Cigarette smell neighbour is so bad I don’t know what to do
I live in an upper townhouse and the unit below us has an older couple that smokes in their unit.
Moved in here March 1st and signed a one year lease. Strata states no smoking outside, I’m assuming this means you can smoke in your unit - I never recieved clarification on this when I asked my landlord.
When we first moved in we couldn’t figure out what the smell was and thought maybe it was lingering smell from the previous tenants. It was so strong and would come and go. After a while we figured it out.
We walked by the front door of our neighbours when a nurse was leaving and were blasted with the most foul stale disgusting cigarette smoke smell.
It comes up mostly in the bedroom, bed room bathroom and kitchen near the sink and adjacent cupboards. There’s been times where I was working in the kitchen and it’s so bad I have to wear a mask.
This was brought up to the landlord. We discovered it was cigarette smoke when he (landlord) knocked on their door to inquire. The owner was also a huge dick to my landlord about it. So we do not want to confront them ourselves.
The strata was notified and they said the owners were going to “mitigate”
The smell decreased and became bearable.
Though it was being pumped outside by their air conditioners so we get the smell blowing into our h it when our windows are open from the front and the back.
I think they were reducing the smoke by using their air conditioners this summer.
Now the air conditioners are gone and the smell has become unbearable again.
I’ve brought this up with my landlord on August 20th and he said he would contact the strata agajn…. But nothing.
He keeps telling us he’s working with the strata to remediate it but it’s been 7 months with minimal change.
It’s so bad I can’t even open the cupboards near the kitchen sink or sleep in my bedroom.
I’ve even resorted to leaving the house just to escape the smell.
And to make matters worse, this townhouse has awful Airflow. Smells linger and I go above and beyond cleaning and airing it out.
I have been emailing him instead of text messaging to have a documentation of the complaints I’ve made.
Seems like we need to move… but we are on a lease until March 2027 and moving is so expensive and difficult.
I just don’t know what hat to do?