Neighbour's cigarette smoke

[Zizi91]

Sorry this is a long one. I'm hoping for some advice, I'm not trying to cause trouble just reached the end of my tether. I know also in reality is not a massive issue or could be so much worse but it is really causing me a lot of upset.

Just to add as a context when I was younger I suffered through issues with my family members having alcoholism and using cigarette smoke as a way of bullying me (they knew I hated it and would constantly invite drunk 'friends' over and they would all sit outside mine and my siblings bedrooms drinking and smoking cigarettes and weed as I tried to sleep flinging the bedroom door open and sit there laughing about it as it distressed me) so this experience below definitely feels like it is touching on the past trauma I've experienced. I have had counselling in the past for this, and have dealt with this, but the trauma is still there as it happened and it's not going to just go away with more counselling etc. Although I have started to consider getting more counselling as this is really getting me down.

My partner and I recently brought our first home together last summer. It is a lovely maisonette flat, with two other flats below on the ground and then first floor. When we moved we didn't realised our neighbour directly below us on the first floor smoked. As we'd only recently moved in we didn't want to cause issues so we just really well sealed up our front door which has helped to some extend. The neighbour is generally quite pleasant, when we see him about, but I believe there is some sort of drug taking/buying/selling going on as he has people over all throughout the night which we can hear as the front door and his door is always slamming so I'm a bit scared of him. He has also had parties since we moved in (obviously not Covid compliant), and the cigarette and weed smell has been awful. Things were relatively ok at the start when we moved, but since the ground floor neighbours moved out things have been getting worse and worse with the smell of his cigarette smoke in the share hallway (particularly around our front door as it is a section of restricted airflow) and also seeps through our front door into the rest of our flat and through the floorboards into our living room/kitchen.

I'm early days pregnant, and I know with the pregnancy hormones my sense of smell is properly better than it was, but it seems that the smell of smoke is getting way worse every week. I pretty much spend my entire time in our bedroom on the top floor where is a bearable, and can't spend time in our kitchen/living room/downstairs bedroom/study because of the smell of second-hand smoke literally makes me sick. It's pretty miserable as I'm still WFH and will be for the foreseeable future so don't get any variety in space in or out of the flat at all. Our flat is pretty small and we have indoor cats that need the option of space to roam around the flat if they want, so closing doors to rooms isn't really a solution as it isn't fair on them and would stop us using our home as normal.

Around a month or so ago I spoke to the neighbour and said the second-hand smoke was getting into our flat and could he consider sealing his front door to stop it escaping his flat and maybe opening a window when we smokes, and offered the left over things we had to do our front door. He seemed receptive and said he would roll up a piece of carpet at the bottom of his front door to stop it escaping, and I noticed he started opening his window a little which I'd never seen him do before, he also told me he barely smokes so didn't know why it was happening. I hate any sort of confrontation so it was a massive deal for me to speak to him about this and was as nice as possible about it. Initially things improved and I was able to start using the kitchen/living room again, but after a week or so it just went back to what it was, and the last few weeks it has got way way worse I think because he's been having more people over and they come through the shared hall with lit cigarettes. There is a no smoking in this premise sign, but they don't seem to pay attention to this.

I always have the window opposite our front door wide open and for a while was using a fan outside our front door to try and blow the smoke away from our door. And I brought a massive, expensive air purifier for our flat which I sure isn't the cheapest thing to run. I also brought a plug-in air fresher to put in the shared hallway which helped for a bit, but it's not a perfect solution, and now the smell of smoke is even overpowering this now, plus I know the air freshener is only covering it not getting rid of the dangerous second-hand smoke.

I've been feeling like I was going mad as can constantly smell the smoke in my home, our sofa stinks so I barely sit on it anymore. It has upset me so much as I feel like I'm being gaslit to feel like I'm going mad after he said that he barely smokes and that it is just my hormones, but equally I know the dangers of second-hand smoke I don't want my baby to have increased risk of SIDs and asthma etc. all because the neighbour/neighbour's friends being inconsiderate. Just to add also the baby will initially be in our room upstairs for the first 6+ months, but the plan was for bedroom/study downstairs will be turned into a guest room/study and nursery for the baby which but this room floor is the neighbour's ceiling so the smoke will likely be seeping into this room too. Now this doesn't seem like a sensible option and we'll all be in the same bedroom until we move.

I'm not sure what else I can do other than move and the last few weeks I've just been constantly searching to move which is sad as we've been doing up the flat and really hoped we'd be here for a good few years. I know the neighbour rents and I got in touch with the estate agents to check if smoking is permitted in their premise and they said it is. I could contact the council about nuisance smoke or the freehold company for our flat block but I feel like this will inevitably cause issue between us and the neighbour which I really don't want and don't want him to have any negative consequences, and realistically I'm not sure there is much any of them can do anyway. Equally I don't feel like my flat is even somewhere I can enjoy, feeling comfortable in or feel safe in anymore.

Please know I'm not saying he shouldn't smoke in his flat, although that would be great if he didn't, it is his flat and his decision, I just want him to be considerate that the shared hallway stinks and that it seeps from his flat through the floorboards, and that his actions are affecting and damaging others' health.

Should I just accept that this is what it is and if it makes me so unhappy just move? Due to various reasons it will be difficult and expensive to move, especially when I'll be looking a going on maternity leave in the near future so need to save as much as possible and I'm scared of running into the same problem or worse again, plus we really loved this flat and it's our first home together so it breaks my heart to feel like we'll have to leave it so soon.

We had an issue with cooking smells and general very bad smells in our maisonette. They came from the ground floor maisonette, they fried everything and had a lot of people in a 2 bed and apparently they had 10 pets inc rabbits in there. We pulled off the kitchen kick boards and foamed down the edges where wall meets floor, same in the bathroom, removed bath panel under bath. We had our own front door to the outside, so no shared inside area, but the smell was so strong it came through their door into the outside which he had to walk past. There is only so much you can do, but filling all gaps will certainly help and ventilating your own place. Do your bathrooms have air vents that come on with the light, these can also draw smells out? Is your floor just bare floor boards ?

We stayed 5 years and then moved to an end of terrace house. However people along the terrace moved out recently, as their new neighbour would smoke constantly outside standing under his porch, so you can't guarantee anything. So I'm saving for a big detached mansion with lots of grounds

Definitely move. It sounds awful, I couldn't live like that. Especially with a new baby.

As far as neighbors in flats go, he doesn't sound that bad.
If the walls and floors are really as thin as you say they are, then sounds are going to travel as strongly as smells.
Soon you will have a baby waking him up in the night.
Then eventually toddler footsteps pounding across the floors.
How considerate a neighbor do you want him to be? How tolerant a neighbor do you want him to be?

Turd burners are disgusting but sadly he is entitled to do that. However the quick visits at all hours indicate he's dealing in the illegal stuff so the crime rate will go up. You'll get fights and worse. With luck they will knife each other.

Be aware that if it is a rental ( drug dealers and mortgages don't generally go together) there is very little the landlord can do for a long time. Also if you are planning to sell you have to decide if you want to do to the buyer what has been done to you.

I'm sorry, I really don't have an answer.

Op, he's made an effort and life has taken over again and now your back to me square one..

I've had this exact issue, the lay out of our houses means if someone has a fag outside the entire house will smell of smoke if one window is open. Thankfully my amazing smoking neighbours did change their smoking habit for us, all they did was move literally a few meters away from the the window.
It's made all the difference.

When they smoked it not only went through the house but also if we went outside so it was intense.
I love my neighbours.

Before then we had people who's didn't give a damm.

In your case op I can sense that whilst this person has shown you some consideration ie he could have said, fuck off right off the bat, you need to either form a relationship with him and make him like you and then under stand

Or you will have to move.

In the mean time however have you tried air purifying things?

I really feel for you. We used to have a neighbour who smoked in his garden and that annoyed me enough when it would blow over the fence and into my open windows. There isn’t really anything you can do because obviously people are entitled to smoke in their own homes. I would have to move if I could.

I really sympathize. We’ve recently moved into a semi detached house but our neighbours on the non attached side someone in their garden a lot. We can’t use the garden or have the doors/windows open ehen they smoke. If we’d have smelt in dying viewings we wouldn’t have bought the house

@Puttingouthefirewithgasoline the OP talked about air purifiers in her opening post.

• it's a heck of a long post, shoot me

Does your partner smell it as strongly as you? I know when I was pregnant my sense of smell went into overdrive.
If him and his friends are smoking in communal areas report them to the council. Not allowed to smoke indoors.

I really feel for you op.
We moved a few months back into a semi detached house and joined on neighbors chain smoke all day and even all night. We didn't smell it on any viewings.
We have now lifted all the carpets to have bare floor boards the smell seeps through.
I go to bed ready for a nice relaxing rest and I lay there smelling next door smoking. Its so strong. We don't smoke and have children and it annoys me we are affected by second hand smoke.
I find it embarrassing when work men come etc as they must think we are smoking in the house especially upstairs because the stale smell lingers.

But as other posters have said there is nothing we can do and next door are entitled to smoke in their home. I think I'm getting more used to it now maybe you will soon too.

Your choices are

Put up with it.
Move.
Try to improve the air quality in your flat with good quality air purifiers.

You can't make your neighbour change, you are only in control of your own situation.

Move

OP it does sound like a shit situation. I sympathise as someone who also hates cigarettes and the smell of smoking. I refused to live with friends who smoked at uni, even thought they only smoked outside, because I knew I'd be able to smell it on them/their clothes and the smell would linger in the house and bother me. And I would never ever date a smoker.

However you also sounds really very dramatic. You've not been gaslit at all. He made an effort when you mentioned it but then life got in the way and he slipped back into old habits. Smoking 'a lot' is subjective. Some people would say anything more than social smoking is a lot, some would say a pack a day, some 3 packs. Also as you are so sensitive to it, as you've admitted, any cigarette would probably set you off so it doesn't really matter if it's 5, 20 or 40. Smoking is his own home also isn't being an inconsiderate neighbour. You say you have indoor cats, I'd bet to anyone with a cat allergy/dislike of animals smells that would bother them in flats too. You're going to have a baby soon and if walls are as thin as you say you're going to be disturbing him with a screaming baby. Sounds and smells are part of living in a flat, or a terrace or even just with other people. You don't get silence and no smells unless you live out in the sticks with nothing near by.

@boredbuttercup I think the difference with a baby is that it's not detrimental to anyone else's health by causing cancer. Also we are aware of the cars and ensure their littertray is upstairs, in the bathroom, away from any neighbour adjoining floors or walls, with carbon filters, spot cleaned multiple times a day and fully a few times a week. The same would be if I was bagging up their poop and putting it out in the shared hallway and left for hours/days, which we do not do. We take it to the bins outside straight away.

The neighbour does disturb us with his loud music at night daily, but at least it doesn't impact our health.

What would you like him to do OP? Apart from the obvious, which is to give up smoking? I would be hesitant to complain to him again about it as it's his home and if I'm honest there's far worse he could be doing. Don't get me wrong, I completely appreciate why it's upsetting you but as above a Dyson air purifier would definitely help. Also sleep deprivation definitely affects your health (I'm saying this with a 6 year old and neighbours on both sides having newborns ).

I think if you are that bothered you need to look for alternative accommodation. If smoking is so triggering for you definitely not a flat/maisonette. Also with a baby comming even after 6 months I wouldn’t dream of having the baby on a different floor to sleep

You’re not being gaslit and he is entitled to do what he likes in his own home. Move or put up with it

Is the second hand smoke from a building below really that more detrimental than say a delivery van pulling up outside your windows for 5 minutes and leaving the engine on?
I say this as someone who lives at a traffic light flat, with lorries, vans, motorcycles and all sorts of traffic puffing out their gasses next to my home. If something really heavy is waiting for the light to turn green then my windows shake a bit.
I also have a neighbor who hates kids and would bang on the walls whenever my baby cried. The night terror phase was not pleasant and my dh nearly got into fist fight with our neighbor ringing our doorbell at 3am to shout at us because our toddler had a nightmare.
The guy on the other side watches porn on his balcony, which sprawls out across our bathroom window. So whenever I try to take a relaxing bath I have to listen to someone faking multiple orgasms.

To sum it up OP, living in a flat is not always pleasant - possibly a health hazard as you describe - but the council, police, anyone with power won't care about your problem. They don't care about the people living in flats surrounded by flammable cladding waiting to burn to death. They won't care about a few cigarettes.

It sounds like flat life isn't for you. Flat living requires a certain amount of tolerance and resilience. You are going to expect the same from your neighbor at times when you need to inconvenience him a little bit.

You say you have cats. What if your neighbor was allergic to cats and asked you to get rid of them? Would you?

Massive sympathies OP. Our neighbour across the hall smokes vast quantities of weed and the smell is vile it seeps through our door and lingers in the hall and bedroom. And if he's not home then it's the smell of stale cat urine it's vile and it's even worse as I am also pregnant. Luckily for us the management company did a routine inspection a few weeks ago and shortly after a letter was sent to the whole block informing us that they can take action against the use of drugs in a privtely owned flat as they are the freeholders so bare some responsibility. Since then I have been reporting it to 101 online when I smell it and passing the reference number onto the management company, hopefully they can take action soon. Could you contact the freeholder? If not it seems moving is the only option, which is what we hope to do soon

Just remember moving has no guarantees. It's also very expensive.

An air purifier would be a lot cheaper than moving.
The cigarette smoke wouldn’t bother me so much but nightly loud music would have me on the phone to both the freeholder and my local councillor. I disagree that loud music isn’t bad for your health. Noise is recognised as a nuisance. So all in all you’ve got a nuisance neighbour. Moving isn’t really the answer. Dealing with the nuisance is.

What happened in the end @Zizi91 ? Did you have to move?

Currently having the same problem with tenants below us who just moved in. I don't want to move when we've got a baby on the way and we've just finished renovating. AND as they will probably only be here for a year or so anyway.