Neighbour Dispute - Cooking Smells - Advice needed

[MaisyMooCow]

We live in a semi detached house. Our neighbour cooks strongly fragranced foods which seem to seep through our walls into our hallway, bathroom and front bedroom. All these areas connect to the party wall. We have another wall separating the staircase from our lounge which seems to prevent the smell spreading further. The neighbours don't have this wall, it was knocked down so their entire ground floor is open plan.

The neighbour doesn't open windows or doors when cooking and they don't have an extraction fan either.

We have to open all upstairs windows to clear the smell. During the summer, if there is a breeze then it clears, however if not it hangs in the air. In the winter we waste so much money heating the house only to end up opening the windows to ventilate.

All this occurs regularly, around 4 times a week and lasts at least 2-5 hours on each occasion.

We tried to speak to the neighbour on several occasions but she's a bit anti-social and never answers the door. We have written her letters asking her to ventilate her property whilst cooking and have told her how it effects us. She wrote back saying it wasn't her fault and if there is a smell in my house then it must be for another reason!

We contacted Environmental Health who said they could only assist if a commercial business was the cause of the problem. They won't get involved in residential/neighbour disputes.

We're at our wits end and feel that the only solution is to take legal action.

Can anyone advise me what legislation or acts are in place which she might be breaching. Someone mentioned the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Is that right?

All we want is for her to show some consideration and work with us by ventilating her property.

Sorry for such a long post!

D

Did you resolve this issue? I am suffering the same way..our house reads of an indian restaurant. We love our neighbors. But the house smells soo bad after they cook

We live in a semi detached.
We recently had new neighbours move in, they had a lot of work done to the house, ever since we have been able to smell strong onions garlic seeping up through our floorboards into our bedroom and landing, also strong airflow from adjoining wall, which is dragging the smells through, we can even smell and taste hot oil cooking, have spoken to neighbours about it on several occasions, it's at the point we can't put kids in bedroom as it fills with burning oil smoke sometimes.

Any suggestions where I can get help??

I have the same problem. Don't know how it's happening but it's literally sickening me!! In my case it's the smell of extremely strong cooking smells. Two or three times a week I get a VERY STRONG smell of garlic, herbs, onions in my kitchen from next door. I love garlic but this is totally over powering & stomach turning. I live in a semi detached house where both my kitchen & my neighbours are a single storey extension & share a dividing wall. Neighbours are not very approachable. Does anyone have an suggestions?

Hi, just wondered if this issue ever got resolved? I am now in a position where the rented house next door to me has new tenants, nice family, but when she cooks her Indian food, my whole house ends up smelling. Seems to be worse in our kitchen, must be coming through from somewhere as my windows are closed. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

This may be helpful if only in a "count your blessings" kind of way. When we moved to our 1st floor flat 12 years ago we soon noticed a smell of skunk cannabis. I had a baby at the time, then another one. The smell would seep int0 their room. The downstairs neighbour was unemployed, at home ALL THE TIME except for brief sorties to score, and to the supermarket. That horrible sweet, acrid, sticky smell was all over my home. Needless to say he did bugger all when we talked to him about it. He had literally nothing else in his life. We went to the EHA, CAB, they advised reporting to the police but we stopped short of doing that as I knew for sure he'd retaliate. eventually he died of lung failure. New people moved in, a small family from south east asia. Nice, hard working, the mum works nights as a nurse and when she comes home she cooks to unwind. Fermented squid, kimchi, garlic, the lot. But I don't care, it's still better than skunk....

I'm half-Nigerian and my first thoughts were that your neighbour is either cooking food on a commercial basis (hence the palm oil drums in the garden) or cooking bush meat which could explain the smell.

iam in suffering this problem too this is getting more popular within neighbour hood we are the victams iam so mentaly drained i have been pursuing this problem for over a year something in the council needs to change any advice on how to cope my nerves cant take much more thanks

I was going to say bush meat.
Our next door neighbour used to cook it it west Africa. The smell was disgusting and even though our houses weren't joined the smell came into ours.

Bush meat. I'm not bothered by most food smells but oh my god that smell. It doesn't smell like food. I don't know if its the meat itself, the method of cooking, whatever is added to it, but that smell is awful.
I used to live in a house where you could smell anything the ndns cooked due to shitty walls but thankfully they mostly cooked curry and it smelled lush.

I used to live in Africa as a child and hated the smell of cooking, mainly goats and rodents.
I would keep on at EH until they do something.
Also is she cooking for an African restaurant from her HA home? surely that;s not right. She wouldn't need to cook that type of food daily.

I remember as a child our neighbour would cook some sort of fish and it was usually in the hotter months, luckily we could open up the windows.. but the smell was suffocating and there was no escaping it! I can still smell it and I feel for you op. It does invade the house!

Definetly take it up with the landlords, someone must be able to help! Good luck.

ZOMBIE THREAD

i just want to say U arnt along in this. for people you reply to you and say "never heard of cooking smells" dont know why they even bother putting reply up silly. iam exuasted with fighting this problem i have been offically complaining for over a year to the council and now iam having to start again.as you said about enviro hlth its only business complaints. my new complaint is under STATUTORY NUISANCE ACT 1993 which covers this problem this is ruining my daily living&giving me stress levels that no person should have to go throu now for the second time i have mice because he wont get treated something has tp change with the politic side off this the neighbours have more rights than us and they are in our country no i wasnt racist the goverment has made me racist.

I use palm oil (this is not the stuff that is used for soap or peanut butter, which is actually palm kernel oil, but orange-coloured oil extracted from the fruit surrounding the palm kernel). It has got a distinctive smell, but a mild one.

It may be the 'smelly Yoruba oil' (!) a previous poster mentioned. More likely is that your neighbour is using the oil to cook very strongly gamey meat like bushmeat or smoked fish or snails. They are illegally imported from West Africa and incredibly whiffy. Also, I wonder if she is being parsimonious and re-using the oil, so the smell is concentrated, plus generally not airing her kitchen or even cleaning it properly. Another factor might be food being left to cook for a long time, likely if she does use bushmeat as it will be dried, therefore tough, and on the bone. It takes a fairly long stewing to get it soft.

Either way, I agree with getting the wall looked at. If it came to it you could sue her in nuisance. If there are general hygiene issues like oil containers being thrown into the garden, ask Environmental Health to come and check for rats. Might work.

Also, to mandro, officials are not failing to help you because black/ethnic minority people have more 'rights' (as if!). More likely they are failing to do so because they are understaffed, underfunded, incompetent, you've gone about things the wrong way, they are snowed under etc etc etc.

Fuck it, just seen it is a zombie thread. Bah!

Not growing one of these I hope

I have the same problems new thai neighbors have moved in next door. every tea time the house smells like they are cooking something rotten. tonight we walked in to the hall and the smell hit us it was by far the worse it has ever been when I entered the back bed room I vomited due to the smell . all the people on here commenting on here saying it's just food it's lovely you really have no idea what you are talking about !!!!

what an absolutely pointless post 😡

you really have no idea! I was just sick due to my neighbors cooking stench 😷

Hi Maisy, you're not the only one with this issue, as I type a very strong garlic smell is now seeping into my house, the kitchen, living room and upstairs bedroom. This happens regularly and it really annoys me when like today, I've washed all my bedding, so now when I put my bedding on if I don't wash it again, it will stink of garlic. I have the same issue with noise, the walls are so thin between mine and next door I can hear everything. They have 3 kids and it just feels like they live in the same house, I never get any peace. I've called the council and they're unwilling to help, I feel my only option is to move which makes me angry because I shouldn't have to, and who's to say I won't have the same issue elsewhere. I feel your pain!

My apologies if i offended somebody...but i have African neighbours in the next door flat their cooking are very very smelly...like rotten fish or something...and it makes us wanna throw up...i don`t know if anybody can do anything...even our clothes start smelling

This thread started 6 years ago
Suggest you start a new one

I know this is an old thread but if you are still have problems with your neighbour then read on:

If the cooking smells are penetrating your walls it could be that your neighbour is running a catering business from their home. I know this because I have the same problem with my next-door neighbour. The smell is extremely strong and is able to fumigate certain rooms within our house. The smell can be overwhelming and not very pleasant. My neighbour has a shed in their garden that is full of industrial cooking pots and because I work in the hospitality industry, I know that if you are cooking for a large number of people then the cooking smell will be concentrated 100 times over than if you were cooking for just the average size family which is why extractor fans are used within the hospitality industry to prevent smells being released throughout the building.

If you can prove that your neighbour is running a catering business from their home then you may have a case against them.