I didn't see it mentioned, so out of curiosity, has anyone spoken to the smoking neighbors? It's possible that they don't realize the annoyance factor of the blowing smoke. (I know when I used to smoke, I thought people who complained about being able to smell smoke on clothes and wafting in the breeze etc were just crocks, but when I stopped smoking, I realized just how noticeable it can be, more so than I'd have thought). Since they are apparently wiling to cooperate with the landlord's rule not to smoke in the hose, it's possible they might be willing to do something to eliminate/reduce the second hand smoke, like maybe putting a fan on their own patio to blow it in a different direction. Or use "smokeless' ashtrays.
Otherwise, maybe you could put up one of those bamboo roll-up screens on the patio, that your tenants could lower when they open the patio door, to help to deflect the smoke. Or put a fan inside of their patio door blowing out as an exhaust fan, pulling air in from another window.
That's one next step, but with the HOA, not the city. I really don't want to get into an argument with the owner of the other unit, I've known them for many years.
I think that a solution using either fans or squirrel cage blowers, mounted in an unobtrusive manner, is a better solution for the short term. For the long term, we need to amend the HOA's CC&Rs to prohibit smoking anywhere where the smoke can enter someone elses unit.
When the complex was built in 1983 I think that the CC&R intentionally did not prohibit renting because the builder was worried about selling the units. A couple of the units were not owner occupied at the beginning, and at least one has never been owner occupied.
It it's a slum, it's a very expensive slum.
I should have sold mine at the height of the housing boom, the highest price paid back then was about $550K. Now I could get only about $440K. Silicon Valley is a crazy place when it comes to housing. This particular city has also been very good about turning around its formerly depressed downtown area, and since I bought the unit the county has added light rail service which has boosted values.
all that should have been was that deliveries are restricted by city ordinance to certain hours.
Sorry, my fangers slipped and I messed up that reply! Lots of words got left out. What I meant to say was....
Only mention in the disclosure "legal" nuisances. A verbal complaint is just an allegation - and not a legal nuisance. A complaint to the city does not make it a nuisance until the city closes that case, which is sounds like they never did.
Again, don't bare your soul on these legal forms. Be factual but just enter the bare minimum. Otherwise, you're just asking for trouble that you don't deserve.
For example, let's say you spilled a bucket of water in the house but cleaned it up quickly and no mold ever formed. So to be "honest" you listed this on the form. I can guaranteed that the buyer will remember this, and if they find mold inside a wall 20 years later, there's a good chance you would be hearling from them.
Yes, but the whole conversation is based on bad info, so I'm just adding more! LOL! If the owner is serious, he/she would consult a local expert instead of chatting with goofy people like us.
complaint against your the property owner next door?
Sounds OK on the surface, but you're opening a can of worms getting involved with what is basically a personal problem of the tenant.
Now you have to worry about the quality of the air being brought in. Is it filtered? Are filters being changed? Is mold growing on the filters? Water leaks? Is exhaust being pulled in? What if the wind blow past drain vents on the way to the fan intake?
Best to just let the tenant deal with their own problem. Later on when you are listing the building, the smokers could be gone.
"Guv Bob" wrote in news:P8GdnbgF5-TMFHbMnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:
Mold?? Now there is a major health threat. It makes third and fourth hand smoke look like a walk in the garden. A neighbor down the street had a mold problem that cost him $25k for remediation work; and that was for just some mold in a bathroom.
Man, that mold stuff is deadly and worse than radon.
Having survived living in a very divisive, hostile, and partially irresponsible condo assn., I would avoid doing anything about the smoking issue that is PERSONAL....good way to start a war. If there is anticipated support for changes, pass a bylaw that prohibits smoking on the property, indoors or out. Of course, practical considerations come to play.....how many smokers own units or live there, how many previous wars have occurred, how fussy are the OWNERS and how abiding of the rules are the OWNERS.
I'm a smoker, and I am very respectful when I smoke to avoid passing my pollution on to the innocent breathers around, but.......on a very practical level, a RENTER who is fussy about cig. smoke coming from 10' away is just a tad too fussy for me, because: it almost has to be a windless day, with the smoker outdoors all the time and smoking constantly to get up a cloud of smoke worthy of concern. I think I'd rather lose a renter than get involved in an ongoing war with neighbors. Neighbor wars can get real nasty real fast. What else is going on in the way of smoke/fumes...grills, smokers, fireplaces?
I would still vote for landscaping...a trellis with pretty flowering vines, some upright shrubs, or something else to act as a screen. Just a plain wood lattice cuts the breeze substantially; BTDT.
Thanks, but I grew up in Florida and a cheap house in Florida is of no interest to anyone that's lived in Northern California.
The house I referred to sold for so much because of its location and because of the very highly rated public schools. Once my kids are done with public school we can move to an area where bad schools don't matter.
Sorry if I sound preachy -- but bad schools *always* matter, sooner or late r.
Shouldn't we be equally concerned with "bad" schools that are turning out i nadequately educated kids who are more likely to become anti-social, thus c osting you & me way more more money down the road? $1.00 invested in really good teachers saves hundreds of dollars later on in drugs, violence, priso ns, unemployability, etc.
There have been shining examples of dedicated teachers and administrators g oing into hell-hole schools and turning them around over time, with hard wo rk, innovation, and administration support. Those kids go on to college on a par with "good school" graduates and, presumably, became productive memb ers of society.
Funny that there's so much money available for graft and corruption in our Asian wars of choice, and for the Wall Street criminals and the climate-des troying oil companies -- but not enough to give our kids -- ALL OUR KIDS -- a decent education.
There is actually hope that that will change as demographics change in places like Texas and Florida and Republicans lose more power.
Historically, it takes Democratic control of the House, Senate, and presidency for forward progress to be made on education. Right now, the House is the impediment because their goal is basically to prevent any progress in education (as well as in immigration, defense, jobs, health care, etc.). It's interesting to note that Democratic house candidates actually received more votes, nationwide, than Republicans, but because of gerrymandered districts the Republicans are able to elect far more representatives than their numbers would suggest.
The reason why Republicans tend to not want to improve education is very clear, and you can't really blame them. There is very strong causation and correlation between educational attainment and voter preference. If you look at the states with the highest educational levels, Obama won 18 out of 20 of them in the last election. One he lost was Utah, which makes sense considering Romney is Mormon. The other was Kansas. Ironically, the preference of the more highly educated for Democratic politicians is not affected by income levels.
It's self-fulfilling. More educated voters are Democratic because Republicans keep attacking education. For example, since 1980, college educated voters have moved from favoring Reagan to favoring Obama. The only hope for the Republican party, if it remains controlled by the Tea Party, is to create more dumber voters.
It's impractical, overcomplicated, unrealistic, and expensive.
Unless you completely fill the doorway with fans blowing out, some smoke wi ll always get sucked in.
If you put the fans anywhere but in the doorway, they won't do anything but waste energy. At 10' in open air, only a VERY LARGE fan, like 36" to 48" i n diameter can be felt.
You think some cheap household fan is going to affect outdoor air currents?
Neither your tenants nor the smokers will approve of the noise from a large noisy fan, and I'm sure the smokers will object to having a large noisy fa n blowing in their face every time they smoke just as much as your tenant o bjects to the occasional mild smoke smell they experience.
It's all stupid shit. If there is no outside air movement, a small fan will ward off the smoke. If there is outside air movement the smoke will be highly diffused before it gets 10 feet, unless there's some kind of negative air pressure drawing it directly in to the complainers. It's all about detecting the slightest odor of cigarette smoke and having a hissy fit. That's the bottom line. There's is no cure that works on a whiner.
our Asian wars of choice, and for the Wall Street criminals and the climate
-destroying oil companies -- but not enough to give our kids -- ALL OUR KID S -- a decent education.
The far-far-far Right wing of what was once a responsible Republican Party is way ahead of you. For at least the last 40 years, maybe more -- approx since Reagan -- the kingmakers of the GOP have been methodically dumbing do wn the voters, on the reasonable premise that those who cannot think critic ally are much more likely to swallow what toxic lies they are fed against t heir own interests.
Poor school districts were starved for funding and for experienced teachers . Rich school districts did well on voluntary contributions from affuent p arents.
Bush's minions instituted a "No Chld Left Behind" policy (slogan stolen fro m Marion Wright Edelman's respectable child-oriented organization) which t ied school funding to test scores, These scores were not only easily manip ulated by teachers/principals but contained no elements of critical thinkin g or of knowledge about history, geography, the arts -- anything that would help create a thinking voter.
It was working very well, with the help of the radical religious Right and of the 5-4 Supreme Court majority that ignored Gore's gigantic popular vote majority and awarded the (stolen) 2000 election to Bush. (Why Gore just ca ved instead of demanding the state-wide recount that was his option, I'll n ever know..." And the rest is history. Money that should have gone to imp roving voters' lives went instead to our Asian wars of choice -- a giant va cuum cleaner sucking up money and spewing it out to corrupt contractors and a military that had no idea what they were doing in those countries.
But when the consequences of the Wall Street grand theft of 2008 began to s ink in, some of the electorate began to wake up from their numbed slumber (hey, that's neat -- numbed slumber!) and began to investigate why they we re being thrown out of their jobs and homes.
It hurts a LOT that the country where I lucky enough to be born has lost it s way. Does anybody still remember there once was Right and Wrong? That m oney was not the measure of all things? That people counted?
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