To complain to neighbours smoking in the garden?

[Quickncjust4this]

Our neighbours have recently installed a canvas covered parabola thing in their garden, with one side (the side pointing towards our garden) left open.

They are now using this as an all seasons smoking shelter. Many times through the day and most evenings they are sat out there puffing away.

The problem is it is completely stinking out my house. The whole of our top floor now stinks of smoke. I've shut the windows be it is still coming in through the vents. I've bought new air fresheners which help but it's still awful.

As non smokers it's really unbearable for us I'm also worried about young children and the health effect to them.

Would I be unreasonable to ask them to stop, or at least to add a 4th panel to their shelter to reduce what reaches our home?

Filled with smoke conjure up the image of our family living room circa 1983 when the haze of smoke hung in the room from aunts and uncles and mum on fags and dad on a pipe and other uncle on cigars.

If your house is like that, you’ve a problem.

But I suspect it’s nowhere near like that.

Just explain to the neighbours in technical detail how the structure is funneling the smoke towards your windows/airbricks whatever.
I'm sure they already know about the masters and PhD so will be suitably abashed.

@Soosiesoo

We get this from our neighbour but it's weed instead. My daughter is in the loft room and the smell gets in, even with everything shut.

It makes me cross that my child is sleeping in a room smelling of drugs!

I wouldn't worry about it. At least she'll be used to it when she goes to university.

how about getting some canvas & using it as a screen so it doesn't go your side but smokes them out? (alternatively wicked thought ; you need a bucket some stinging nettles & water with lid - let it ferment, you than have some wonderful liquid manure suitable for all plants & veg -when they go out for smoke, open lid. Our lovely neighbour is their big back garden at the back use to make this. I guarantee it reeks )
this is a joke!

not is - in doh!

@BoulangerieBabs

What's a parabola?

It's the gentle curved path projectile eg football makes when it travels through the air.

I thought the first one was a misprint - but now i'm wondering myself.

You know your neighbours better than people on here do, but it's reasonably likely the neighbours will tell you to fuck off (or worse) if you confront them.

I say "confront", you might think you are being friendly and polite, but in my experience nothing gets a smoker more worked up than someone interfering with their right to smoke what they like, when they like and where they like, regardless of the problems it might cause for those around them.

@mumwon

how about getting some canvas & using it as a screen so it doesn't go your side but smokes them out? (alternatively wicked thought ; you need a bucket some stinging nettles & water with lid - let it ferment, you than have some wonderful liquid manure suitable for all plants & veg -when they go out for smoke, open lid. Our lovely neighbour is their big back garden at the back use to make this. I guarantee it reeks ) this is a joke!

I can confirm that it honks to high heaven.

Every year I make nettle broth as a treat for my compost heap.

Oh - chop the nettles up - they ferment much more quickly.

It will definitely cause a rift - smokers are selfish pricks who have no comprehension of how repulsive their habit is to non smokers. It makes me feel physically unwell.

Id have to move - im not even joking

Well I’ve learnt some new words today. It’s been enlightening 🤣

I Went round with booze and chocs and asked my neighbour to move her enormous extremely loud wind chimes away from my bedroom window. She did. But she then put them back up in the same place a month later !

I hate smoke too. My new neighbour smokes under my window and it floats up to my first floor flat. I’m glad it’s winter, so she’ll stop.

I guess you‘ll have to ask neighbour politely to move further away with her gazebo and hope she complies.

The stable lads from the nearby racing yard let their horses shit in the street, right outside my house, and they don't even bother to pick up after them and put it in a poo bin. wink

Careful

There was a thread where everyone - other than the lambasted OP - thought horse shit was awesome, it didn’t need picking up and anyone who didn’t want to roll in it had a gene missing

Devilishly that's a ridulous comment to make isn't it?! Countryside smells are to be expected, can't be avoided and won't do you any harm.

Presumably your PhD wasn't related to the appreciation of mildly humorous remarks.

I much prefer parabola

@Aridane

The stable lads from the nearby racing yard let their horses shit in the street, right outside my house, and they don't even bother to pick up after them and put it in a poo bin. wink

Careful

There was a thread where everyone - other than the lambasted OP - thought horse shit was awesome, it didn’t need picking up and anyone who didn’t want to roll in it had a gene missing

Lol, I don't mind at all. If I see them before all the shit gets squished by cars, I pop out with a trowel and a bucket, pick it up, and put it in the compost.

My compost has been fantastic for the last few years.

forget the discussion lets talk about compost!

Well, you’ll just have to bite the bullet and hope that they’re reasonable people. Good luck!

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8871843/Husband-jailed-having-sex-29-CHICKENS-hens-legal-technicality.html

Now this fucker is a bad neighbour.

I don't see the harm in asking would they mind rotating or repositioning it with their garden as it's funnelling smoke into your house.

Is it only me who had to google parabola..? 😂

Op, all you can do is ask. However they are within their rights to say no.

If you want them to change the panel positions on the pergola that's fine but if you're expecting them to fork out for extra panels at a cost to themselves youre heading for trouble

YABU. They can smoke outdoors. If you are upset by it that much, move.

Sometimes, mumsnet amazes me. To get in a strop about OP not answering your question when she's already addressed it to another user. To make such a such about whether it's called a pergola, gazebo or whatnot and unnecessary comments about her degree.... what a load of bellends.

OP, as a non smoker it would be irksome for me too. I agree with those who say mention it to them politely with a suggestion about a 4th side. And ignore the pedantics of the thread.

@TheQueef - but did he have a post coital smoke?

But if it had a 4th side, then wouldn’t it be ‘indoors’ and you couldn’t mix with other households in it for a good old smile and natter? (