I'm so grossed out and I don't know what to do

[LynneSin]

This is the thrill of living in a row home.

All of my neighbors, except crazy cat lady, are really lovely people - including the neighbor that is grossing me out.

He's a nice kid and a smoker. Now either his girlfriend or the landlord (he's a renter) are making him go outside to smoke. I never see her out there smoking. Now before you smokers jump down my throat, yes I realize the guy has a right to smoke and I wasn't the one who forced him to smoke outside. But first problem is when he is smoking on the front porch. Their home is connect right to mine and we share a porch. I usually like to leave my front windows and door open to enjoy the breeze but if he comes out and smokes now my entire living room smells of smoke. Heck at 4 in the morning I couldn't sleep and wanted to enjoy the morning air and sure enough the guy is out there smoking.


The 2nd thing that really grosses me out and I can't believe his landlord and/or the girlfriend hasn't bitched about this one - he tosses all his butts on the front porch. The whole porch is like a giant ashtray. I realize I might not have much say in issue #1 but I wish the guy would at least put an ashtray or a bucket filled with sand that he could use to dispose of his cigerettes.

Any suggestions for dealing with this nightmare? At least winter is coming soon - I really don't want my living room to smell like a fricking ashtray. We both have a back porch but hell, if he went back there that means I'd smell that stuff all summer long if I'm out back

[billyskank]

1. I have the same problem

My new neighbours in the flat next to mine smoke, but they don't like to smoke inside their house. (I know it isn't rented, so it's their own choice - nobody's forcing them to smoke outside). So they smoke outside, and when I have the windows open the smell invariably blows into my flat!

I haven't done anything about it, and being such a wet I probably never will. But it does piss me off. One of the benefits of quitting smoking myself was that I didn't want my flat to smell any more!

[LynneSin]

2. He's a senior in college

I'm hoping that by next summer he'll be graduated and out of there. And perhaps if I meet the landlord/owner I can ask if the next tennant could possible use the backyard for smoking and not the front. If they smoke out back then the closest window they'll hit is the laundry room and I wouldn't care much if that smells like smoke.

[billyskank]

4. Get the landlord to encourage them by installing an asstray.

:D

[YellowRubberDuckie]

15. Then your clothes are going to smell like smoke....

The laundry room is the last place that should stink.
Duckie

[LynneSin]

26. But I really don't leave my clothes in the laundry room plus

I'm not apt to leave the windows open back their either.

[Gormy Cuss]

22. Waiting it out with this tenant may be the easiest solution.

Since they're friendly enough neighbors and maybe only short timers, that may be the best way to handle it. If they do stay past the semester you can try to approach him then.
Talk to the owner about the issue -- your suggestion doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

I had this issue with the landlord's kids when I was a renter. They set up a den in the basement and the smoke came up through the ventilation. The problem pretty much resolved itself when they found a new place to hang out.

[taterguy]

3. A polite suggestion to him do dispose of his butts would be helpful

I confess, once upon a time I was very careless about littering with cigarette butts. I just didn't think about it. However, when someone that I liked and cared about told me how annoying it was I changed my ways. I even have a great portable ashtray that's an empty Zippo case for when I'm walking around.

[Heidi]

5. You're a good person, LynneSin, and I know you don't want to cause problems,

but I wonder whether you could just politely tell the guy that his smoke drifts into your home. Also (and I know this isn't your responsibility but it seems someone's gonna have to do it if the smoker and the landlord won't) I'd buy the bucket of sand myself and set it out by his smoking place. (The down side of that is that it will encourage him to continue smoking on the porch.)

I'm a smoker, but if a neighbor was bothered by my smoke, I'd take a walk during my smoke. (I'm sure my fellow smokers may blast me for not standing up for my "right" to smoke, but I really don't believe my addiction should be anyone's problem but my own.)

Good luck with this.

[taterguy]

6. I'm a smoker and I think you're being very reasonable

[Heidi]

7. Mornin', taterguy!

Maybe not as reasonable as you think; I have some hard-and-fast rules for my own smoking. ;)
- I don't smoke indoors under any circumstances, whether it's my home, another person's home, the "smoking section" of a restaurant or whatever. Cigarette smoke in an enclosed space stinks. :puke:
- I don't smoke around kids under any circumstances.
- I wash my hands after smoking because I don't want my cat to smell like smoke.
- If I want to smoke in a public, outdoor space, I ask the people around me if my smoking will bother them.

I'm no saint, but I do realize that my smoking really is an aberrant behavior. x(

[taterguy]

8. How dare you?

If all smokers behaved like you then what would the non-smokers have to complain about? :)

[Heidi]

9. Hahahahaha!

If not for the copious amount of beer I consumed in college, I probably never would have begun smoking in the first place. :P

[billyskank]

10. I would never have started either

if it were not for another plant that is also dried out, rolled inside paper tubes and burnt. :blush:

[taterguy]

11. Dude, smoking zucchinis is just wrong

[billyskank]

12. But how can it be wrong when it feels so right?

[Oeditpus Rex]

13. Buy or make him an ash tray

You can get the floor-standing "barrel" type for about $40. Or, get a five-gallon paint bucket, maybe paint it kinda nice (or silly or whatever) and get some sand for it. If he's a nice guy like you say, he'll appreciate it, and his girlfriend probably will, too.

The problem with this, though, is he'd be liable to take it as your blessing to smoke. So, if you can't figure a way to encourage him to smoke out back (which you may be able to do through his girlfriend), you may just have to keep your windows closed until he moves or another solution can be reached.

I think — or hope, anyway — that most smokers (and I am one) want to be polite about it. I hope this is the case with him. But remember that he's entitled to equal politeness — which doesn't mean capitulation, but just common courtesy.

[LynneSin]

14. oooo Arts & Crafts

:eyes:

[KG]

16. have a buddhist monk pull an uzi from under his robe and shoot him.

[MrCoffee]

17. just let him know...if my smoke was bothering the neighbors, i'd move it

he probably has no idea that the smoke is getting in your house. just tell him.

[Arugula Latte]

20. Smoke goes everywhere. I don't think a lot of smokers realize how far it travels.

I'm not saying you personally don't realize it, but, jeez, that stuff seeps far and wide and stinks up everything for yards and yards.

[hedgehog]

23. Bingo - I think the first thing that goes in smokers is their sense of

smell. A lot of them are convinced that non-smokers make this stuff up. If you're exposed to a lot of second hand smoke, you gradually get used to it because you can't smell anything any more either. But when you're not exposed to it often, the slightest hint really reeks!

[johnnie]

18. What would be really gross

Would be waking up to this every day



I know smoke stinks, but just think of how good you have it.

[Arugula Latte]

19. EEEWWW. I cannot STAND that.

I was in a hotel recently that had smoking and non-smoking rooms. Well, it doesn't really matter if you're in a non-smoking room when that poison seeps under your door and makes your whole room and your hair and your clothes REEK. That was just for a few nights we had to put up with it; I feel soooo badly for you for having this non-stop problem.

I'm imagining a giant fan pointing away from your front door...

[SPKrazy]

21. Ask him to smoke farther from your windows

like out on the street or something :P

[hedgehog]

24. You do have a honking big smoke detector , don't you?

I'm a little worried about someone flinging butts around your front door at 4 in the morning!

[LynneSin]

27. his butts are on his side of the porch

but it wouldn't take anything more than a big gust of wind for them to blow over to my side.

If I would happen to see a few on my side I will mention about the ashtray.

[JitterbugPerfume]

25. I am an ex smoker and I can tell you---

smokers have no idea how offensive they can be.

[yellowdogintexas]

29. quite right, they often don't until they quit (and my praise from the heart for quitting, BTW)

were you totally shocked at the wild array of scents that surrounded you after your smell sensors woke up again? just about every former smoker I have ever met has commented on that and the revival of their sense of taste, too.

[JitterbugPerfume]

30. YES!

and I had forgotten what it was like not to cough and gag when I first woke up in the morning, before that first cup of coffee and cigarette, or to be able to walk any distance without getting out of breath

I have not smoked in almost 15 yr

[graywarrior]

28. Cook daikon or cabbage all day.

That'll teach them.