s open doors and windows.
Can you go in the front?

Smoke inside.