Should I tell the neighbours that their cigarette smoke is seeping into our flat?

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Genuinely not sure if this would be unreasonable. We've just moved into a big old traditional tenement flat. I've noticed that I can smell cigarette smoke in the sitting room. It seems to be seeping through the open press. I'm guessing that the neighbours must have a press on their side of the wall, and that the smoke can waft through, although weirdly we can't hear any noise at all.

Obviously I'm not happy about the smell, but I'm more worried about the health implications for my DCs, particularly my 7 week old DS. Am I being a it precious? I really don't know how strong second hand smoke has to be to effect children's health.

Should I contact the neighbour about it? I doubt I can persuade them to stop smoking in their own home, and I don't want to cause bad-feeling. Or perhaps I should ask our landlord to get it sealed better (although again, I don't want to be causing trouble for her...we've only just moved in, and we love the flat and want to stay here for as long as possible).

What's the best way to handle this?

Oh I really do sympathise - I had this when I stayed in a tenement flat. Sunday mornings were worst.

However, I'm not really sure what you can do about it. As others have said, you can't ban people from smoking in their own flats. You can speak to that landlord I guess but I think this is perhaps just one of those things that you have to accept from living in a flat? Like a certain amount of noise etc.

The only way around this, I think, is to move to a detached property.

Ring the environmental health if you're concerned and by all means speak to your landlord. But I suspect that smell doesn't mean smoke. Your neighbours have the right to smoke in their own home.

Music is different though. After 11pm you cant have it loud. There is nothing stopping people from smoking in their own homes. I think you either speak to your landlord, put up with it, or move.

I was going to say floorboards - having lived in tenements myself, I've found that smells can travel upwards from flats below.

I honestly don't think you can ask them not to smoke in their own home. But I do think you can expect the landlord to seal the floor properly.

Not great since you've just moved in, but problems do tend to come up soon after moving, so the landlord will just have to take it on the chin.

Repair costs are part and parcel of being a landlord, after all.

Personally I would just ask the neighbours if they smoke as you have noticed a smell and wondered if the old tenants smoked while they were there.
Also ask them if they have noticed any smells coming from your flat - that way it's not you bitching but just generally checking.

If it turns out they say yes then tell them you'll be speaking to the LL to get better insulation then. That way neighbour shouldn't be annoyed at you asking and you have proof to tell landlord (and neighbour may help you out)

Then I'd contact LL and ask it to be sorted - if it can't be sorted I'd move.

Despite the scare stories the only real danger is if you move in with them for several years.

That just leaves not liking the smell. That I can understand of course, but there doesn't seem to be anything you can do about that. Anymore than they could if you often cooked cabbage or curries.

There's no point mentioning to them unless you think they are going to say "oh dear. We'd better all give up smoking then" which isn't realistically going to happen. All you'd do is create bad feeling and not gain a thing.

I would look into the way the smell gets in though.

I have had no end of trouble with my chain smoking neighbour's second hand smoke ingress into our house.
It comes through the open fireplace, under the floor boards and through the ventilation grill in my daughters bedroom.
the council refuse to get involved as we are both private owners, but its not just an invonvenient smell, since moving here i have suffered constant sore throats and chest infections.
we blocked up every crack in the floor and skirting boards we stuffed loft insulation under the floor and against the party wall. before we did all this we couldnt' sit in our sitting room and watch TV without our eyes smarting.I kid you not!

i went to speak to the neighbour, and her flat reeks, the walls & ceiling are literally brown stained with cigarette tar and for the 10 mins or so that i was there my clothes and hair stank of fags. she is a lost cause and probably not long for this world as she is also a chronic alcoholic. I feel sorry for her, but i am going to have to move house as my health cannot take it anymore. I have had to have a chest x ray and spyrometry test recently because my breathing is so affected.