HOA Rule Forbids Couple To Smoke In Their Own Home

[The Straight Story]

HOA Rule Forbids Couple To Smoke In Their Own Home
Judge Upholds Homeowners' Association Order

GOLDEN, Colo. -- A judge has upheld a homeowners association's order barring a couple from smoking in the town house they own.

Colleen and Rodger Sauve, both smokers, filed a lawsuit in March after their condominium association amended its bylaws last December to prohibit smoking.

"We argued that the HOA was not being reasonable in restricting smoking in our own unit, nowhere on the premises, not in the parking lot or on our patio," Colleen Sauve said.
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The Heritage Hills #1 Condominium Owners Association was responding to complaints from the Sauves' neighbors who said cigarette smoke was seeping into their units, representing a nuisance to others in the building.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/10336501/detail.html

[Coventina]

1. I have mixed feelings about this. I hate HOAs, & support private property rights

However, I once lived in an apartment that when the people living downstairs smoked my unit filled with second-hand smoke. It was really bad, and it caused my whole apartment to permanently smell like I was a smoker.

I moved out after a few months, but in a home-ownership situation, what do you do?

I don't have any easy answers.

[ixion]

2. if we continue to let non-smokers make the rules, smoking will be outlawed

then only outlaws will have smokes. :smoke:

Morons.

[Gormy Cuss]

3. I dislike HOAs and the smell of cigarette smoke but this ridiculous.

If the HOA rules were explicit that owners were responsible for mitigation of smoke odors wafting through the wall of the townhouses that would be one thing, but to define it after the fact under the catchall 'nuisance' clause is a good example of why I won't buy any dwelling with a HOA. One never knows when little Napoleons will take charge.

[musette_sf]

4. i'm sorry, but if your dwelling is attached to mine

and your cigarette smoke makes my life miserable, my needs trump yours.

i lived through a HELL of this type of situation several years ago. the downstairs unit was occupied by someone who had a weekend visitor, who smoked constantly. i mean, lighting the new one off of the old one. especially, all night long out on the patio. the smoke came right up into our unit, and the stench made cooking and eating extremely unpleasant, and sleeping virtually impossible.

we tried putting several fans on our patio, but the smoke came in anyway.

the management refused to deal with the issue. (you can imagine that the residents also didn't give a flip.)

the only solution that gave us any relief was to buy a large industrial-type fan, and mount it on the patio facing downward to blow the smoke back at the downstairs patio. the damn thing sounded like a B-17 taking off and was a huge annoyance in and of itself - i hated the noise - but it was the only way our unit wouldn't smell like living in an ashtray.

to the management's credit, when neighbors complained about the fan noise, they were told why we had the fan, and that since they couldn't tell the smoker to stop, they couldn't expect us to take down the fan.

i'm sorry, but your right to smoke ends at my nose and lungs. if it stinks up my personal space, that's your problem.

[madmusic]

6. Did you ever try talking to the smoker?

[musette_sf]

7. "(you can imagine that the residents also didn't give a flip.)"

yep. see subject line quoted from my post.

he said it was his right, it wasn't against the law, and that we weren't going to tell him what to do in his "friend's" home.

[louis-t]

5. They really should ask the smokers to

smoke outside. Let them smoke on the premises, but not in their unit if it is migrating. I lived in an apartment years ago, and the smell from other peoples' cooking was worse than anything. Some people burn everything. Or never clean their stoves. The smell would linger in the halls for days. Can't ask them not to cook in their unit. I will never live in multiple dwelling again.

[Missy Vixen]

8. We sold our former townhouse for this reason

We owned a townhouse for almost five years. Unfortunately for us, the builder managed to put in a "modified fire wall" between the units that did not seal them off from each other. We didn't discover this fact until the next-door-neighbor took up a pack a day habit to go with her boyfriend's pack a day habit. Their smoke migrated into our house. I'm allergic to cigarette smoke, and our house smelled like smoke 24x7 due to them. We sold and moved. Unfortunately, while we love our house, our house payment went up $600 per month as a result of the move.

It would have been great for us to avoid that extra six hundred bucks, but I'm not sure how long we could have continued living there with the significant health problems I was experiencing as a result of the second-hand smoke.

I don't believe the incident above will be able to stand if the homeowners take the HOA to court.

Julie