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?

Where are all these people from, that they're so unexposed to fag smoke that the idea of a little wafting into their gardens sends them all into conniptions? I go to my neighbour's - fag smoke, I go to my friend's - fag smoke, I walk somewhere - fag smoke, I wait for the bus - fag smoke.

Do I just live somewhere weirdly full of smokers?

Before we moved our neighbour smoked right outside her back door. It wafted up into my bedroom.
I'd walk into MY lovely clean bedroom and it would STINK of cigarette smoke. I could smell it on my sheets!!!!!
It was disgusting. I hated it and eventually we ended up hating her for it too sadly.
We did politely ask if she would consider moving to the bottom of the garden at least but she refused.
You CAN do what you like in your garden but it DOES effect other people and they have every right to be upset by the stench (and it is a stench).

Other people’s passive aggressive comments are just the price you pay for indulging in a habit which causes serious negative consequences for the people around you. When you smoke, you endanger their health and make their environment much less pleasant. If you’re going to continue to insist on doing so, the absolute least you should tolerate in return is them letting you know that they hate it.

"Where are all these people from, that they're so unexposed to fag smoke that the idea of a little wafting into their gardens sends them all into conniptions?"

I can't speak for others, @LuvSmallDogs, but none of my friends smoke, and I very rarely come across smokers out and about in public. I guess it helps that I am an introvert, and don't go out a whole lot - but when I do, I don't often come across smokers. The only person I would spend time with, who smokes, is my mum, and we live 350+ miles from her, so I don't see her very often.

As I've said before, my mum's smoking during my childhood and teenage years (and beyond) has left me with a deep and abiding dislike of cigarette smoke. Maybe I am oversensitive to it, or intolerant, but I can pick up whiffs of it very easily - and being around it for more than a few minutes brings back the feelings of nausea and headache that I used to get from mum smoking in the car. I find that very unpleasant - I don't comment on it, but it does negatively impact me, and so I see no reason to change my feelings about it.

LuvSmallDogsDo

Do I just live somewhere weirdly full of smokers”

Maybe . I don’t, personally, know a single cigarette smoker. See a few out and about but actually not that many, it’s mostly vaping now.
Best thing is, really stands out to see kids smoking cigarettes now. They were everywhere when I was young, thankfully, it’s a real rarity now.

You smoke 10 a day. Which means during sunrise when everyone wants to enjoy their garden you're out there polluting the air at least every hour from 12-6. Glad you're not my neighbour

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

Or to engage their critical thinking skills, apparently
🙄🙄

@LuvSmallDogs I think you must! I know a few colleagues smoke but none of my friends, family or neighbours do. My nana used to but was in hospital and died from a smoking related complication (possibly why my family don't smoke).

When I go into town people are smoking by the bus stops so I just avoid those and I don't eat outside in restaurants or pubs so I don't have any exposure in my day to day life.

'Other people’s passive aggressive comments are just the price you pay for indulging in a habit which causes serious negative consequences for the people around you. When you smoke, you endanger their health and make their environment much less pleasant. If you’re going to continue to insist on doing so, the absolute least you should tolerate in return is them letting you know that they hate it.'

^^ quite

No amount of 'critical thinking' or mental gymnastics will make it ok for someone Gp inflict their dangerous habits on others who don't want or like it.

Mental gymnastics is a very good description of some of the hyperbolic handwringing going on here, thank you.

I wonder if its possible to create a set up that blows the smell of dog shit at anyone lighting up in a neighbouring garden?

Just an idle thought....

Why bother? Just get a cat. That’ll shit everywhere but its owner’s garden.

On here that’s generally considered a-ok. Despite the health risks and general stinking nuisance of many cat turds that stay around for weeks at least.

A fag in the back garden, which lasts a couple of minutes and has no health risks to someone yards away in the open air though, oh no, no, no.

KissingInTheRain That’s utter bollocks and you know it is .

In what way?

*LuvSmallDogs

Do I just live somewhere weirdly full of smokers?*

Very likely. Smoking is strongly correlated with education and income. Poorer areas and mixed-economic areas are going to have more smokers than wealthy enclaves.

I'm gonna start smoking crack in my back garden

hmm..I bet I COULD make a device that upon detecting measurable levels of carcinogens from smoking released a puff of dog turd smell in the relevant direction.

So..you know...if the level of carcinogens remains undetectable then no smell...as soon as it isn't, then waft of dog turd.

The human sense of smell isn't really that powerful...and of course smelling something is a process of a chemical interacting with your body.

So if you can smell someone else's smoke then it is biochemically interacting with you.

This is the basis of my interaction with smokers. If I can't smell your smoke then you can do what you like. If I can then you are doing what you like TO ME ALSO...and I'm entitled to let you know what I think about that.

@KissingInTheRain - Lighting up a fag, stinking out the neighbours garden, having it permeate into their homes, into their bedrooms, making their clothes and bedding smell of someone else's smoke,10 plus times a day - gross.....

compared to ...

owning a pet / cat and it using part of other peoples gardens to bury it's poo - which although I know happens in my garden, but I personally don't see it, don't smell it etc etc.

You hate cats, fair enough, but you can't compare the two.

@LuvSmallDogs - I can go days, weeks without coming across cigarette smoke. If someone in town is smoking in front of me I will over take or cross over so I'm not around it. I have 1 friend that smokes but I see her once a month or so and she smokes well away from me / the house, as any respectful person should do.
Having smoke infiltrate my home 10 times a day from a neighbour would seriously piss me off.

But what would happen if the tiny level of carcinogen was detected coming from or around you? Trace toxins are everywhere.

And if it had wheels and could react to directional toxins, presumably you’d be running up and down the street pursued by your own dog shit smell sprayer?

Very likely. Smoking is strongly correlated with education and income. Poorer areas and mixed-economic areas are going to have more smokers than wealthy enclaves.

I live next to a very affluent area populated by upper middle class families, and that’s where my doctors is located. Just yesterday I went to the doctors, and on the short walk to the pharmacy I noticed huge number of cigarette butts on the ground.

I live a few minutes up the road where property is cheaper, and people are slightly less affluent. Almost no cigarette ends and rarely see smokers passing.

It’s not as clear cut as some are making out

Also, my garden is full of unburied cat poo, which is lovely with twin toddlers with ASD who will put literally anything they can pick up into their mouth. One flower bed has become a litter tray for a few cats and then never bury it, ever. It sucks. My solution is not to go out and make PA comments to my cat-owning neighbours, however.

Crack in your back garden? There’s that hyperbolic bullshit again!

Oh I'd be fair Kissing I set the level so that it wouldn't be set off by 'I walked past someone who was smoking 2 hours ago and the smell is still emerging from my clothes' but would be set off by 'there is a lit fag less than 5 meters away'.

I think this is what is strange about this thread....people don't seem willing to acknowledge that someone smoking in the garden next to you generates a significant amount of smoke in your vicinity (depending on wind direction obvs). Just wandering around a world in which a minority of people smoke doesn't expose you to anywhere near as much. Having someone smoking outside your house 10 times a day really is different to the odd whiff off peoples clothes while shopping that everyone is subjected to.

But I need the crack to get by

Maybe go for a walk when you want one like down the road and back
I find it so bloody annoying when eating outside at a restaurant or pub for example and the smelly stupid smokers near my kids
Gosh hate the habit disgusting and weak

I strongly suspect that you couldn’t calibrate it like that at all. Bit of burning chicken skin on your bbq or under your grill or maybe a new pair of shoes treated with some solvent or other and you’d be in the middle of dog shit spray frenzy.