Neighbours Smoking Weed – how to deal with it?

The stoners are saying it’s just a bit of weed, chill out etc etc but at then end of the day it’s illegal, it reeks and it’s starting to impinge on the OP’s use of his home.

i would either tell them that you can smell it constantly and if it’s continues you will report it to the police. Or just tell the police they are growing skunk and wait for a very early morning wake up from a disturbance next door.

whatever you do I wouldn’t let it continue to the point it affects you every day.

To some extent, this is just how terraced houses are.  You and your neighbours are in fairly close proximity, so your lives impinge on each other’s to some extent.  When we lived in a terrace, our neighbour left her yard covered in dog mess, which wafted through our cellar window and through the house when the wind was in the right direction.  Then she started up a dog breeding business in the basement.  Oh what larks!*

The fact that it’s weed smoke is immaterial in my opinion, the key thing is that your neighbor’s behaviour is upsetting you.  So you can either try to fix up your house to reduce the impact of that behaviour (as others have said, tracing air leaks, and positive input pressure sound like the options).  Or you can go and diplomatically talk to them to see if you can get them to reduce or stop the behaviour.

Personally I’d try talking to them first, even if this is a bit awkward.  Then look at preventing ingress as plan B.  Then Binners’ killing-spree-shallow-grave-on-moors approach as plan C.

* not really.

Well, I for one am hoping this lot move in next to gobuchul and make his life a living hell 😆

To some extent, this is just how terraced houses are. You and your neighbours are in fairly close proximity, so your lives impinge on each other’s to some extent.

yes and no…. i have lived in terrace or apartments my entire life and apart from a bit of noise there were limited smells unless someone was having a BBQ etc. Because you are in such close proximity more care/respect must be exercised..

For many years smoking has been considered antisocial behaviour. So much so that the place I am now living in (purpose built rental flats) does not allow smoking with the property so people have to leave the gated complex and stand in a field. It’s a bit extreme for me but I guess the perspective is one persons pleasure should not cause a neighbours pain.

It does not matter the cause (noise, smoke, smell, mess etc.) the op has a right to live unreasonable disruption or discomfort.

I for one am hoping this lot move in next to gobuchul

Who are they/

They don’t look like stoners to me?

I’ve just had to shut the kitchen door to the garden as my neighbours have just lit up. To be honest, it’s late for them. Often smell it as I’m coming back from my morning walk with the dog.

Not sure how much passive smoking affects others though – their habit does nothing to chill out their kids who are also always in the garden playing but playing in that crying, screaming give-me-some-proper-attention kind of way. I guess being a stoner doesn’t make you the best parent.

Luckily I’m only renting here and can’t wait to get the f*** out!

the op has a right to live unreasonable disruption or discomfort.

There’s the problem, everybody has a different view of resonable. I wouldn’t like the smell of weed all the time, but others couldn’t care less. Do we try and cater to the most sensitive or try and practice tolerance.

If your neighbours are made aware of the problem perhaps smoking in a room without an adjoining wall might sort it out.

Seems to me they must be growing if the smell is that bad.

I’d report it to the police.

wow some real douchey people on here.

I smoke the stuff sometimes, but not in my flat, but find it really annoying when neighbours do and it comes through into my flat. It’s a pretty strong smell. I suspect they’ll not realise it’s coming into your house and will cooperate, especially if you go round when they’ve just had a fatty and bang loudly on the door….

Find a  big lad like Dwain Johnson and  get them to bang on their door when they are in full flow.” Is EG .- John there ??” Nah mate , he lives next door. “Ok , Thanks son “. Big lad  then comes round to  yours and receives his envelope with some £20’s in it.

Next time there is an issue, ” Hi, My mate Big Steve wanted to put your door through the other night as your toking ruined our game of  Cribbage , any chance  you can take it outside please”

Maybe your neighbour needs one of those big-ass bongs with loads of filters?

For the sake of keeping the peace you could use Ona odour neutralising products (I use them in my hydroponic grow room along with carbon filters and I use the white linen variety around the house – nice smell) or if your feeling neighbourly perhaps take a few round to your neighbour with the <i>spiel</i> that you’ve overheard others in the street/block/area talking about the noticeable stink from their house (their words, not yours) and you’d hate anything to come of it as you’re pretty decent neighbours to have compared to those nosey dicks (unspecified) up the road.

I recognise its an issue for you and if your neighbour were lighting garden bonfires every night you would be equally justified to have a word but please take note that cannabis use, whether that be entirely recreational or for medicinal purposes (I see no distinction between the two) should not be in the illegal position that it is, thankfully the entirely unjust and persecutary laws are gradually being overturned and being shown to have zero grounding using evidence based research rather than applied moral judgement

just my 2pence worth so your entitled to disagree 😉

We’ve been in this position. Mrs 10 was deeply unhappy, I really didn’t see it as a problem. We ended up moving because we needed more space anyway, but the weed smell caused a speeding up of the process. Our condo was under negative pressure in certain areas because of how doors were closed, and the location of return air. We could have probably reduced the impact of this if I could have convinced Mrs 10 to accept certain other changes to mitigate the negative air issues. Maybe take a look and see if your place is under negative pressure and do as others have suggested and try and get it to positive. Or kill your neighbors and burn their bodies.

Funny, ‘cos you can always spot the squary Daily Mail readers, scared they will become psychotic from passive smoking a nostril-full of weed smoke.

Yes it stinks. So does living in the countryside. Or near a road. Or when the bin lorry drives past. Some people stink, and they don’t even smoke weed.

I do love the sweeping stereotype stoner hippy references though. Get to Waitrose you boring bunch of 50 somethings. They have porcini mushrooms and Malbec on special this week. (Counter-stereotype of what it appears the average STW appears to be).

Yes it stinks. So does living in the countryside. Or near a road. Or when the bin lorry drives past. Some people stink, and they don’t even smoke weed.

Yeah, I’ll give you that

im absolutely not a weed smoker, i dislike the smell etc. However it’s just a smell. In the grand scheme it does smell better than manure, bins, piss etc. Me and the missus live in a busy area, and with that you get the smells and the general vibe. Yes, we could move to the country etc, or the seaside (which I really hate the smell of!) or you accept you live where you live and it is what it is.

other than “it’s illegal” and that probably won’t be for much longer, if you live in an urban area, it’s not a big problem. I’ve had some real neighbour problems over the years and weed is a dream issue!!!

have a chat with the folk, maybe get them to smoke away from the house etc and hopefully it’ll be all good

The countryside doesn’t smell, at least not in the way you suggest. That’s an absurd comparison.

As an addition to  those who think its all OK,  they  are  just smoking some herbal, chillax man , roll another fat one. etc.

It won’t be so funny when you are killed whilst riding by stoned white van man and his builder mates as they are getting high… on their  way  to work. But .- Its all  Ok , they are  just chillin out , its medicinal , personal choice.etc

OK , so you might not get stoned whilst driving , but thousands of other idiots do and whils not as prevelant as phone use it is very common . Smoking alot becomes habitual  and if you think its fine to smoke a joint then drive the Police do not share  your veiw and if you are willing to break one law by taking drugs in the first place it really is not a great leap to break others ( yes i break the law by speeding every day .- but at least my mind isnt being altered by drugs at the same time)

So you admit to speeding every day? And speed is not a factor in a large proportion of road deaths? Would you say fatigue / tiredness is a large factor in road deaths, compared to cannabis consumption? And how does this stack up to the hundreds of thousands who drive while on prescription meds which specifically instruct the person not to drive or operate heavy machinery when taking them?

Studies do show that in places in America which have legalised marijuana use, there has been an increase in road collisions. But then, there’s also been a huge population shift of people moving to these areas, more cars on the road etc and it doesn’t clearly show that the cause of more collisions is purely down to cannabis use, or the fact there are just more people in cars on the roads which increase the stats.

I disagree with the it’s ‘just a smell’ replies – it’s a **** grim smell for most of those that don’t smoke it. I don’t have any problem personally with people using it but I’m glad I don’t live next to people smoking it a lot so my own house ended up stinking of it. My ex used to smoke weed a fair bit but she’d go outside as she didn’t want the smell in her house either!

My ex used to smoke weed a fair bit but she’d go outside as she didn’t want the smell in her house either!

Well according to the OP and others that wouldn’t make any difference as the smell passes through walls. Please keep up.

Do you have an open fireplace? We do and our neighbours are quite fond of cigars. Our front room stinks when the old  boy starts puffing his hamlets. I bought a chimney balloon and it’s stopped the smell. I remove it when the seasons change and we have the fires going, then pop it back in again over the summer.

Maybe the OP should just grow a pair and speak to his neighbour….or just whine on here – I know which one would have a more useful result.

Personally, I’d ignore the fact that it’s weed. and talk to them about “smoking”

People who are saying live and let live are missing the point.

For most people, there’s a scale of what you’d tolerate being done in the house by visitors or family.  for non-smokers, having someone light up in the house is up there with treading dogshit into the carpet.  It’s just grim, and generally, utterly unacceptable in a non-smoking house.

Next door is next door, but when the walls are so porous it’s like someone may as well be smoking in your own house, it’seven worse than someone lighting up in yours – you can’t tell them to stub it out and throw the windows open. If it’s constant, it lingers and everything starts to smell.  If you’ve got no control over your own house stinking of fags/weed, it can really spoil your enjoyment of it, even resent the decision to move there.

Not easy to sort, but some good advice above.  Good luck, OP.

Has the OP spoke to the neighbour yet?

but when the walls are so porous it’s like someone may as well be smoking in your own house,

What is this that people are going on about?

Is this really a thing?

HTAF can somebody smell smoke through a wall?

Do you all live in Japanese paper houses?

HTAF can somebody smell smoke through a wall?

Walls, vents, loft spaces etc. who cares – the dirty bastards smoking don’t normally.

What is this that people are going on about?

Is this really a thing?

HTAF can somebody smell smoke through a wall?

Do you all live in Japanese paper houses?

I think you’re being (deliberately?) obtuse on this point.  It’s quite conceivable that ventilation, loft space, covered over fireplaces let air circulate between neighbouring houses – can you not conceive that?

They have porcini mushrooms and Malbec on special this week. 

Thanks for the heads-up.

We lived next door to a ‘commercial’ sized grow house in a shitty old victorian terrace (the house was shitty from upkeep (student accommodation), not the fact it’s a victorian terrace).

The full works showed up one day, armed police, dudes in white hazmat suits, a tent over the front door, the whole lot. was quite exciting.

Looking back, it was obvious, but at the time we assumed it was just someone being a bit weird. Here are some tell tell signs if you have a grow next door:

1: You never see anyone go in or out.
2: Someone tries to break into the house next door, climbs over your garden and totally ignores the easier target of a student house to get to the grow.
3: Bins piled up next door (had to call the council on this one to remove them rubbish)
4: You can come back at 03:00am and start blasting music, and no one ever calls the police.
5: Curtains always shut.
6: Garden is a state.
7: It did *NOT* smell of weed. Growers DON’T want attention, smell is basically a big advertisement.
8: Come to think of it, there never was a single noise from next door. Not even a raised voice.

We had to move our son’s cot to another room due to a neighbour who spent 14 hours a day smoking cigarettes in an upstairs room that adjoined out house – there was a constant smell of cigarette smoke in the kids room.

Terrace houses are a nightmare for transmitted noise and odours.

The OP has my sympathy I would try and address it with the neighbours – them saying ‘it’s not a problem for me so jog on’ isn’t an answer. The problem with involving the authorities is it’ll appear on searches if you sell.

It’s a tricky one but I would look at just filling all the underfloor areas near the party wall upstairs and down with expanding foam so that joist holes etc are filled, making sure that loft spaces have no gaps in the firewall etc – old brickwork and mortar can be pretty porous too so maybe plasterboard over and seal the edges on the firewall?

Here’s another possibility that you might not have considered……

Have you bought any el cheapo supermarket wetsuits recently?

Do you store them in any of the rooms that you believe are affected by your neighbour’s smoking preferences?

We’ve been noticing a ganja type smell in our van and in our understairs cupboard and have now realised that these cheap wetsuits have a similar terpene profile to nice citrus weed.

We’re keeping them out in the backyard now but a zealous neighbour must have informed our landlord about the smell, cos he came round for a visit recently to give us a heads up.

So… to create the ultimate skunk-scented heaven you should lock yourself in a small room, with a wetsuit on, chuffing away on a massive bong?

Every days a school day, eh?

My money would be through the loft via the so called firewall that may have been built long after the terrace was built and there probably be loads of gaps. With doors and windows open at this time of year a good vented draught will give you the smell. If they have no snow on their roof in the wintertime, lots of birds on the ridge or you can see light through the gaps in your firewall you have a nursery next to you

Id hate that next door and I don’t read the daily mail or shop at waitrose, give the guy a break

I think the OP may have killed them.

Couple next door spend many evenings sat in the garden smoking it, bit weird as we’re all out the back too doing normal stuff, can’t really pass the time of day ‘cos they’re out of it. Yeah, the smell is sickly sweet, wouldn’t want it in the house so sympathise.

I’m not a big fan, two siblings are into it and the family/kids suffer. Yep, we got all the ‘just chill’ lectures.

My main concern would be the lack of firewall and the routes for fumes to get between houses.  This should not happen and is a fire risk

– can you not conceive that?

No I can’t.

I lived in a terraced house for 20+ years and never ever had smelt what was happening either side of us.

Also, we have had a holiday home for the last 40 years, that is a small flat/apartment converted from a much larger building. The conversion was done in the early 70’s and I don’t think they followed the building regs at the time, you can hear quite a bit from adjoining properties, but smell? Never.

OK, you’ve not noticed it it in the 2 houses you refer to. Could be they were better built, could be nothing particularly smelly happened next door.