Hi all, after a bit of advice.
I just moved into a place and recently with the warmer days my neighbours have started using their smoker. They start it early in the morning and leave it going for 8-10hrs at times. Unfortunately my house is very close to where their smoker is positioned. There are periods where I can see puffs of smoke blow over their fence and onto the side of my house. All the windows are closed, except for the bathroom which is about 2cm open to help prevent mould. But when I smell the smoke I close it. I also have an air purifier running to help.
I’ve tried to search online for rules about smoke, but haven’t found anything related to a bbq smoker (only fireplaces and chimneys). If it was a regular bbq that lasts 30 mins or so, I think that’s reasonable. But given it goes on for hours, are there any requirements for them to need to install a flue so the smoke is lifted higher? At the moment the smoke doesn’t even make the roof line. It just carries over the fence then towards my house. Given the proximity ~1.5m, the smoke is not very diffuse, so the smell is strong. None of the smoke blows into the direction of their own house, so they probably don’t realise how bad it is. I let her know about the smoke but they’ve done nothing to fix it. They’ve got it sitting against the fence and don’t want to move it elsewhere.
The other downside is with warm days, if they’re smoking, I can’t use my evaporative cooler because I need to keep the windows closed, or open them and get inundated with the smell of smoke. So regularly leaving my windows shut doesn’t sound like a very comfortable solution.
I don’t want to be a Karen, but I do think it is unreasonable to have smoke drifting into my place for hours on end. Are they required to manage the smoke to minimise the pollution to my side of the fence? Has anyone had a similar experience? If so, how did you resolve it?
Have you tried getting a big fan to blow it back towards their house?