To be driven crazy by house smell!

[Flyonthewall01]

So I have a bit of a mystery.

Over the past 4 days my house has started smelling of cannabis. I’m not particularly uptight about people using it but it’s not for me. Nor my partner.

No one else lives in the house (no cheeky teenagers I could be suspicious of) and I can only smell it in the hallway.

at first we thought maybe a neighbour had taken up smoking outside their house and it’s wafting through but due to the design of the house there’s no windows downstairs so it can only be coming through a locked front door.

I have a few plants downstairs that I have given a good sniff so I don’t think it’s them and they’ve been there a fair while longer than the smell.

any suggestions? Is there anything that has a similar smell??

Could it be fox wee? My front garden often smells of weed but DH says its foxes (weeing, not smoking)

Yes, mould!

Do you live in an old terraced / semi detached? My neighbour smokes indoors, doors shut and the smell comes through the walls!!!

It’s relatively new (15year old town house) but it is a terrace.

next door do have a 17year old who keeps his window open so I suspect him the most. It’s just so odd

I’ve not seen any mould but might pull the furniture out to see.

Ooh interesting, shoes get abandoned in the hallway so could be on one of them 🤔

Oh gosh - I am sorry - being able to smell something that makes you feel grotty is really inescapable!! I had a neighbour once in an apartment building that had shared ventilation and could smell the weed and also cigarette smoke (which smells even worse to me) and it really was inescapable - so I understand your concern.

If it's a terraced house does it have an attic space that is not sealed off from the other homes?? This can be a common issue - see if you can make the attic door better sealed at the very least.

Alas weed smell seems to drift a long way (I used to live in California so was very used to smelling it - not only from people legally enjoying said weed but also because skunks live in lots of neighborhoods there and OMG their odour is very "dank"/Weedy lol! double trouble!!

My suggestion would be to check all the areas where there are potential "shared air" drifts between your house and others - so for example any holes by water pipes, or any trickle vents in windows that are in the rooms that seem to be particularly impacted by the smell.

If you can't locate the problem smoker then perhaps you might want to give the non emergency police line a call and ask their advice for how to handle the issue. You might also consider popping round to your neighbour's houses (if you feel safe doing so of course - take a friend!) and kindly and respectfully ask them whether they also have been smelling some odd aromas - and tell them that you are simply asking because maybe they could help you figure out which direction it's coming from...whatever you do don't be accusatory at all - just ask them for help - and explain that it's making you feel gross. etc etc.

Hope you figure it out soon. And that whoever is doing it maybe considers putting the weed into some brownies (just like the movies) - that way they get their fix and you get to live in a nicely smelling house again.

I find certain types of strong ground coffees have a bit of a weed smell

It could well be a foxy pee smell (or badgers - even cats for that matter) some animal pee can smell very dank.
Also consider that this is a perfect time of year for some weird garden plant smells to be kicking off - and we haven't had any rain to dampen said smells. There are a few plants that can smell quite 'weedy'.

I hope you get to the bottom (ahem) of this. In the meantime there are some pretty good air filter machines out there that may help to filter the smells out of the air for you - though of course it's difficult when the weather is nice and you want to keep the windows open for a nice breeze :( maybe at the very least it will help at night when you're trying to sleep.

Thank you! I just feel like I’m imagining it but I know I’m not as we both have commented on it. It’s weird because it’s the most strong in the hallway in the morning when I come out of the bedroom. So I don’t know if maybe someone’s outside smoking weed late at night and it’s drifting in that way through the door or a vent near the door?

I think I’m going to have to pull everything out near the front door to see if it’s something in my house if not you might be right about talking to the neighbours.

The smell of weed can seep through walls, under doors, through gaps in the floorboards - it's horribly pervasive! Unless your house is airtight (which it had better not be!) anyone smoking anything at all can lead to smells seeping into your home.

We once had this in a stair cupboard on an upstairs landing in a detached house. No windows or chimneys close by, and closest neighbours are a very prim and proper elderly couple. Lasted several months and then just stopped. Unsolved to this day, so watching with interest!

We thought we could smell weed in my daughters wardrobe. She's only two so it definitely wasn't her. We thought it might have been seeping through the walls (semi d) from the teens next door. But we eventually realised it was her new wellies I'd bought recently. They had a very distinctive weed like smell. Any wellies kept in the hallway?

I was just about to say the same are there any work boots in the hall ?
I have smelt similar when my husband /sons have left them lying around,especially if slightly damp.

Not wellies but a collection of beaten up trainers. I don’t fancy sniffing them but needs must I suppose 🫣😅

If I ever figure it out I will let you know 😂

Both DS’s trainers and Dh’s gym gear (washed but gets to the stage where it needs chucking) have smelt a bit like stale weed before in our house.

Weirdly sometimes I think beer bottles have this smell, have you bought a six pack for the hot weather and left them in the hall? 😂

I was so pleased to see you wrote about wellies 😂I remember smelling a weed smell once and it was actually some children's jelly shoes.

You're right!! Especially if they are from a microbrewery or similar that makes pretty hoppy IPAs - those can smell and taste kinda "skunky". Your point also made me recall that sometimes cardboard boxes - particularly newer ones - can smell sort of skunky too - have you by chance got any delivery boxes or anything made of rubber (wellies) or neoprene (wetsuits etc) in your porch area?? I'm "glad" to hear that the main smell is the porch/hallway - gosh it would be be dreadful if it was worse in your bedroom!!. If it ends up being the stanky trainers I might suggest you get (or build - can easily find plans for hoow to make a simple wooden lidded big box online) yourself a cedar (or cedar lined even) chest/lidded box that can hold the stanky shoes for you - get yourself one of those dehumidifier boxes too (I think poundland sells them) so that the moisture can be removed from said smelly shoes more easily - the cedar will make them smell better too by association :)

Do you have a "RING" doorbell camera or somesuch on your front door? That would make it a little bit easier for you to figure out if someone is having a puff of a spliff near your front door - you might want to check to see if there are some late-night spliff smokers mooching about (if your terrace is "en route" to or from a pub or similar then that might make it easier to track down I guess...(don't worry, I'm not asking you to tell us the details of your neighbourhood - just something to ponder for you - boundaries are good!). Oh! reminds me, there was a local gardener in our neighbourhood who liked a bit of a puff on the "devil's lettuce" while lawnmowing lol! Maybe you have something similar going on?

Some wetsuits smell exactly like weed?

More likely to be your 17 year old neighbour though.

hmm so no delivery boxes, no beer, no neoprene or wellies in the hall. All there is in the hall is a bench thing with shoe shelves inside and a radiator cover with a plant on (isn’t an accidental cannabis plant 😂)

I live part way down a cul de sac at the back of a very quiet, small estate, no where near a high street.

There is a sort of grassy park thing in front with some benches on but usually on small children play on it during the day. No one at night as it’s very open and faces the houses.

I also do have a ring doorbell but is only set to register people walking up my driveway not next doors so I might have a play with the settings to see if it picks him up