I have a very nice young couple living across the hall . . . Quiet, polite. But they burn pungent incense or candles, or something. The hallway and the rooms that share a wall with them (my kitchen, my bedroom) smell like a Spencer’s Gifts. I don’t want to say anything to them, as we get along well . . .
Anyone else have to deal with neighborly odors?
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Hi Eve. Welcome to the weekend SDMB.
My neighbors are college frosh. I think that they think that I don’t know that they smoke pot.
We all know how you authors hate being censored.
Well, since you do get along well with them, if you apply tact and charm (both of which you possess in abundance), and just mention to them that you’ve not been able to help noticing their pungent habits, and you’d appreciate it if they cut back on it just a little…
Sometimes apartment dwellers are unaware of how much their habits affect their neighbors, and unless they’re insensitive clods, they may be willing to meet you halfway.
A lot of it will depend on your approach, though. Maybe an embarrassed laugh, or starting off with a compliment to disarm them will sugar-coat your intention.
That being said, I’m so incredibly happy I live in my own house.
“Guys, it’s cool if you toke up, but the incense has got to go. Not only does it smell up even my apartment, but it makes you look just as guilty.”
My downstairs neighbor smokes cigars that would gag a maggot smell-wise. I imagine it’s what very ripe roadkill would smell like if set on fire. After a couple of months of closing up my apartment and smouldering with indignation at his unthinking behavior, I snapped. His stench began to fill my home one evening, so I stomped out on the balcony and loudly suggested he take that durn cigar into his own home. Immediately I was contrite, he probably never considered it was so bad, I should have spoken calmly, etc. Then I heard my other neighbors clapping and even got a ‘damned straight’ from the guy next door. Made me feel a little better that I wasn’t alone on the matter and (knock on wood) no cigar smell in the past two weeks.
Since your neighbors seem to be nice people, chat with them, welcome them to the complex, then, after a bit, mention the smell. They’ll probably be cool about it, since you’re such a nice, friendly neighbor yourself, ya see? Don’t be like me and go ballistic after getting a good start on an ulcer. :smack:
I agree with BadBaby—don’t suffer in silence, because you’re more apt to eventually “snap” and possibly bite the head off of these clueless but well-meaning neighbors.
Just let 'em know.
When I last lived in an apartment, the people downstairs would cook the most foul food a couple of times a month. I think it might have been the aforementioned very ripe roadkill, set on fire. It would stink up our apartment and I’d be gagging for hours.
I got them back, though [unintentionally]. I fell asleep in the bathtub once with the water running. Leaked right through their ceiling. Oops.
You leaked right through their ceiling?
I hope you put something on on the way down.
Sorry, this has been going through my head every time I see the thread title.
Well, I am not going to say anything to them–they’re nice folk, and this is NOT sufficiently aggravating for me to confront them. Just wanted to incite other Smelly Neighbor stories from Dopers, which I see I have . . .
Has anyone considered the possibility that they use incense for religious purposes, and not to cover up pot?
I considered it. Not once in my post did I mention Mary G. Wanna.
Or they may just like incense. Some people do.
Eve, that’s just thurible!!!
Hey, Eve? Why don’t you go out and buy them a nice housewarming gift - like a Yankee Candle? They smell a lot nicer than most incense, cover incriminating odors if necessary, and as an added bonus you look like a super sweetie for welcoming them so nicely.
(Oh. You didn’t say they were NEW neighbors. Well, instead of housewarming, you could do it for Valentine’s Day or something.)
Good neighbors, like inlaws, are something that you cannot plan on no matter how how hard you try.
Bad Neighbor Story To Cheer Eve On A Monday Morning:
I’ve told this many a time, so bear with me
One crazy guy that lives at the end of a private dirt road that runs next to our house decided about a year after we moved in to sue us.
Sue us for what, you say?
For where the placement of the property line stakes were located on *our * ten acres that were put there by the county accessor ( or whatever dept handles property lines.)
He also ( this was the biggie of the lawsuit) was suing our nice neighbors for ( get this) the placement of their propane tank on their property. He felt it was too close to their house and could do damage if it blew up nice neighbors house. His own house is more than 200 yards away and out of schrapnel range. (Propane tanks are placed by the company that supplies them, not the home owner, ftr. Ours is 25 ft from our house, more or less.)
When I received the certified letter with the papers in it, seeing the return address of the law firm I knew exactly what was inside and wrote for my signature: You Reap What You Sow.
The judge threw out the case. I wonder why.
(The guy also has several large cable spools in his yard. Nice neighbor asked what were they for. " For when the polar ice caps melt, so I can cable my house to the ground to keep it from floating away." Uh…yeah…)
(Nice neighbors, incidently, moved out, and were replaced by the Den of Unwatched Teens who ride dirt bikes 9am - 445p every day in the summer and their Amazing Barking Dog Pepper. After a summer of ear abuse, numerous calls to the sheriffs ( we weren’t the only ones dealing iwth this) we finally find out that new neighbors husband had massive stroke twice and is in bad way in a nursing home. she is working two jobs to survive and kids are left untended. She pretty much had no idea of what was going on at home until a Sheriff finally got to talk to her, which was after one of the older kids had his dirt bike threatened with a shot gun by another neighbor who works midnights and couldn’t take the noise and lack of sleep anymore. The problem has never repeated itself. And Pepper, well, he got hit by a car.
No one mourned his loss.
Eve, if you like, you can fight incense burning neighbors with a well primed farting dog…and gee, I have one here at the ready. Just point her backside right at their wall 
Shared the bathroom of my college efficiency with an old man…that bathroom always smelled like old bacon and eggs. Don’t know why. It was not, of itself, a retch-inducing odor, but after awhile I was REALLY tired of it…even though it was only a major problem if I was hungover. I don’t recommend it.
(And don’t get me started on why/how my landlady had me sharing a bathroom with a man.)
I find pot-smoking neighbors a lot more annoying…that sickly sweet, cloying odor just gets stuck in my nostrils and I literally cannot stand it. I’ll take incense any day over pot.
My sister-in-law lives in a tiny two-bedroom with (previously) 8 cats, 2 dogs, birds, reptiles, and a guinea pig. Her neighbors hate her (as would I, if I had to smell that menagerie). She’s tried to cover it up with candles, but they still hate her. The police have been by many a time and tried to get them to give up some of the critters, but they absolutely refuse to trim the number. They stopped replacing dead ones, but the youngest of the bunch are only 4 or 5, so there will be many years before these kitties are gone.
I used to have these neighbors who were REALLY bad: first off, this one woman COULD NOT COOK to save her life, yet she was always cooking, and burning up these nasty concoctions of god knows what that we could smell in the part of my apt. furthest from hers. When I was a kid, my parents would have her babysit me after school, and I had to EAT some of that food!
She had kids and as time went by and they grew into their teens, they became bad, I mean criminally bad, causing the police to come to our door a lot looking for them, asking if we saw/heard whatever the kids had done. One night around 5am I got woken up by the police knocking their (thick metal) door down and arresting one of them.
And of course, they were all big on listening to music at top volume all night every night, so loud you couldnt hear what they were listening to, just feel the vibrations from the bass.
My apartment tragedies are all smell related- few of them neighbor induced. First off, several days ago the vents in our bathroom (all on central air) began belching foul odors into the bathroom. It smells a little like rust and little like mildew in just the combination that makes your stomach turn. It happens maybe 4 ro 5 times a day, but the lingering stench never fully dissipates, just ebbs and flows. What bites it is that it’s been reported to maintenance several times, but they don’t believe that there is a problem. They cannot comprehend that only one set of vents would do this, and furthermore that they don’t do this ALL the time. I have no explanations for them, but isn’t that why it’s their job and not mine??
-Not wanting to go home to the bathroom of inutterable stench