Looking for advice on how to handle a weird neighbor situation
I smoke weed for medical and personal reasons. My neighbor’s porch is right next to mine, and one night I was sitting on my porch smoking a joint when he came out and told me he can smell it inside his bedroom every night. I was sitting in the furthest corner of my porch away from his house. I honestly think it’s crazy that he can smell it inside (with windows closed) from me smoking outside, because I’ve never experienced that with outside smells in my own home.
I obviously want to be respectful, so I gave him my number and stopped smoking for about a week after that.
Last night I smoked again for maybe 5 minutes, but had a fan blowing to try to redirect the smoke away from their house. He texted me today saying that the smell woke them up. He asked me to figure out a solution, like smoking inside (really?!), getting a fan, a smoke extractor, etc.
I genuinely don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. I’m already as far away from their porch as I can get, and the fan clearly didn’t solve it. I’m looking into air purifiers/smoke extractors, but I don’t know if those would actually work outside.
I want to be a respectful neighbor, especially if the smell is actually waking them up, but I also pay to live here and this is my only accessible outdoor space. I feel like the only other option is just not smoking at all, which doesn’t really seem fair either.
Has anyone dealt with something like this? Is there actually a solution for smoking on a porch without the smell traveling into a neighbor’s house, or am I basically out of options?
UPDATE! Just texted my neighbor back letting him know I would be looking into other solutions to minimize the smell. Then I got a text from my landlord saying the neighbor called him to let him know about the issue. My landlord basically said don’t smoke inside and he doesn’t want to make it a thing. It’s not a violation of our lease but I’m worried he’s not going to leave my landlord alone about it and that’s going to cause problems. Should I confront the neighbor?