How to Deal With Smoke Smell

[Pyromancer999]

A guy I know that smokes says that dryer sheets help suck up the smell. (in his car anyway) They might also help around your apartment?

If they keep smoking you may just have to ask the place to seal your door up and stuff better (or do it yourself).


I hope the problem gets solved one way or another though, good luck.

Thanks for the suggestion. Think the sealing the door might work, if there isn't any fire code stuff against it.

I'd say you have three options:

• Explain the situation to your neighbors, and hope they're the agreeable sort.
• Give the aforementioned neighbors an equally noisome "incentive" to smoke there no longer, perhaps getting yourself evicted or even arrested in the process.
• Negotiate with the realty office.

The reason you can't contact the landlord is because he doesn't want to deal with you (or anyone else, for that matter). That's why he's paying the realty office a large sum of money every month to do it for him. If they do give you his contact information, then they're putting their own livelihoods at risk.

As for the mentioned solutions, number one is fairly straightforward; I won't comment on number two; and number three basically comes down to threatening to move out unless the issue's resolved. Consider, however, that if the smokers do not relent, then the realty office has to make a decision as to which renters to keep. That decision will probably center around who's paying more rent.

Good luck.

Edit: Also, check the local laws on renting. There's usually something about tenant rights, and so you may be able to go to court.

For what it's worth, I have been a pretty good tenant and have a higher priced apartment in the building (not that it's stopped them from being bad about handling things before), so it may help, although it's been claimed there's a waiting list nowadays for my apartment building, so they may have no problem with me moving, especially given there's a fine for moving out early equal to a month or two's rent, if I remember correctly.

I will check out the Tenant's rights thing, thanks. Legal action, or the threat of such, may prompt them to do something, although I'd rather that be an absolute last resort.

Have you tried asking nicely? It takes almost no effort on your part.

I do mean asking really nicely though. Go downstairs, smile, tell them your name, etc. If you yell from your window "take your cancer sticks elsewhere, smog breathers" or something equally inane, they'll just resent you.

I have no problem with people smoking until it ends up harming my stuff. The only problem with nicely asking people about the smoking matter is that I can't trace the apartment(as they're smoking just outside of the stairwell, so I can't know what apartment they're living in) and while I check outside whenever I come home and the smell is there, there's nobody out there, just a bunch of cigarette butts. Someone may turn up if I keep checking, so will ask nicely if I can encounter someone.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. Hopefully it will help with or eliminate the matter.