To cook food at whatever time I want?

[Antisocialneighbour]

Name changed for this one.

I live in a flat building, just DH and me. DH finishes work at 7ish, the finishing time for my job really varies but often I’m not home until after 9. As such we often cook quite late.

Earlier this week I got a complaint from a neighbour complaining that we cook too late and asked us to stop! They specifically aren’t a fan of our meals featuring meat, onion and garlic.

DH addressed the complainer and apologised but honestly I’m bewildered why you would even complain. I get it might be frustrating to smell cooking smells later at night, however if you live in a flat building what the fuck can you do. We can’t eat any earlier and I don’t want to cook bland food.

I’ve spoke to DH and he says he initially felt guilty but now sees it from my point of view.

So am I being unreasonable to send a message to my neighbour explaining that I think their request is ridiculous and carry on living my life as normal?

Some people are more sensitive to smells....I had to stop my sons from cooking late at night ( I'm talking after midnight) because the smell would wake me up, even though I have an attic bedroom and the doors were closed.
It's not a question of rights, and I find it quite sad to read the " your house, your rules" comments.
Your neighbours wouldn't be complaining if it wasn't causing them a problem, so it would be the decent thing to at least take them seriously. What could you do to help ameliorate the situation? Could you do a big batch fry up of onions and garlic at the weekend, could DH start on the dinner earlier?

The neighbour can do what they like, but neither environmental health nor the managing agent will take a complaint like 'I don't like the smell of neighbour cooking onions at 9pm' even remotely seriously, because that does not constitute any kind of nuisance or damage. Cooking a meal of perfectly normal foods for your own consumption in the late evening, whether the neighbours can smell it or not, is absolutely not enough to trigger action from any authority.

I live in a flat. Hell will freeze over before a neighbour tells me when to cook.

My experience is different. Our managing agent took complaints about several tenants cooking excessively smelly food very seriously and went to their landlords about it. Both landlords warned their tenants that if it didn't stop, they wouldn't renew their tenancies.

Of course there are flats where you can really smell the cooking, I have lived in new build where I could even smell the toasts from downstairs (they did not cook much else, so it wasn't bad!)

9pm is a perfectly reasonable time to cook diner, your neighbour is nuts.

I wouldn't complain, but I would sympathise if you were cooking meat, onion and garlic at 7am. Cooking diner at diner time? Of course you are not BU!

It's called living. Your neighbours sound very intolerant. Assuming you've got the extractor fan on so aside from not eating meals in your own house there's not much more you can do!

I'm sorry, but IS 'a question of rights'. Nobody has the right to impose their personal extreme sensitivities on a neighbour. People should not be asked to change their own perfectly normal and reasonable cooking habits to accommodate a neighbour who is freakishly sensitive to every day smells. Tell your sons not to cook in your house if you want, but you can't tell people not to cook in their houses either.

If someone has a sensitivity that means they can't tolerate their neighbours literally just living a perfectly normal life in their own home, then that is not something anyone else has to accommodate. Maybe the occasional whiff of an onion is a problem for the neighbour, the problem is their own sensitivity, not the neighbour's cooking habits.

It is not selfish to cook a meal in the late evening. It IS selfish to suggest other people they should only cook pre-approved ingredients at times that suit you, just because you have the world's most delicate nose. Don't be absurd.

I wouldn't bother contacting the neighbour, I would just carry on as normal.

Since when is 9pm LATE EVENING? The whole thing is ridiculous.

She absolutely is being unreasonable if she is trying to tell other people that they can't cook meals in the evenings because she doesn't like the smell of meat and onions.

She's not unreasonable to dislike smelling food. She IS unreasonable to approach the OP about it.

"I'm sorry if this is cheeky but would you like to share some recipes at all?"

Where did pp say they were a chef?

Exactly - 9pm is a normal dinner time for loads of adults. It's not at all unusual!

I wouldn't respond to the neighbour either, because they are clearly bonkers.

Do you put your extractor on? Where does it vent to ? In my experience people do not change the filters in extractors frequently and it may be worth checking that it is extracting properly.
If it is vented to the outside maybe check whether that's next to your neighbour window? You could consider a re circulation one which are generally considered to be better anyway.
My neighbours cook late and very smelly food and I think it is an extraction problem which I've told their landlord about. The issue is the smell happens late at night when I go to bed and the smell wafts up to the bedroom. If they just actually vented properly then it would be solved.
In the interests of being neighbourly I'd at least review ventilations and windows

I would not complain but my neighbours cook at eleven and their. Kitchen window is above my bedroom window and it does make me feel a bit icky when I'm trying to sleep and I can smell their dinner cooking.

Meat, onions and garlic wouldn't constitute 'excessively smelly foods'. It's the basis of a bloody casserole. It's not fermented shark meat or a giant wheel of Epoisse.

Complaints about 'excessively smelly foods' are usually a dog whistle for something quite different, in my experience...

This

It's totally unreasonable

Some people just shouldn't live in flats - or anywhere near other human beings, frankly.

I live in a flat. I get pissed off by neighbours' cooking smells sometimes, but they're cooking their own food in their own homes, ffs. I prob ably do things that annoy them.

I used to live two floors above someone with hypersensitive hearing. He genuinely could hear everything I did and said! Awful for him, but I wasn't exactly holding drum'n'bass parties so it was his problem, not mine. I tried to make it up to him by giving him exclusive recordings of bird songs that I got from work 😆 I hope he eventually managed to move somewhere extremely remote, with birds!

I don’t think you’re unreasonable to cook late if you’re just using a hob or oven. When I cook late, I never use the blender or stand mixer because I know those two things are noisy enough to travel between flat walls. With flat living, you can only do what you want within reason, and I think that’s a fair compromise.

I do think you might be unreasonable not to look into why the smells are entering your neighbour’s flat and how to stop that. Surely there’s something very wrong with your extraction system if they can smell what you’re doing? Unless it’s a simple case of you both having open windows, then it’s easily sorted by them shutting theirs.

I have never lived in a flat where smells pass between properties and it would worry me if this happened.

If it was me in either position I would buy an air purifier

That’s odd. I live in a small block of flats but only smell food when I step into the communal corridor. They are being ridiculous, why does it matter if they smelt your food at 5/7 or 9pm? Honestly some people are unhinged

This would not constitute a nuisance! Environmental health (or the courts, of the neighbour decided to try the civil route) wouldn't even entertain this.

As for landlords terminating contracts, there is no legal threshold, that's a matter for landlords willing to lose decent tenants over a meal being cooked.

You are doing nothing wrong. It might be worth checking your extractor, changing the filters, cleaning it, but that would be because you're a decent person, not because you have to. But the minute you start pandering to ridiculous requests, you've opened yourself up to a barrage of even more ridiculous requests that you'd be under pressure to comply with.

Flats often mean hearing neighbours and smelling neighbours. Such is life.

You are not coking too late. They are cooking too early!...tell them to sod off