I have a friendly helpful next-door neighbor here in the woods (PA) where the zoning ordinance does NOT prohibit open burning. This is a lifelong neighbor (30+) who grew up along with us and with whom we have up until now been on very good terms. (The good terms do not extend to neighbor's wife.)
For the past month, our home has REEKED of whatever it is that he has been burning. We live on a dead-end road, but I don't want to give the impression this is, like, Deliverance-style territory. It's just a
70's-era development in the Poconos. We're not concerned that he's burning something necessarily illegal as we are that our home is becoming uninhabitable because of the smoke.I phoned two Saturdays ago. Neighbor's gnarly wife answered, claimed "We've burned twice a week for ten years!" (patently untrue), and that "*I* don't smell a thing." The response, while not out of character for this woman, was a bit more unfriendly than we're used to, even for her.
The smoke got even worse, so we actually phoned neighbor's mom, who lives in a house out of line of the drifting smoke. Result was that smoke stopped, and next day, neighbor drives over to apologize and give me a hug. I thought the problem was solved.
Two days later, the burning started again. Because neighbor is extremely well-employed, I could see it wasn't a matter of his burning on yet another Monday mid-morning, and I started to wonder if he installed some sort of wood-burning device inside his home whose vent is aimed directly our way.
What if anything can we do to settle this nightmare? This would be like something from Seinfeld if it wasn't causing such pain. If we contact him again (and we'll have to do it when we're sure we won't instead get wife-from-Hades), we'll 1) "take back" the friendly reception of our complaint to his Mom, or 2) show that we don't believe his explanation of "just extra wood left over from chopped trees." He would have had to cut down half his lot in order for the burning to be going on this long.
Any advice--mechanical, structural, legal, seasonal (!)--desperately needed and appreciated.