Cigarette smoke coming into house from next door, what can I do?

[sharpend 11]

Doesn't help you at the moment but theres a steady chance he'll die before you...

[gd_1 10]

Close your window and stop moaning like a big gurls blouse

 

Try living on a desert island--------unless the smsll of ozone upsets you too ?

 

Oh I love the comments that have been made from these two. Thank you, your suggestions have been the best so far. They really help me get rid of the smell and stop my little girls room/clothes smelling of smoke.

 

Not the actual suggestions but the attitude. I will go round next door and tell the guy to 'try smoking on a desert island' or gve up smoking and if he complains tell him to stop moaning like a big gurls blouse.

 

Either he will be dead scared and suddenly decide smoking is very bad or he will try to fettle me.

[Mathom 10]

As I've already said earlier, my mother can smell cigarette smoke coming from her neighbour's extractor fan and was convinced it was actual smoke - in fact it is just the smell of the smoke as it is so quickly dispersed. 'Smoke' coming through airbricks or chimney flues etc will in fact be smell and not smoke.

 

Once you can smell something you become convinced that something much worse is happening, and often you continue to experience the smell long after it has gone if it is something distasteful to you. If anyone has had rotten pet food to get rid of they will know what I mean about a lingering psychological 'smell'!

 

An ioniser would work a treat.

[Throngor 10]

As I've already said earlier, my mother can smell cigarette smoke coming from her neighbour's extractor fan and was convinced it was actual smoke - in fact it is just the smell of the smoke as it is so quickly dispersed. 'Smoke' coming through airbricks or chimney flues etc will in fact be smell and not smoke.

 

Once you can smell something you become convinced that something much worse is happening, and often you continue to experience the smell long after it has gone if it is something distasteful to you. If anyone has had rotten pet food to get rid of they will know what I mean about a lingering psychological 'smell'!

 

An ioniser would work a treat.

 

Voice of sense, ioniser would most definitely be the way forward, not only will it get rid of the smell but you won't have to fettle your neighbour.

[gd_1 10]

What is an ioniser?

[Mathom 10]

I don't know how they work, as I'm not technically minded, but it's basically a thingummyjig that purifies the air in a room. Some say it removes 'positive ions' and replaces them with energising 'negative' ions, other descriptions simply say they clean the air, having the effect of a lot of fresh spring air in your room.

 

But never mind the mumbo-jumbo, they are just effective at cleaning the air in your house, and you can get them in Argos.

[SallyLaLaLa 10]

Is he next door to you or underneath you? If he is next door to you I would suggest having a word and request that he not smoke in the rooms that adjoin yours. If that's his bedroom/kitchen/bathroom you will probably be okay - but if it's his sitting room you might not be in luck.

 

As for the people saying he should keep his windows open he would quite reasonably tell you to sod off. He would be freezing at this time of year and would have to spend extra heating his house, he would be quite within his rights to say that you should lay out the expense of insulating your own home to the smell rather than him paying for heating when you have the problem.

 

When you say landlord I'm not sure if you means yours or his - but I doubt either would help you. If you are in a home you own and he rents it would definitely mean the onus was on you to shell out to fix the problem. However if he owns his own and you rent unfortunately he would be quite within his rights to say he owns it and can do what he wants there.

 

Maybe thicker floor coverings? Rugs?

[PerlOfWisdom 10]

An ioniser is a device that contains sharp needles at a very high voltage. They spray out electrons into the air, which hit any dust particles, charging them up to a high voltage. The dust particles are then attracted to any surface that is not at high voltage.

 

It will clean the air. but after a few days, any surface nearby will be covered in this dust and it is almost impossible to clean off.

[Strix 11]

That's why the ionising air filters are a much better product than just an ioniser - the price difference is significant though.

 

Oh, and btw.... dust (and fag smoke) 'floats' in the air because it is positively charged, and therefore repels the adjacent positively charged particles (else gravity would work on it ), so the ioniser works by ejecting negative ions to neutralise the negative charge, and thereby lets gravity get on with the business of causing the particles to fall.

 

It's only a small amount of dust nearest the machine that gets over zapped and sticks to surfaces in the vacinity, but if you choose a glass shelf or vinyl wallpaper to park it on/next to, you shouldn't have too much bother.

 

Ionisers are great for hayfever sufferers too

[fhain29 10]

Oh, this is the sign of the times. There is nothing you can so, and there is nothing you should be able to do. Your neighbour is stupid to smoke, but he is doing it in his own house. Maybe when you bought your property or moved in there it didn't bother you much because you weren't aware of it. Now we are much more aware of smoking and treat it differently.

In future I suspect surveyors will be required to check properties for such points.

 

It's true though: Exhaust fumes do us more damage, yet we seldom complain about the roads in front of our houses because we have cars, want cars and use cars. Maybe in 25 years the middle classes will realise that the motorcar in its present form and the pollution it causes is so odious that it becomes anti-social.

 

But I digress. Close your window.

[Yellowrose 10]

I sympathise with you on this as I would hate it. I hate the smell of smoke but people who smoke, live with smokers or used to smoke dont seem to be bothered by it. I hate the smell on my clothes after a night out. It really clings.

 

Can you borrow an ioniser from someone to try before splashing out? The reason I say this is that I suffer from hayfever and bought one many years ago and found it didnt make the slightest difference. It was a remington ioniser and I bought it from Argos. It may be that they are better now and some are better than others, but you dont want to be lumbered with a useless one, so try and borrow one, or get one second hand.

[Cyclone 10]

We have a combined ioniers/hepa air filter. Not as quite as it could be, but if you can identify the main source of the smell and stick the filter infront of it, it should filter out most of the smell in combination with the ioniser.

Of course an ioniser is only going to work if the airflow in the room isn't too high though.