New neighbours smoking constantly and is blowing into our house

[iwishiwasonacruise]

Our next door neighbour has moved in with fiancé and has rented her house to a nice family. The only problem is that the husband smokes constantly in the garden.

We are non smokers.

They have erected a semi-permanent gazebo outside their back door and he seems to smoke there all day long.

We are in semi detached houses, so their back door is the same place as our back door, but obviously just on the other side of the fence. When they moved in in the summer it was awful because we have our doors and windows open constantly and our house always smelt of smoke. If the bedroom windows were open it would waft into ours and the kids bedrooms, and obviously as non smokers, its an obvious and lingering smell, and especially not nice just before bedtime.

It's obviously been less noticeable now it's Winter, but literally every time I open the back door to go to the garage I will get a waft of smoke in the kitchen. For context, our tumble dryer and freezer are in the garage, so we're still in and out quite a lot.

I feel like I can't really tell anyone what to do in their own garden, but would it be unreasonable to ask him politely to smoke somewhere else? ie maybe in the driveway or towards the end of the garden (we have quite long gardens, approx 120ft) and if he moved down the garden I think the smoke wafting into the house would be less.

But if you was my neighbour, and I made a polite request, would you be really pissed off? AIBU to even ask?

We are just dreading the summer and the thought of the smoke coming into the house constantly :(

Have you met or been introduced yet? I’d make sure you’re at least on polite hello terms and taking in parcels/reminding of bin day-level neighbourliness rather than opening with the smoking chat.

But not unreasonable to ask him to relocate – he obviously knows smoking stinks a house out and that’s why he does it outside, so hopefully he’ll be amenable to the fact it’s now stinking your house out.

Yes we are friendly. Spoke to them lots in the summer. Shared bbq food and lollies with the kids etc over the summer...

Totally fine then! Drop round a Christmas card or something and do the British cringe-cringe apology ask buried in chat about other stuff: “Awfully sorry, do you think you could move your gazebo? There’s no way you could realise but the wind pattern in our gardens means the smoke comes straight through our kitchen door, etc etc. Would the kids like to come round and make Christmas gingerbread one day?”

It’s not my style but preferable to going in all guns blazing and hopefully shows you’re not going to be an intractable French horn about it, you’re quite happy for the smoking gazebo to be next to your garden, just not right there.

You could suggest that they put one of the sides on the gazebo that is next to your fence, so the smoke wafts away from your direction.
TBH, our neighbours have an almost identical set up and we hardly notice the smoke!

Thing is if they say no what can you really do about it? All things being legal you can't really police where someone smokes.

2nd smoking post today.

You can ask but I doubt you will get anywhere.

Depends if you want to actually ask or be passive with it.

passive everytime you step out the back “oh hi John” oh how did you know I was outside? “Can smell your ciggies a mile away mate”

or just knock and ask if there is any chance they could swap what size the Gazebo is.

I have this but with cannabis smokers outside. The smell is horrendous. I feel your pain.

I have this with a huge wood burning stove chimney 20 feet from my back door, it’s put me in hospital once already as I have a chronic lung condition, council are useless. Hosepipe is not!

I'd wait till summer build up more of a relationship and see if he can move the gazebo further down the garden. They do sound lovely.

If it's tobacco, not much you can do. If they condone the stabbings of young men by smoking something else, then reasonable to point this out to them.

I'd discuss how you've recently been diognosed with asthma and drop in how smoke really irritates your chest. Then when you go to your garage or open the door cough a lot and if he likes you he will want to move away from your door.

Doesn't he go to work, that would drive me round the bend too. Does one of your DC have asthma.

I would ask him to put a side up on his gazebo so that it doesn’t waft over to your back door. I smoke in my garden (but not loads) and live in a terrace so I am often feet away from my neighbours. The husband also smokes on his side no I feel less concerned. But if they approached me about it I would certainly move my smoking spot and would not enjoy my guilty pleasure knowing it was wafting into their house.

I completely feel your pain as our neighbour smokes and it blows directly into our house when we have the windows/garden doors open during the summer.
Unfortunately I’m not sure there’s much to do to stop them. We are moving soon luckily but did consider putting a dirty nappy bin outside next to the shared fence to make their constant smoking breaks a tad less palatable.

I doubt they will give a rats ass😂

When I used to smoke I did it in my garden at the back door. I didnt realise until my DP was smoking and I was upstairs in the lounge that the smell was coming through the vents. I was mortified that it'd be going into next doors too so I moved round the corner away from the vents / windows as it's just courteous. I wouldn't mind or be offended if someone asked me to move. It DOES stink. If you get on well, I'm sure they'd be understanding